Out of all the concepts that have been explained so far, the main concepts to understand are that one who loves is the premi, or the lover, and the one who is loved is the premaspad, or the Beloved, and that only God and Saints can occupy the seat of the Beloved. The mistake we have made so far is in our understanding of the most important thing – whom the lover should accept as the Beloved. Since eternal time, we have heard and understood a lot, but on the practical level we always chose material personalities as our Beloved.
We must further understand who it is that has to practice devotion. In a general way it is said that the individual soul practices devotion. However, the soul is a non-doer. It does not perform any actions. The performer of each and every action is the mind. I have explained this hundreds of times to you, but you people forget. You have come here with the genuine desire to practice devotion, but you forget the main point that it is the mind which must be attached to God. Mere physical work of the senses will not do. Activities with the senses, like sankeertan, etc. are done to help you absorb the mind quickly in God. You might say something is better than nothing. However, Ved Vyas says that devotion practiced only with the senses is not devotion at all.
“Mind alone is the cause of bondage as well as liberation.” So if the question is asked as to who it is that has to love, the answer is “the mind”. When we say that someone loves, it means that he focuses his mind on the Beloved. In other words, we must fix the mind on God.
