NARADA BHAKTI SUTRAS - Translated by Swami Vivekananda...
The Bhakti Sutras is a classic work of Hinduism,
and consists of connected aphorisms (or sutras) on Bhakti - and purportedly
composed in Sanskrit by Narada Muni, an ancient, and, perhaps, mythological
sage.
This free translation of Narada Bhakti Sutras
was dictated by the Swami in America.
CHAPTER
I
1. Bhakti is intense
love for God.
2. It is the nectar of love;
3. Getting which man becomes perfect, immortal, and satisfied for ever;
4. Getting which man desires no more, does not become jealous of anything, does
not take pleasure in vanities:
5. Knowing which man becomes filled with spirituality, becomes calm, and finds
pleasure only in God.
6. It cannot be used to fill any desire, itself being the check to all desires.
7. Sannyâsa is giving up both the popular and the scriptural forms of worship.
8. The Bhakti-Sannyasin is the one whose whole soul goes unto God, and whatever
militates against love to God, he rejects.
9. Giving up all other refuge, he takes refuge in God.
10. Scriptures are to be followed as long as one's life has not become firm;
11. Or else there is danger of doing evil in the name of liberty.
12. When love becomes established, even social forms are given up, except those
which are necessary for the preservation of life.
13. There have been many definitions of love, but Nârada gives these as the
signs of love: When all thoughts, all words, and all deeds are given up unto
the Lord, and the least forgetfulness of God makes one intensely miserable,
then love
has begun.
14. As the Gopis had it —
15. Because, although worshipping God as their lover, they never forgot his
God-nature;
16. Otherwise they would have committed the sin of unchastity.
17. This is the highest form of love, because there is no desire of
reciprocity, which desire is in all human love.
