We saw the importance of listening to the glories of the Lord.

To keep on listening to the glories of the Lord on an ongoing basis, daily basis.

Then Bhagavan comes and occupies your mind.

He fills your mind as divine thoughts, thoughts about him, perpetually.

You will start seeing his will and presence all around you.

Every incident in your life you will see his presence.

More and more.

Day by day.

Life will turn smoother, easier, lovelier day by day.

You will see your life becoming like a garden.

With fragrant flowers and gentle breeze.

Earlier what used to be a congested, polluted noisy road, if this is what your life looked like earlier, once Bhagavan occupies your mind and thoughts, he will transform that into a beautiful garden.

How can he occupy your mind?

How can you make him occupy your mind?

By knowing about him, more and more, what he did, why is he so great.

To understand this you should know what all he did.

These incidents only become thoughts in your mind, they only occupy your mind.

So, without hearing about the stories of what all he did, you will not be able to make him present in your thoughts, in your mind.

That’s why listening to his greatness is very important.

Bhakti or reverence can come not merely by looking at his image or visiting a temple and showing some ritualistic gestures such as sashtanga namaskara.

Bhakti will come only after you hear about his greatness.

Then only reverence will come to the mind.

This is happening with a lot of people.

They observe so many things.

But mechanically.

They are punctual, prompt, they observe vratas, do pujas, chant shlokas, do charity.

But when they look inside themselves while doing these, they themselves realize that it is all dry.

Many of them do it out of habit.

Body is doing a sashtanga namaskara, but the mind is elsewhere.

Many of them do these out of fear.

What will happen if I stop?

Something will go wrong.

Let me not take the risk.

In fact, if you see these religious observations, spiritual observations being carried out by a vast majority of people today, you will see that they are just habitual, mechanical, dry, and meaningless.

This is because you have not understood the greatness of divinity.

Nobody has told you.

Or at best you are driven by, she went to this temple and her wishes were fulfilled or he chanted this shloka and he got a better job.

No, this is not bhakti.

To develop bhakti you should hear and understand about the Lord.

Doing religious routines, spiritual routines mechanically is like biting on a dry piece of wood.

Whereas doing the same with bhakti is like taking a bite of a ripe juicy mango.

This is why Bhagavata is compared to a juicy fruit at the beginning itself.

And you should listen to them from people who have got this emotion of bhakti in them.

Not by listening to stupid stuff like Hanumanji is nothing but endocrine glands in the body.

And Mahabharata is a management text.

No, this will not help you, this will not help you spiritually.

This will only add to the clutter in your mind,

Bhakti is a very simple emotion, which even if you don’t have today, will develop as you go, will develop as you go on hearing his greatness, the stories of his greatness.

You keep on listening and see after one year, you will see that bhakti has developed in you, or even earlier.

It can happen tomorrow also, that is his blessing.

Bhakti can not be defined.

It can only be experienced.

It is a feeling that something is welling up within you when you hear the Lord’s name.

Suddenly your body is full of freshness and energy.

It is not tranquility and peace.

It is a lot of energy and freshness.

They are different, you see, you listen to a Veda mantra, your mind becomes quiet, peaceful, tranquil.

Bhakti is not like that.

Bhakti is not like that.

It is completely different.

Bhakti will give you so much of energy in your body, you will not know what to do with it.

This is why you see in bhajans, some bhaktas they start jumping up and down.

It is a completely different feeling.

Maybe bang opposite of peace and tranquility.

This is the difference between Srimad Bhagavata and other scriptures.

In Srimad Bhagavata, Sage Vyasa had the specific purpose that now everything should be retold, everything about the Lord’s greatness should be retold with the bhakti bhava.

Bhagavata will excite you.

Bhagavata is not something that will make you come to terms with reality.

Or accept the world as it is.

Or give a better understanding of the world.

Or relinquish fruits of karma.

Bhagavata will make you excited, from head to toe.

It will fill you with divine energy and freshness.

This is the greatness of Bhagavata.