Love and Devotion

Saints have taught that the Lord is love. Love is the basis of this existence and the only effective means to unite with him. Love cannot be found anywhere outside oneself. Love for the Lord inherently exists in the soul because the soul is of the essence of the Lord. In its current state, that love is buried under thick layers of worldly attachments, sense pleasures, attraction to vices and passions, and past karmas and impressions. The real purpose of seeking the company of the saints – of devotion to the Lord or the practice of Nam – is to awaken this love within us. Love for the Lord blossoms within devotees as soon as they understand their true relationship with the Lord through the company of a saint; then they realize that their true home is the Lord’s supreme abode and their true identity is pure soul and not the mind or body.

As this love develops and grows, the lover attains a state of surrender in which he is willing to make every sacrifice for the sake of his Beloved. Tulsi Sahib says:

A lover is love, and love is the lover;
  annihilation is the true sign of love.
Becoming a corpse and reducing himself to ashes,
  he stands at the door to the eternal abode.

When Tulsi Sahib says that the lover annihilates himself in his love, he is referring to the annihilation of the self or ego. Tulsi is using dramatic language to describe this state: He says the lover must “become a corpse,” become dead to the world. This means that by vacating his body, he raises his consciousness to the higher realms – a state the saints call dying while living.

The real lover is one who merges his identity in his beloved. It is love alone that cultivates reverence for and faith in the beloved. A loving disciple never calculates the reward he will get from his devotion. Any love where accounts are maintained is not love but a business. A lover only knows how to give. He asks only for the Beloved from the Beloved. While telling his disciple Hriday about this quality of the lover, Tulsi Sahib says:

O Hriday! One is known as a devotee
  when he adores the Master
  with the surrender of a slave.

Tulsi Sahib describes his entire philosophy of love in this manner. It is the pull of love that bestows upon the soul the power to complete the long journey to its true abode. The Supreme Lord himself kindles this love within the soul. Then the soul says, “I sacrifice myself to the Beloved who loves me.” Long before reaching the abode of the beloved Lord, the soul realizes that it cannot love the Lord through its own power. It is the merciful Beloved himself who has cultivated love for the Lord within the soul, and it is only with his grace that the soul has been able to reach its blissful home, whose very essence is love.…

Devotion
Devotion is the effort made to please the person whom we love. Remembering the Beloved, thinking of him repeatedly, praising him, praying to him, serving him and obeying his instructions are all a part of devotion. Devotion arises from love. When love for the Beloved matures, it becomes the means of uniting with him.…

Without devotion, a soul cannot get liberation from the pain of living in this world, nor can it be freed from the cycle of transmigration and the agony of death. That is why saints try to strengthen our devotion. By becoming humble through service and obedience to the Satguru, our devotion will be strengthened. Yet Tulsi Sahib has compared devotion to walking on the edge of a sword because it means annihilating our ego, and this is the most difficult thing to do.…

Devotion is the essence of life,
  but the worldly person does not realize this –
  he considers worldly vices and passions to be real.

Tulsi Sahib explains that what stands in the way of our devotion is the misguided idea that sense pleasures and passions are real; we do not realize that they are impermanent and illusory and cannot bring us lasting happiness. Similarly, the usual types of external worship such as rituals, reading of scriptures, asceticism, and pilgrimages may turn our thoughts towards God but cannot lead to God-realization. One can only experience the Supreme Lord through the love and devotion that leads one within, to union with Shabd.
_{From Tulsi Sahib – Saint of Hathras}