Sustaining Devotion

Devotion is giving up one’s mind to the worship of God, and it is characterized by ardent attachment or faith towards the religious thoughts and piety, constant remembrance of the supreme.

It is very easy to get attracted to a deity or God by listening to the stories/miracles or by miracles happened in our own life. But sustaining the same level or further increasing the level of devotion is very difficult.

Consider a small lamp which burns brilliantly with the help of wick and oil.
There can be more reasons for the flame to be put off. If there is no oil in the lamp, the flame will be off. Or if the wick becomes thick with black soot, the flame will be off...
Only if we tweak the wick with our fingers and remove the black soot ,we can make the wick burn again.If wick is compared to our mind,flame(jyoti) can be compared to our devotion.

Maya or illusion, bad thoughts, lack of faith, company of atheists can influence our mind and make it waver like a see-saw and may make us falter from our devotion and may lead to a faithless state.All above mentioned reasons are causes for formation of black soot on our devotion.

Problems and hurdles in a devotee’s Life may make him/her doubt the presence of Almighty. Troubled mind questioning the Self whether God is there or not is a very common thought arising even in ardent followers.
“In spite of my unwavering devotion why I am facing severe problems “

“I don’t know what sins I ve committed for such a problem to befall on me”

“If not in this birth, did I commit sin in my previous births?”

“Why my prayers are ineffective in destroying my sins?”

“Why I am lacking behind many of my contemporaries in spite of my knowledge, hardwork .God! Are you with me? Who is behind my bad luck?”

All such thoughts and doubts crop up in a person's mind when he is in trouble.
Mind is like a monkey which jumps to various branches in a trice, our mind wavers in various directions doubting God’s powers...searches for new sources of peace, wanders here and there ,get trapped in some false promises of a fake Guruji.

When mind loses concentration and devotion, puja or reading scriptures are done mechanically just for the sake of prescribed duty.

Pushed under the emotional stress, tears flowing down, mind starts questioning the presence of God, a sense of disbelief sprouts in a corner of our mind like the black soot of wick which developed further,will put off the flame. Because of overwhelming situations, as the doubts increase, our devotion decreases and one fine day devotion may cease to exist.

Is there a Life without troubles? problems? Can we single out such a person?
There is not a single being without problems, illness...Then what is the big fuss?

So before the flame of our devotion dies out due to various storms, Let us pray to God
to grace us with the power of sustenance of our devotion.
Remember!He is the one who can grace us with sustenance of devotion.
Pray to Him to tweak the black soot of the wick, remove the hurdles and make the flame of devotion burn with brilliance .
Pray to Him to bless us with strong unwavering mind which can withstand all problems.
Pray to Him that our devotion should be like a flame of Hurricane lamp which burns even amidst a storm steadily to spread light and to remove darkness around it.
He, the most merciful, will listen to us. If not today, certainly tomorrow he will bless us with a strong mind which will ever sustain pure devotion.