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Compassion - The Spirit of Truth

By Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

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True life can only be found through Devotion to All

25 [The Path of Bhakti] is far superior to [1] Karman [Path of Action
 [2] Jnanam [Path of Knowledge], and The performance of works is by far inferior to mental devotion. Seek an asylum, then, in this mental devotion, which is knowledge; for miserable and unhappy are those whose impulse to action is found in its reward.
[3] Yoga [of Patanjali or Path of Mystical Contemplation]. He who by means of Yoga is mentally devoted dismisses alike successful and unsuccessful results, being beyond them; Yoga is skill in the performance of actions: therefore do thou aspire to this devotion.
[As every sincere effort nurtures the devotional impulse], the fruit of such effort heightens Devotion [in the Path of Bhakti and all Spiritual Paths]. There is no purifier in this world to be compared to spiritual knowledge; and he who is perfected in devotion findeth spiritual knowledge springing up spontaneously in himself in the progress of time.
27 [Bhakti is superior to other Paths] on account of the Supreme Lord’s [ishvara]1 distaste for selfishness 2 and love of humbleness.3 The man who, having abandoned all desires, acts without covetousness, selfishness, or pride, deeming himself neither actor nor possessor, attains to rest.
28 [Some Teachers 5 say that] Jnanam or inner knowledge alone is the means for arousing Bhakti. . . . that knowledge which through the soul is a realization of both the known and the knower is alone esteemed by me as wisdom.
29 [Others say that] Jnanam and Bhakti are interdependent. . . . He who is perfected in devotion findeth spiritual knowledge springing up spontaneously in himself in the progress of time.
30 But the son of Brahma [Narada] says that Bhakti is its own fruit.
31 [The catalytic power of Bhakti can be illustrated by how one feels at the] sight of a royal palace, dinner, and so on. . . . I am not to be seen, even as I have shown myself to thee, by study of the Vedas, nor by mortifications, nor alms giving, nor sacrifices. I am to be approached and seen and known in truth by means of that devotion which has me alone as the object.
32 One can neither please the king [who bestows grace and favours upon his subjects 1 by knowing about him, or merely] by admiring his palace, nor relieve the pangs of hunger by looking at dinner [unless one’s innermost perceptions have been enlightened by Devotional Love].
33 Therefore, the Path of Bhakti alone should be adopted by those who yearn to be freed from the bonds and limitations of matter [and, not least, their terrestrial manas]. 3 He is considered to be an ascetic who seeks nothing and nothing rejects, being free from the influence of the “pairs of opposites,” . . . without trouble he is released from the bonds forged by action.