Yoga and the kundalini experience: a great article

[Guest guest]

, " selena230 "

<selena230 wrote:

>

Selena, wow, this was just wonderful! Thank you. I was fascinated to

read about Bhakti yoga because it sounds exactly like what the

Christian Path has been to the many Christian Mystics. This has been

my experience as well. Thank you so much! Love, dhyana

 

 

> Bhakti yoga, which is related to tantra through its emphasis on

mantra

> and deity, focuses on the purification of the emotions and develops

> love for God, usually through the vehicle of relationship with one's

> ishta deva (an ideal form of God). As a friend once said to me, " The

> truly amazing thing is that although God is so vast, it is still

> possible to have a personal relationship. " Most devotees of bhakti

> yoga experience a relationship with God that is intensely personal

in

> nature. This relationship, as various scriptures describe, takes

> various forms according to individual proclivities: we may feel that

> we are the servant of God, or the lover of God, the child or the

> parent of God in a child form (such as the baby Jesus or the baby

> Krishna), the friend of God, or even that we have a great love for

God

> without any defined form.

>

> Bhaktas (practitioners of bhakti yoga) can choose among a number of

> practices, such japa (repetition of a name of God), singing,

chanting,

> meditation, performing puja, reading or hearing stories about the

> lives of saints, etc. By constant practice of these methods with the

> aim of keeping God's presence continually in one's heart and the

> contemplation of the Beloved continually in one's mind, the devotee

> strives to attain true surrender. It becomes a one-pointed practice,

> and one day the individual ego dissolves into the divine ego, and

> universal love is experienced. Then the devotee worships God in

> everything because the light of the Divine is perceived as

reflecting

> in everything. The experience of this love is intensely blissful,

and

> persistent cultivation of it ultimately bears the fruit of

liberation.

> Enlightenment in bhakti yoga is said to be experienced in four ways:

> salokya (residing in the same realm as the deity), sarupya (residing

> in the same or like body as the deity), samipya (living in close

> proximity to the deity), or sayujya (complete absorption into the

deity).

>