Worship of God is carried on through various methods, which are elaborated in the Bhakti Yoga system of practice. How do express our love towards any person? This does not require a large commentary. Everyone knows it so well. When we love a person immensely, we would do a thousand things to manifest that love. If an emperor comes to visit our cottage, how do we greet him? We begin to think of his arrival and make preparations even one month before his actual arrival. We are stimulated inside in an anxiety joy, and we put forth our best efforts to satisfy the august visitor. Such should be our love for God, where, in each and every detail, we try to satisfy God. Love does not require an object finally. It self-satisfying and self-complete. Finally, in the long run, love has object in front of it. It itself is its object. When we do worship of sun with a candle-light or the waving of a camphor flame, we are going to illumine the sun in any way and make it happy on that account. Nor is the ocean going to be satisfied by our doing Abhisheka to it with water. Our devotion is primarily a subjective requirement for self-transformation. We can cite an analogy. A very rich man comes to us with millions of dollars in his pocket. When comes to us, we give him a cup of tea. It does not mean that he is need of it. The need of the person is a different matter. Our offer tea to him is an expression of our respect, regard and affection for him though that little cup of tea, by itself, may mean nothing to him, the rich man that he is. Likewise, we show our regard, love and respect to people even by a mere folding of the hand, which means nothing in essence finally. But it means everything. Everyone knows the value of a 'Namaste'.

So, the love that we cherish for God and the worship that we conduct in respect of Him are to be carried on through rituals in the beginning. One may say that ritual is nonsense. It is not. It is a very essential pillar or leg of the huge edifice of religion. It cannot be said that the leg is unimportant in the human body. The legs are very important, because it is on our legs that we stand. The pillars are important. It cannot be said that pillars are not the building. When the pillars go, the building falls. The ritualistic part of religion is the pillar of the structure of religious practice. It is as important as the feet on which we stand. True, the feet are not the only important limbs of our body; but, their importance cannot be ignored.

In the beginning, religion begins with ritual. It is the case with every religion in the world, and with every form of religion, from the lowest form of religion to the highest form. A ritual or a performance represents an attitude, a conduct, expressed outside in action. We may offer a leaf or pour a drop of water on a piece of stone considering that piece of stone as our God. There begins religion. The stone is not God, but our feeling of the presence of a higher power in it is our God. These are psychological aspects of religion - these rituals in all the various forms that we see in temples and in churches, for instance. The devotee kneels down; he looks up; he folds his hands; he bows his head down and he offers a deeply felt prayer through words of utter affection and agonised feeling of devotion. This he does by ritualistic worships, offerings and sacraments. While religion starts with ritual, and ritual is an indispensable, unavoidable part of religious devotion, religion rises higher, where the external materials used in ritual lose their importance gradually, and the devotee begins to manifest his devotion to God with lesser accompaniments of material apparatus. In the beginning it looks as if we require a cart-load of material to worship God, and even that stage is an essential stage. When people perform Yajnas or sacrifices, or large temple worships, considerable material is gathered and much money is spent also. That is important enough. But gradually, one rises higher, and one feels that the spending of so much ritualistic material is not, after all, necessary in religion, and one can get on with a few items of worship. It may be just one joss-stick or a piece of camphor or a little Bael leaf, or a leaf of Tulasi or the holy basil. Why, even one spoon of the holy Ganga water offered on the Linga of Siva may be as satisfying to Him as an ocean of milk that may be poured over the same Linga as part of a larger ritualistic worship.

Even higher than this worship with a token offering, like a leaf or a flower representing the heart's love, is the worship through the Name of God. Taking on the Name of God does not require even the little drop of water or milk or honey. It does not require even a leaf or a flower. No, it does not require any material for its fulfilment. Nothing is required from the outside world for the purpose of this kind of worship of God. Here, the mind itself is the apparatus or the instrument of worship, and the thing that is offered at the lotus feet of the Lord is also the mind. The greatest devotion is revealed in acts of mental worship.

In this way, there is a gradual movement in the history of religious practice in India, beginning from the Vedic ceremonialism proceeding to the ignorant contemplations in the Aranyakas, and ending with the pure metaphysical meditations of the Upanishads. In the beginning, external material is necessary for worship. Later on one's own self is sufficient for worship. One's own mind is adequate. In the final stage of worship, the soul of the devotee itself performs the worship by offering itself, by surrendering itself, in an intimate union of itself with its Beloved. A chanting of the Name of God known as Japa, is often considered as one of the best forms of divine worship, and it is also accompanied by studies of holy scriptures, and musical recitations of songs in praise of God and His glory, the type of Satsanga that is usually conducted in many of the Ashrams in India.

For a long time, God remains only as an outside reality for us. He is an outside reality for most of us, perhaps for every one of us. It is not possible for us to imagine His omnipresence as it would be required under the precepts of the higher texts and admonitions of Yoga. Whatever be the advancement in our religious practice, or in our visualisation of God, or in our concept of God, He still remains outside us. He is outside us per force, because we are not able to forget that we are finite individuals. We are puny individuals, small men and women moving on earth. How can we avoid the notion that God is superior to us, transcendent to us, above us, above the world itself? So, often we look up to the skies when we pray to God. This is a mood in us which we cannot avoid. We do not bury our heads when we pray. We look up in a holy mood of devotion of spirit. The looking up is a psychological gesture of the spirit which regards the transcendence of God as an unavoidable feature in the worship of God. While the transcendence of God does not necessarily warrant a looking up to the skies with physical eyes, it is a gesture, a necessity of the psyche in us; which finds it absolutely essential to manifest its inward moods of the transcendence of God by external gestures of this kind.

In the beginning, our Deity or God appears to be a small individual, almost like a human being, with two ears and two eyes. He may be more brilliant and may be invested with great powers as we can conceive of. But, as we advance in the path of devotion, the concept of God enlarges itself to encompass a large personality, not just like an ordinary human being, but a vast individual pervading the whole universe as the creator, preserver and destroyer. He is the Father mentioned in the Bible; He is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Still, He is above us. But, a flooding phase of religion takes possession of us when we come to the logical limit of religious notions, when we are transported inwardly by the very thought of God. This transporting, enrapturing and enlivening or, sometimes, agonising devotional attitude or mood arises in us, when even for a split second, we are able to entertain in our minds a correct notion of the all-pervading nature of God. Such a notion does not enter us always. Always we are lukewarm, cold in our spirits. But sometimes, in some rare, rare moments of our practice, occasionally, during the day, we may be stirred up into this mood of the overmastering ideal of the omnipresence of Divinity, in which context we ourselves do not seem to be anywhere at all. When God is, we are not.

In the beginning, we are rid of the notion of God Himself, and appear to affirm only our own selves and the world in front of us. God does not come into the picture. We feel that He may not be there; and even if He is there, we do not want Him. We have no need for Him. That may be the crudest or physical attitude of the mind, the idea of the rank materialist. Then, we begin to feel a necessity for something superior to us, something higher than us. And, as such a thing that is superior to us cannot be seen with the eyes, we entertain an idea of it in our mind as a concept, as a notion. It thus remains abstract in the earlier stages. At least, it appears to be abstract. And, therefore, at this stage, the feeling that the world is more concrete and real than the abstract idea of God still persists. And doubts arise in the mind: "Am I pursuing a will-o'-the-wisp?" These doubts are dangerous, as Patanjali warns us in one Sutra. The stage in our practice where God may appear to be an idea is unavoidable for us. But, the idea is not just an abstract, evaporating vapour, as it were, that exudes from our mind. It is a harder reality than the so-called solidness or concreteness of things, a fact which we will realise later on in our spiritual journey. Ideas are more powerful than solid objects, and they are more real than material things, though we cannot know them to be so in the early stages of our spiritual practice. The idea of God is not merely a thought arising in our finite mind, but a precedent concept which is the pre-condition of even the idea of the world outside. So, these and other ways are the means of worship of God, by which we can concentrate the mind on a higher ideal.

Ways and means by which the mind can be concentrated are almost infinite in number. One of the methods is Isvara-Pranidhana, worship of God, surrender of oneself to God, dedication of oneself to one's great Deity. This is done through a devotion, which is to be Samvega or overmastering and taking possession of the spiritual seeker wholly and entirely, root and branch. But, the predilections of the mind being various, we may have to feed the mind with different methods of concentration, as we feed our body with different kinds of diet every day. Though diet is our main objective, we change the inner detail of the diet to suit the mind and the body. Likewise, the forms of concentration may have to be adapted to the particular needs of the moods of the mind at any time, and the student of Yoga must know whether he is an emotional type, an active type, a psychic type, or a rational type. Whatever be one's mood, whatever be one's general trend of thinking, that should be one's way. And so, the Yoga student should try to adopt all means available, and not give to the mind only one uniform diet. For instance, there are people who are devoted to the chanting of the Divine Name. It does not mean that they should not read scriptures or sing songs by way of glorifying God. One may even dance in ecstasy; sometimes one feels like that. Again, the student of Yoga may seek the company of holy saints and sages. He may attend Satsanga and discourses. He may even go on a pilgrimage. Sometimes, even that is felt as a necessity under certain moods. Every mood has to be attended to carefully. Every blessed method available and practicable has to be adopted in the restraint of the mind. Whatever attracts our attention and makes us feel that it is something grand and glorious and desirable may be regarded as our object of concentration. Yathabhimata-dhyanad va - As you deem it proper, so may it be concentrated upon. Very generous is this instruction of Patanjali. He does not tie us down to any stereotyped technique of tradition. While he has suggested many methods, finally he says, "Yathecchasi Tatha Kuru". Whatever is to your liking, follow that - that is what it means.

However, we have to be cautious enough to remember that concentration means fixing of the mind on anything to the exclusion of every other thought. The object that is chosen is not so important as the method that is adopted. The purpose of concentration and meditation is essentially the freedom of the mind from its finitude and attachment to the body, and the idea that objects exist outside. This is the essential point to be remembered. And for achieving this purpose, we employ various means or techniques of concentration.

The mind is like a web that is knit together by warp and woof, as in a fabric. The existence of the mind is the same as the function of the mind in terms of a notion of externality of things. The mind exists only by being fed by the idea that objects exist outside. So, it is a big complex; it is a tension that we call the mind. A tense state of affairs in which the consciousness is involved, a kind of whirl in which the consciousness is caught up, is the mind. And so, it is like a knot in some way. It is not a thing. It is not a substance. Ultimately, the mind is not different from consciousness. It is like a concentration of the waters of the ocean in a particular spot, driven there by a great force, creating a whirl in a particular manner. This whirl of consciousness at a particular spot, in space and in time, is the mind. And we have to disentangle ourselves from this whirl with great caution. Concentration of the mind is the hammering of a particular idea into the mind, as we try to break through the whirl by hitting it violently by some means. Concentration on any idea or ideal, external or internal, breaks this knot of the mind, and then we know what is behind the mind automatically. The purpose of concentration is to break through the bubble of the mind, which covers the inner eye, like the cataract which obstructs the vision and makes one see things as they are not. That is why concentration is advised even on such little things as a candle flame or a rose flower or even a dot on the wall.

The Yoga student may wonder how these things will help him. The dot on the wall is certainly not God. How does it help then? It helps, because it has a psychological effect. It does not matter what it is that one is taking as the object of concentration. The point is that one should not think of anything else. The mind exists as a finite centre of experience by imagining externality, and it can be overcome, subdued and transcended or transformed only by assuring ourselves that in the concentration that we practise, the idea or the notion of externality is completely avoided. When we think of the dot on the wall, if we think of it with deep concentration, then we cannot even see the wall outside the dot. Those who are familiar with the Mahabharata know the story of the tournament arranged by Acharya Drona for the Pandavas and the Kauravas. The test of concentration which Dronacharya arranged for those boys was like this. There was a tree with many branches. In one fine twig, he hung a wooden bird. The eye of the bird was looking like a black spot, and that eye was to be shot by the arrow. So he asked the boys: "Concentrate yourself on the eye of that bird and hit it. Look! What do you see?" "Well," one said, "well, I see a bird sitting on the tree". Dronacharya said, "You are unfit. You are not able to concentrate". Then he asked another, "What do you see?" "I see the bird sitting on the branch." "No, you are not able to concentrate." Then he asked Yudhishthira, "What do you see?" "I see only the eye." "No. No good." he said. He asked Arjuna. Arjuna said, "I see only the black spot. I see nothing else". "Yes, you are the man" said Dronacharya, "Hit it!" Arjuna's concentration was so intense that he could see only the black spot. He could not see even the eye of the bird there, let alone the bird and the tree and the people around. That was Arjuna. But when we sit for concentration, we begin to see not only the object of concentration, but also all sorts of things. Now, that is not proper concentration. The idea behind concentration, to repeat again, is that we should not have any idea of externality. Keeping this essential requirement in mind, we may choose any object for our meditation, right from the smallest pebble on the bank of the Ganga to the great notion of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva or the Supreme Creator, Preserver and Destroyer.