Look at any cross hanging from a neck or set on a wall. Horizontal beam, vertical beam, one intersecting the other. Most of us see a religious emblem and move on. In the Narada Bhakti Sutras, Lesson 40, Sri Swami Jyotirmayananda reads that same shape as an entire philosophy of life.
The horizontal line is your practical reality. One point far behind you in the past, one point ahead in the future, and a long connected line of experiences between. It has no clean beginning and no visible end. It is simply what life looks like when you walk through it.
The vertical line is the spiritual axis. It does not argue with the horizontal. It does not ask you to renounce it. It intercepts it. At this very moment, Swamiji says, you can go beyond past, present, and future and turn toward eternity. The vertical line is bhakti. The vertical line is jnana. It can be drawn from any point on the horizontal, no matter your circumstance.
The Two Sutras of Lesson 40
Sutra 76 reads: the scriptures of devotion should be reflected upon, and those actions must be performed that arouse the spirit of devotion. Sutra 77 continues: the devotee who is waiting to attain perfection in bhakti is characterized by the absence of pleasure, pain, desire, gain, and loss. Not even half a moment is passed in vain.
Read quickly, Sutra 77 sounds like suppression. Read with Swamiji, it turns out to be the opposite. Life continues. Pleasure arrives. Pain arrives. Sometimes you strive and gain. Sometimes you strive and lose. All of it continues. What does not continue, in the perfected devotee, is the interruption of spiritual movement. Divine love gives you day, and divine love gives you night to rest. Divine love gives you prosperity to inspire you, and adversity to twist your ears a little. Everything feeds the same fire.
Every Scripture a Treasure
Before Sutra 77 lands, Swamiji widens the frame. The Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Bhagavatam are a great treasure brought to humanity. Every religion has scriptural writings of its own. When the mind has clarity and a certain sensitivity, every scripture, no matter where it comes from, inspires you to come closer to God.
He offers an image. When the cell phone was invented, nobody asked which country it came from. Nobody asked the religion of the inventor. Everyone simply picked it up and put it to the ear. Scripture behaves the same way once you stop needing to own it. Hindu-Vedic scriptures are a special branch of this treasury: they do not oppose or contradict any scripture of the world, they supply what is missing, making the whole more understandable and more profound.
Beginner and Mature Devotion
When a beginner hears “not even half a moment in vain,” the mind reaches for something familiar. Repeat the name. Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram. And japa is wonderful. Swamiji is careful to say he is not underestimating it. But soon life intervenes. Someone calls. A task arrives. The beginner thinks, I lost it, I must retire from the job, I must find a quiet place somewhere.
The mature devotee sees another picture. A young mother with a new child does not wonder how she will give attention every moment. The question of forgetting the child does not arise. The stream of love flows on, through every chore, every conversation, every night. Or consider your love for your own body. From your toes to your head, that stream is never broken, even as you do a thousand other things. External activity does not interrupt spiritual movement. If it does, you are still on the road. That is fine. You keep walking.
Sadhana as Faking It
There is a phase Swamiji names with a rare honesty. You are not yet the sandalwood tree, whose fragrance emanates on its own. You are doing sadhana. You are holding on to the characteristics that indicate perfection, and practicing as if you have them. You fake it. You say, nothing bothers me, everything is God. Now and then you slip and your true self reveals itself in a negative way. It does not matter. Go on striving.
Then comes a day when you do not have to act. You are it. That is siddhi. Until then, sadhana, practice, unbroken remembrance, the mind soaking in love for God until it cannot leave, like a bee that has tasted honey.
Give Value to Time
The final beat of Lesson 40 is practical and almost stern. If you are truly religious, time is of great value to you. Procrastination is death, the Mahabharata warns. Swamiji offers a humorous inversion he has heard: do today’s work tomorrow, tomorrow’s work the day after, because who knows, any moment the deluge may arrive and you will have nothing left to do. That, he says, is the road away from bhakti.
The road toward bhakti is the opposite. Do what can be done. Use today’s clarity. Every day, let the wealth of mantra and sanskara grow, as Mirabai sang, nitya nitya hota sawaayo, every day increasing by a quarter more, with compounded interest.
Closing Reflection
Real adversity, Hanuman says to Rama in the closing image, is when one loses the sweetness of remembrance. A bee that has lost the instinct for honey is a pitiable thing. Everything else is weather. The cross is already drawn. The horizontal line is your day. The vertical line is your choice, available at any point on the line, not dependent on some future circumstance. Not even half a moment need be lost.
Sri Swami Jyotirmayananda is the senior-most living direct disciple of Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh. He has been teaching Integral Yoga and Vedanta for over sixty years from the Yoga Research Foundation in Miami.
Watch Lesson 40 of the Narada Bhakti Sutras: https://youtu.be/p6SKhy8PxIc