Still your mind in
me, still your intellect in me, and without a doubt
you will be
united with me forever. – Krishna,
Bhagavad Gita
Devotion
is central to the true spiritual path.
We resist it because it is anathema to the ego. In the Yoga tradition devotional love is
known as bhakti. The path of Bhakti yoga
utilizes the power of attachment itself, through sublimation, to awaken us to
transcendent Love. We redirect our
deepest affection so that we become attached to the source of our beings rather
than the ephemera of sensory display. Nonattachment
tells us to let go of transitory things, bhakti tells us to cling to God.
Many
intelligent people have trouble with the bhakti proposition. After all who knows who or what “God”
is? How can I be devoted to something
unseen, indefinable and ultimately unknowable?
Our rational minds are always calculating the risk. I have known a few people who were afraid of
devotional chanting because they might “lose themselves.” The real risk is that we might find our true
Self. We might just wake up from our
rational dream of separation and alienation and discover that all is Love. We all know deep down who and what God is
because She is at the basis of who we are as conscious beings. God is as we are, to paraphrase Meister
Eckhardt.
Bhakti
cannot be taught or learned in a yoga class.
We might catch it like a wave of bliss flowing through an awakened
teacher though. Love has to awaken
within us. Just as we have all had the
experience of “falling in love” with someone, at some point we may “rise in
love” with God. Because this love is
central to our nature it is bound to awaken at some point. It is bound to awaken at the point that we
are willing to let it. When we surrender
our intellectual defenses, our emotional reflexes and our stubborn pride we
become open to realization. When we let
go of attachment to sensory objects and our conditioned minds we might discover
bhakti.
Ordinarily,
love is directed towards an object. We
might love our lover, our children, family, friends, etc. We might love our car, our clothes, home or
bank account. We are all somewhat
narcissistic as well, we love ourselves.
This kind of dualistic love however is deluded, no matter how seemingly
satisfying and socially supported.
Everything that we might love in this world is transitory, even
ourselves. This doesn’t mean we should
be cold and uncaring with one another.
The realization of impermanence can actually lead us to appreciate the
people and the things in our life more. We
can’t take anyone or anything in this life for granted. Let go of what is unnecessary, unhealthy,
unrealistic and self-destructive.
Spiritual love, i.e. bhakti, takes us beyond illusion, confusion and
fear.
Because
we are subject to the limitations of our minds most of us need a symbolic prop onto
which we focus our mind. We need an
object of meditation. This is where an
image of God comes in. In yoga
terminology we call this one’s ishta devata; one’s personal visualization of
the Divine. No matter how attached we
become to our personal sense of Divinity, it is our inner power of bhakti which
is important. It is spiritual devotion
that can lead us out of the trap of samasara.
As Swami Satyananda teaches, “It can be devotion to truth, God, the
Supreme, Brahman, the Absolute Reality or any other name that you want to call
the ineffable. It can be devotion to Christ, Buddha. Mohammed, Krishna, Rama,
Hanuman, Mahavira, Shakti, Shiva, Vishnu, Kali, Durga, Ahura Mazda or even Zeus
if you wish. You can express devotion to any form which you regard as divinity incarnate.
It can be a great saint, whether dead or alive. It can be your Guru. The specific
form is unimportant. It is the devotion
that you personally feel that is essential. Without this devotion, whether
great or small, it is impossible to practice Bhakti yoga.” (Yoga Magazine, July
1992) It should be apparent that Bhakti
Yoga is not a narrow religious orientation but an inclusive spiritual
methodology.
We
can understand the Bhakti path developmentally as a movement from ego-centric
“love” to ego-less devotion. On the ego
level we love a person, thing or God because they give us something, perhaps
pleasure, satisfaction or a sense of security.
How often do we pray out of a sense of need or desperation? Perhaps we turn to God in order to achieve
wealth and success. Perhaps we love and
serve another in order to feel like we are needed. As we attempt to be spiritual we come up with
a lot of self-deceptive ways of feeding our egos.
Ego-centric
love is not bad or wrong. It is natural
to our level of spiritual development.
It is best to be honest and nonjudgmental with ourselves. As we develop through spiritual practice,
meditation, devotional singing, self-less service, self-inquiry, etc. our
capacity to love beyond our limited self-interest begins to grow. Perhaps we learn to love God in everyone. The true devotee is immune to desire or fear,
praise or blame, pleasure or pain according to the Bhagavad Gita. When we reach maturity as bhaktas we love
without expectations. We are established
in inner peace and bliss. Bhakti is its
own reward.
The
Bhakti tradition speaks of a state of consciousness known as “madhura” in which
one experiences love for the divine everything.
In this state one sees God everywhere and in all things. At the same time there is no attachment to
anything or anybody. It is love without
an object or nondual love. It is the
recognition of one’s Divine Self in and beyond all forms. It is an intensely blissful experience of
enlightened awareness. In this state
there is no room for hatred or fear, no need for manipulation or control. It is open egoless love. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna who is the
embodiment of Love, tells us, “those who worship me with love live in me, and I
come to life within them.” As Swami
Satyananda Saraswati puts it, “Bhakti is like making love to everything
continuously, from humans to birds, flowers everything; you have no choice, for
you realise their real nature and the nature of yourself and with this
'"impossible" relationship, how is it possible not to feel love for everything?” (ibid.)
