In this episode of “5 Minutes,” Dr. Robert Svoboda explores the path of bhakti and the value of approaching spiritual development through devotion, humility, and love.

There are many different paths to spiritual development, and which path you select should be determined according to which path you are most adhikara for, that path you are most fit to follow. Because we live in a world in which everybody wants more and they want it immediately, there is always a tendency nowadays for people to extend that to spirituality as well. People want more and they want it immediately, so there will be a tendency for people to want to do things that are fast and intense and can get them directly to where they want to go as fast as they can, without really understanding where it is they want to go.

Many people have spiritual ambition. They are spiritual materialists. They are attempting with their own egos to achieve a particular goal, which may in fact only reinforce the ego and not encourage spiritual development in the least. It’s for this reason that my mentor, the Aghori Vimalananda, used to say that in Kali Yuga, where we are now, it’s quite essential for us to focus chiefly on bhakti, on devotion to reality, because first of all that encourages our awareness to be subservient to the Supreme Reality. The path of jnana, the path of knowledge, encourages us to say, Aham Brahmasmi, “I am the Supreme Reality,” whereas bhakti says rather that God is the Supreme Reality, however you want to visualize or conceptualize God, and I am God’s servant, just as Hanuman Ji was the servant of Rama. He was the greatest servant of all. He was the greatest hero of all, but he was heroic only to advance Rama’s purposes, not to aggrandize himself.

It is true that bhakti is a slower spiritual path than some others, and it’s understandable that some people should feel that they are “wasting time.” It’s understandable, but it’s wrong, because every movement that you make in the direction of opening yourself to divine love, allowing it to flow through you, and allowing it to move out to the people in your life, each of those steps in fact facilitates the presence of divine love in your life and in the lives of those that you touch, which can’t always be said for jnana.

Sometimes they say that there are four basic paths to spiritual development: that of the ant, the fish, the monkey, and the bird. The ant wanders around on the floor looking in all directions and eventually gets to where it’s going, though it will take a bunch of false turns. It may fall over occasionally, but fortunately it’s very near the floor, and therefore it can get back up and move around some more. The fish swimming upstream has more work to do, and it can occasionally hide behind a rock, but it’s a lot more work than simply wandering around on the floor. The monkey is definitely jumping from branch to branch and can definitely make better progress, until it misses one branch, lands on the ground, and breaks a limb. The bird, the first time that it jumps out of the nest, is going to have the opportunity to fly and be a beautiful bird and go directly to the Supreme Reality. Or, if it does not fly, it will land on the ground, or nowadays, because we live in houses with lots of glass, it could end up ramming into a window, and that would be the end of the bird.

Much better it is to follow the path of the ant. Let it take however long it’s going to take. Do not be worried about how long it’s going to take. Worry only about making sure that each one of your steps is directed in the direction of that Supreme Reality, and do so with joy in your heart and with love for that Supreme Reality.