Page 8 - All India Magazine Jul-2020

for me is to give up the game, for He finds me unworthy of
Him!”
So, unless one adds to faith a total and complete trust
in the Divine Grace, there will be difficulties. So both are
necessary. ...

Devotion or Gratitude
Now, we have put “devotion” in this series. Yes, devotion
is all very well, but unless it is accompanied by many other
things it too may make many mistakes. It may meet with
great difficulties.
You have devotion, and you keep your ego. And then
your ego makes you do all sorts of things out of devotion,
things which are terribly egoistic. That is to say, you think
only of yourself, not of others, nor of the world, nor of the
work, nor of what ought to be done — you think only of your
devotion. And you become tremendously egoistic. And so,
when you find out that the Divine, for some reason, does not
answer to your devotion with the enthusiasm you expected
of Him, you despair and fall back into the same three difficul-
ties I was just speaking about: either the Divine is cruel — we
have read that, there are many such stories, of enthusiastic
devotees who abuse the Divine because He is no longer as
gentle and near to them as before, He has withdrawn, “Why
hast Thou deserted me? Thou hast abandoned me, O mon-
ster!...” They don’t dare to say this, but think it, or else they
say, “Oh! I must have made such a serious mistake that I am
thrown out”, and they fall into despair.
But there is another movement which should constantly
accompany devotion.... That kind of sense of gratitude that
the Divine exists; that feeling of a marvelling thankfulness
which truly fills you with a sublime joy at the fact that the

All India Magazine, July 2020
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