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flowers
Their Spiritual significance
Photo Collection
Devotional attitude
Devotional attitude: moderate and self-effacing, it gives remarkable fruit.
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Aegle marmelos (L.) Corrêa (Rutaceae)
Indian bael
Greenish white
The emotional [devotion] is more outward than the psychic - it tends towards outward expression. The psychic is inwards and gives the direction to the whole inner and outer life. The emotional can be intense, but is neither so sure in its basis nor powerful enough to change the whole direction of the life.
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 23. - Letters on Yoga.-P.2-3
Sincere devotion is much more effective than the Ganges water.
The Mother
The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 14. - Words of the Mother
The greatest test of love and devotion is on the contrary when it burns as strongly in long absence as in the presence.
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 25. - The Mother
Devotion is not utterly fulfilled till it becomes action and knowledge. If thou pursuest after God and canst overtake Him, let Him not go till thou hast His reality. If thou hast hold of His reality, insist on having also His totality. The first will give thee divine knowledge, the second will give thee divine works and a free and perfect joy in the universe.
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 17. - The Hour of God
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.
The Mother
The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 8. - Questions And Answers (1956)
A poor man of low caste hunted for a whole day to feed his family, but could not catch anything. At nightfall he was still in the forest, alone, hungry and worn out by his vain attempts. In the hope of finding a nest he climbed up a Bel tree, whose three-lobed leaves are offered to the great Shiva by his devotees. But he found no nest. He thought of his wife and his little children waiting at home for their father and their food, and wept for them.
Tears of pity, the legend says, are very heavy. They are far more precious than the tears shed by those who are sorry for their own pain.
The hunter's tears fell upon the leaves of the Bel tree and bore them down towards the stone of offering standing at the foot of the tree in honour of Shiva. At that moment the man was bitten by a snake and died. The spirits immediately carried his soul to the house of the gods and brought it before the great Shiva.
"There is no place here for this man's soul," the dwellers in heaven cried out together. "For he was of low caste, he did not know the holy laws, he ate impure food and did not offer the customary gifts to the gods."
But Shiva said to them:
"He gave me Bel leaves, and above all, he offered me sincere tears. There is no low caste for hearts that are true." And he received him into his heaven.
The Mother
The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother.- Volume 2. - The Path of Later On