Views on Bhakti Yoga

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Dear friends,

 

Bhakti Yoga

There is a certain class of people for whom intense " love for God " plays

important role in defining their religious attitude. These are emotional

persons who believe in personal God - in a particular form or idea. This

form of God becomes their Chosen Ideal- the 'Ishtha Deva'.

 

Swami Vivekananda in his discourses on Bhakti-Yoga defines bhakti as

intense love for God without any expectation of reward, return, or fear.

The natural tendency of sectarian love, love towards spouse, children,

relatives, love for wealth, name and fame, etc., is directed towards God

in this Yoga. Initially, there is no suppression of thoughts or

tendencies, on the contrary, every mental tendency is directed towards

God and thus sublimated. Whole world is seen as manifestation of glory

of the God-head -Ishtha.

Bhakti-Yoga is, therefore, the most constructive, non-sectarian, simple

to begin with for majority of people. This is truer because non-dual

Vedanta is very difficult even to conceptually understand with ease.

However, the main danger on the path of Bhakti-Yoga is likelihood of

helping fanaticism if one ignores that other persons, like himself, also

have the right to reach the God through their own Ishtha and path, which

may be different from his own. A feeling of hatred and jealousy may

creep in his mind on this count. Hence we see quite a few devotees on

the path of this Yoga behaving in a fanatical way when dealing with the

persons and ideas of other religions.

 

In the initial stage of bhakti the devotee takes help of pratika and

pratima -symbols- to worship his chosen ideal. Rituals like puja,

upasana (worship), prayers, and chanting and singing the glory of his

chosen deity are common. The individual worship may culminate in group

worship with formation of a sect where the participating people have

common ideal. Such types of sects are very common in the Vaishnava

tradition of bhakti. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and Vallabhacharya have had

nice tradition of such bhakti cult.

 

Soon this gauni-bhakti -lower form of bhakti- of worshipful attitude

stabilizes the mind of the sadhaka. The person involved in bhakti

develops 'one pointed' concentration by losing himself in the beauty and

love of his Ishtha by developing a particular bhava (attitude). Such

attitude towards the God may be of friendship -sakhya, servant -dasya,

mother -vatsalya, attitude of a lover -madhura, or plain divine

attachment -shanta bhava. Consciously developing any one of these six

attitudes in the beginning takes the sadhaka to a higher plane of bhakti

-para-bhakti.

 

Para-bhakti creates a stage where feeling of total devotion and

surrender to the wishes of God-head is established. The devotee does not

expect anything from his chosen ideal, rather he enjoys giving to the

God whatever best he has, be it new clothes, food, fruits, etc. The

devotee is very happy to surrender his life, money, wealth, fruits of

actions, and the mind as well at the lotus feet of his Ishtha. A feeling

of total renunciation gradually comes in the mind of the devotee. Bhakti

becomes the path and the goal, action and its own fruition,

simultaneously.

 

dr c s shah

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