One of my favorite pastimes is reading sacred books, underlining passages that speak to me, then going back and re-reading them later.
Here are some of my favorite words from saints, lovers, poets, yogis and mystics. They’ve helped me understand boundless love and bhakti so I hope they’ll do the same for you:
As faith develops, we stop trying to make deals with God and look for a deeper exchange, one in which we see him as our dearest friend and begin to trust his direction. If we continue along this path, it’s only a matter of time before trust becomes love.
Radhanath Swami
It’s like flying above the turbulence in a plane where the air is clear and open, or drinking water from a pristine river rather than begging for it door to door. You start to trust where the flow is going and how to move with it.
Tosha Silver
In the concept of bhakti or yoga of devotion, the Lord has nothing to offer and the follower is satisfied with the endeavor. One is eternally obliged for service, the other is eternally obliged for being engaged in service.
Anonymous
As you develop love for God, you will gradually come to see everything as his property, and in being reminded of him you will feel great love for him.
Prabhupada
A saint’s heart melts like butter. No, it melts even more than butter. Butter only melts when you put it near the fire, but a saint’s heart melts when anyone else’s heart comes near the fire.
Maharaj-ji
The mantra is the name of our lover. That’s his or her name, whatever name touches our heart. It’s a very intimate, deeply passionate, erotic love affair that has to keep us engaged so that we’re all excited when God calls us. This is the real Romance.
Bhagavan Das
All talk of surrender is like pinching brown sugar from a brown sugar image of Lord Ganesha and offering it as naivedya (food offering) to the same Lord Ganesha. You say you offer your body, soul and all possessions to God. Were they yours that you could offer them? At best, you can only say, ‘I falsely imagined till now that all these which are yours were mine. Now I realize they are yours. I shall no more act as if they are mine.’ This knowledge that there is nothing but God or Self, that I and mine don’t exist and that only the Self exists, is jnana. Thus there is no difference between bhakti and jnana. Bhakti is jnana mata or the mother of jnana.
Sri Ramana Maharshi
When he said, “Love everybody,” I thought, “I can’t love everybody. I’m not anywhere near that.” But when you perceive yourself and others as souls, you bring love, truth, and compassion to your interactions with others. Then you are the mirror of their soul. A soul recognizes another soul.
Ram Dass
Love does not mean a flirtation or a pursuit for simple ego-pleasure, but a visible bond composed of the psychic sinew of endurance, a union which prevails through bounty and austerity, through the most complicated and most simple days and nights.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
The taste of milk and honey is not it. Love instead that which gave deliciousness.
Rumi