What Is Bhakti?

Fri, 03/05/2010

Bhakti: n (Sanskrit): The origin of bhakti can be traced in the Vedas wherein the root-word bhaj whose meanings include “to participate”, “partake” and “to possess” and various synonyms appear. Bhakti broadly comes to mean “devotion” or “love” to the Divine in later literature, and has been an all-pervasive concept in the philosophical and spiritual traditions of India. It emphasises the intense love and spiritual attachment of a devotee towards a personally conceived divinity as a means to moksha liberation.

Bhakti as a spiritual path is referred to as bhakti marga, the bhakti way or Bhakti Yoga (Devotional Yoga). (Learn which type of yoga is for you) As such, the bhakta (one who practices bhakti) literally participates in the Divine through surrender, devotion, service, worship, and finally is drawn into mystical union with the Divine.

Bhakti is supreme love for God. Bhakti is love for love's sake. There is no selfish expectation. It is the spontaneous out-pouring of Prem towards the Beloved. It is pure divine love or Shuddha Prem. A practitioner of bhakti yoga regards God as being present in every person or sentient being.

Although bhakti yoga was developed within the Indian cultural frame, it has universal application and can be practiced by people of the world as it focuses the believer's mind and heart on God as a supreme Person rather than an impersonal Absolute. It is believed that human soul has a chord that unites him with the God consciousness. This is the voice of human conscious. Bhakti strengthens this chord of consciousness and ultimately develops a direct communication with the creator. Almost all the different religions have a way of telling this reality through their religious scriptures. The message always remains the same. It is all about invoking the God consciousness by way of whichever medium the devotee chooses
to practice.

This surrender is generally in the God or supreme consciousness in any of the forms and is typically represented in terms of human relationships, most often as parent-child, friend-friend, beloved-lover, and master-servant or whichever relationship or personal aspect of God that appeals to the devotee. It may also refer to devotion to a spiritual teacher (Guru) as guru-bhakti, to a personal form of God, (which explains the proliferation of so many gods and Goddesses in India), or to divinity without form (nirguna).

Bhakti extends from the simplest expression of devotion to the ego-decimating principle of prapatti, which is total surrender. Through continuous meditation of God or object of faith, it seeks to dissolve the ego into God, since consciousness of the body as self is seen to be a divisive factor in spiritual realization. This further prevents new distractions, fickleness or even pain and induces strong bonds of love. Slowly the practitioner looses the self identity and becomes one with the object of faith; this is a state of self realization.

The process that occurs is: first faith is born, followed by attraction and after that adoration. Adoration leads to suppression of mundane desires. The result is single-mindedness and satisfaction. Then grows attachment and supreme love towards God which leads the devotee to an eternal union with his Beloved and culminates in oneness.

Bhakti softens the heart and removes jealousy, hatred, lust, anger, egoism, pride and arrogance. It infuses joy, divine ecstasy, bliss, peace and knowledge. All cares, worries and anxieties, fears, mental torments and tribulations entirely vanish. The devotee is freed from the Samsaric wheel of births and deaths. He attains the immortal abode of everlasting peace, bliss and knowledge.

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