Path of devotion and progress

Truehuman progress happens only in the spiritual sphere What motivates us to movetowards perfection is the desire for lasting happiness Everytime we encounter personal and social imperfections that hinder progress we tendto resolve to reach the cherished goal However, battling imperfections isfutile in the absence of a systematic method Human existence hasthree aspects: physical, psychic and spiritual In the initial phase, humansprogressed in physical and psychic spheres alone, as they.did not know how toadvance spiritually. When they tried to establish their physical supremacy inthe external world, great pressure was exerted on their nervous system,resulting in mutual conflict between innumerable cells The inter-cellular clashcaused a marked development in human consciousness that in turn led tocorresponding changes in the human physique Morphological changes are anongoing process Human evolution continues and perhaps one day theywould no longer bear any resemblance to what they are now But the process.ofinternal and external change in the physical domain does not represent trueprogress because spirituality was absent. Whatever advancement they made,however, was by no means insignificant and, although of no absolute importance,had significant relative importance This transformation is called “karmayoga” When human beings started fighting againstimperfections in the physical and psychic spheres, many changes began to takeplace Changes in cells and physical conflicts led to subtle changes in both thepsychic and physical structures Although nerve cells and fibres are related tothe mind, they actually.originate from subtle physical stuff. When they becomeeven more subtle there is a corresponding subtle change in the physicalstructure Hence early human beings battled against psychic imperfections tobring about a change in the psychic world The process continues This phase onthe path of human progress can be called “jnana yoga” According to AnandaMarga philosophy, transformation of physical and psychic world is real karmayoga and jnana yoga This change may.not be of absolute significance as it isrelative. Humans sought help of a greater force in their fight against inherentimperfections They observed that there were more imperfections in the mentalworld than in the physical Some realised that for an individual with a limitedmind, it is not possible to struggle on alone as that would take severalthousand years to accomplish After intense analysis, therefore, they concludedthat if they could focus their psychic propensities on one point and merge theminto cosmic energy, they would, with the.help of that cosmic energy, be able toremove their imperfections and thus attain the cherished state of perfection.This approach to spiritual progress came to be called “bhaktimarga” The people of this phase of human evolution were ahead of theirpredecessors who might have been in the karma and jnana yoga stages People cameto realise that by adopting a path of devotion by embracing bhakti yoga, theywere better able to progress on the spiritual track In fact, once thesignificance of bhakti yoga becomes apparent, further development on the pathsof karma and jnana yoga only strengthens the resolve to.follow the path ofdevotion.