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Bhakti Yoga
BHAKTI YOGA teaches that the final
end of all religions can be reached through love and worship of
the personal God, who is the Creator and Governor of the
phenomenal universe. It leads to the same destination as all the
other branches of Yoga, but is especially suited for such as are
emotional in their nature and have the feeling of love and
devotion highly developed. It is for those devotees who, conscious
of their own weakness arising from lack of self-control and of
knowledge, seek help from outside; and who, taking refuge in the
Supreme, pray to Him for forgiveness and for pardon of sins
committed through ignorance of the moral and spiritual laws that
govern our lives. All dualistic systems of religion, like
Christianity, Judaism, and Mahometanism, which advocate the
worship of a personal God, knowingly or unknowingly preach Bhakti
Yoga and direct their adherents along this path.
The word "Bhakti" means devotion, while Yoga in this case
signifies union of the individual soul with God. Hence Bhakti Yoga
is the method of devotion by which true communion of the soul with
the Supreme Deity is accomplished. It shows what kind of devotion
and love for God will bring the soul into the most intimate
relation with the Divine Being; and how even the ordinary feelings
of a human heart, when directed Godward, can become the means of
attaining spiritual oneness with the Soul of the universe. Rāja
Yoga tells us that desire, passion, love, hatred, pride, anger,
must be completely conquered before perfection can be reached. A
student of Rāja Yoga must not only keep constant watch over his
mind, but he must also faithfully practice the eight steps already
described, if he would achieve his highest ideal; while in Bhakti
Yoga we learn that all desires and passions, whether good or bad,
can be directed towards God. Then, instead of binding the soul to
worldliness and earthly attachment, they become a means of
attaining God-consciousness and absolute freedom from selfishness
and wickedness.
A follower of Bhakti Yoga should feel God as closely related to
his soul as he possibly can; and regard Him not only as the Lord
of the universe, but as father, mother, brother, sister, friend,
or child. Even the relation existing between husband and wife may
be cultivated and developed in the heart of a lover of God,
intoxicated by the soul-stirring wine of Divine Love. When the
whole heart and soul of a Bhakta or lover of God flow like the
unbroken current of a mighty river, surmounting all barriers and
dashing headlong toward the ocean of Divinity, he finds no other
attraction in the world, holds no other thought, cherishes no
other desire, speaks no other word, and sees no other thing than
his most Beloved, the Omnipresent Deity. He resigns himself
entirely to Him and surrenders his will to the will of the
Almighty One. He works, but without thinking of results. Every
action of his body and mind is performed simply to please his
Beloved One. His motive power is love alone and by this he breaks
asunder the chain of selfishness, transcends the law of Karma, and
becomes free. Thus a true Bhakti Yogi, being constantly in tune
with the Infinite, loses the sense of "I," "Me," and "Mine," and
makes room for "Thou," "Thee," and "Thine."
A Bhakta never forgets his relation to his Beloved. His mind is
concentrated and one-pointed; consequently meditation becomes easy
for him. True devotion or continuous remembrance of the Divine
Ideal leads to unceasing meditation, and ultimately lifts the soul
into Samādhi, where it realizes God and communes with Him
undisturbed by any other thought, feeling, idea, or sensation.
Becoming dead to sense phenomena, it lives on the spiritual plane
of God-consciousness. Wherever such a Yogi casts his eyes, he sees
the presence of the All-pervading Divinity and enjoys unbounded
peace and happiness at every moment of his life. It is for this
reason that Bhakti Yoga is considered to be the easiest of all
methods. What a Rāja Yogi attains only after years of practice, a
Bhakta accomplishes in a short time through extreme devotion and
love. That which a Karma Yogi finds so difficult to achieve, a
Bhakti Yogi attains easily by offering the fruits of all his works
to the Almighty Source of all activity and the ultimate end of all
motives.
Bhakti Yoga has two grades,--the first is called "Gauni," or
preparatory and includes all the preliminary practices; the second
is "Para," or the state of supreme love and devotion to God. A
beginner in Bhakti Yoga should first of all prepare the ground of
his heart by freeing it from attachment to earthly objects and
sense-pleasures; then by arousing in it extreme longing to see
God, to realize Divinity, to go to the Source of all knowledge,
and to reach perfection and God-consciousness in this life. He
must be absolutely earnest
and sincere. He should seek the company of a true lover of God,
whose life is pure and spotless, who has renounced all worldly
connections, and who has realized the true relation which the
individual soul bears to the Universal Spirit. If, by good
fortune, he meets such a real Bhakta, he should receive from him
the seed of Bhakti, plant it in the ground of his heart, and by
faithfully following the instructions of the master, take special
care to keep it alive and make it grow, until it becomes a large
tree bearing the fruit of Divine Love. He should have respect,
reverence, and love for his master, who will open his spiritual
eye and transmit his own spiritual powers to his soul. When these
powers begin to work, the soul will be awakened from the deep
sleep of ignorance and self-delusion.
The Guru, or spiritual eye-opener, knowing the natural tendency
of the disciple, will advise him to look upon God as his Master,
or as his Father or Mother, and will thus establish a definite
relation between his soul and God. Henceforth the disciple should
learn to worship or pray to the Supreme through this particular
relation. At this stage symbols, rituals, ceremonies may appeal to
his mind; or he may repeat some name of the Lord that signifies
the special aspect of the Divinity corresponding to the relation
which he bears to Him. Constant repetition of such a name will
help the mind of the neophyte to become concentrated upon the
Divine Being. During this period he should avoid such company,
such places, and such amusements as make him forget his chosen
Ideal. He should live a chaste and pure life, always
discriminating right from wrong and struggling to control his
passions and desires by directing them Godward. He should be angry
with himself for not realizing his ideal; he should hate his
sinful nature because it keeps him away from the path of Bhakti
and prevents him from remembering his Beloved. Thus he will
gradually succeed in correcting his faults and in gaining control
over his animal nature.
A traveller on the path of Bhakti should observe cleanliness of
body and mind, should be truthful, and lead a simple life, without
injuring any living creature mentally or physically. He should not
kill any animal for his food, neither should he covet that which
does not belong to him. He should, furthermore, obey the laws of
health which tend to make him physically strong, as well as those
moral laws the violation of which weakens the mind.
So long as the devotee thinks of God with a form and believes
that He is outside of his soul and of the universe, he can make a
mental picture of Him and worship the Divine Ideal through that
form; or he may keep before him some symbolic figure like the
cross which will remind him of his Ideal at the time of devotion.
But a Bhakta should never mistake the imaginary form or the
symbolic figure for the real Ideal. Wherever there is such a
mistake there is to be found spiritual degeneration and the
expression of ignorance in the form of sectarianism, bigotry,
fanaticism.
Gradually, as the Bhakta approaches God, he will rise above such
dualistic conceptions and realize that his Beloved is not only
transcendent but immanent in nature, that nature is His body, that
He dwells everywhere, that He is the Soul of our souls and the
Life of our life, that He is the one stupendous Whole while we are
but His parts. The Bhakta then reaches that state which is called
qualified non-dualism. He sees that from the minutest insect up to
man all living creatures are related to the Iswara is a part is
related to the whole. Therefore he cannot kill or injure any
living being. Understanding that everything pertaining to any part
belongs in reality to the whole, he says, "Whatever is mine is
Thine"; and it is from this moment that absolute self-resignation
and self-surrender to the will of the Iswara begin to reign
supreme in the soul of the Yogi. Then he is able to say from the
bottom of his heart, "Let Thy will be done," and never again can
he forget that his soul is a part of the Iswara. His devotion
henceforth consists in remembering this new relation, and his
worship takes a new form. Whatever he does with mind or body
becomes an act of worship of the Supreme Whole, for he realizes
that he possesses no power that does not belong to God. Eating,
drinking, walking, talking, and every other work of his daily life
become acts of devotion, and the entire existence of such a Bhakta
is a continuous series of acts of worship. Then the heart is
purified and selfishness is dead.
The devotee thus rises to the second grade of Bhakti Yoga and
begins to taste that Divine Love which is the fruit of the tree of
Bhakti. Here all distinction between lover and Beloved disappears;
the lover, the Beloved and Love all merge into one ocean
of Divinity. The soul of
the Bhakta is transformed, and manifesting omniscience,
God-consciousness, perfect freedom, and all other Divine
qualities, it attains to the highest ideal of Bhakti Yoga.
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