20 June 2014 - QA 3

Dear Gurudev, I love singing bhajans, but sometimes I feel I am being very superficial and just treating them like nice music. How can I discover the real devotion when I sing?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Just be natural and don’t worry about your feelings. Feelings keep changing.
If you have had devotion and if it is not coming up the next day, you can’t force it to come. Even that devotion is a gift. You can’t demand a gift. When it rises up, just be grateful. If it does not show up and you feel like a rock, then just have patience. This is a passing phase.

A time in life comes when you feel such flatness. You feel devoid of any emotion, without any commitment. Like this, a stagnant state may step in, but it is only for a short time.
We don’t mind when such moments come in life. We don’t say, ‘No, I must feel very devotional today.’
Think it is like one of those cloudy days and wait for the sunshine.