“The most ancient traveler in the world is love,
“quotation from Swami Rama (1925–1996) an Indian yogi. He often told his
students. “Many follow the path of bhakti yoga, the path of love and devotion,
but it is not as easy to follow as most people think. Bhakti yoga is not the
path for blind followers.”
"Grease your actions with love, the Swami
counseled people, whether you are driving your children to school, washing the
dishes, working at a stressful job, or doing your spiritual practice.
Bhakti or devotion is not just about chanting,
rather it is having the courage to face ourselves at the deepest levels of our
being, and offer everything we are to the Divine, both the good and the bad,
without holding anything back. And it is the complete dedication and surrender
of everything we do in our daily lives as acts of worship. By learning to
expand our devotional awareness, we can transform our lives so they are filled
with peace, love, joy, and harmony.
Bhakti is intense love for God. It is a deep
yearning to experience love in its purest and highest form, to unite with that
which is eternal and unchanging. We get a glimpse of this through our worldly
relationships, especially with those who have touched our hearts the most.
Bhakti states that we do not really love others for their own sake but rather
for the Divine Self that resides in them.
The path of bhakti yoga allows us to express
all of our senses, all of our emotions, and all of our actions to express love
in our daily interactions and offer them to whatever form of God suits our
individual personalities and cultural upbringing, whether it be Christ, Krishna,
the Divine Mother, or some other aspect. In bhakti yoga, no form of God is
superior to another. Each is equally respected as a valid manifestation of the
one underlying principle of pure consciousness.
The Bhakti Sutras explain that bhakti yoga is
both the means and the end: lower bhakti, is the way to cultivate and deepen
devotion, and higher bhakti, is union with the Divine, the ultimate goal.
The intrinsic nature of bhakti or supreme
devotion is immortal bliss. On attaining it, one becomes free from suffering
and completely satisfied, having no more desires. After the initial
intoxication with bliss, one enjoys the delight of inner silence. In the depths
of this silence, one realizes a complete unity with others, and comes to understand
that we are all the same, there is no separation.
Lower bhakti, or aparabhakti (beginner devotion),
is the way we can prepare to receive the grace of higher bhakti. It is a way to
channel and transform our powerful emotions into positive, creative expressions
of love and devotion to God.
In the initial stage we need to allow the
unexpressed parts of ourselves to rise into conscious awareness. In recognizing
and acknowledging these parts, we can learn how to cultivate compassion for
ourselves and others. To do this, we make a commitment to look at whatever is
troubling us. By doing so, we create a space for healing. We accept what is
troubling us and offer good and bad, without hiding from our emotional wounds, anger,
fear, grief, shame, and unfulfilled longings and desires, to the Divine. We
bring our subconscious feelings into conscious expression and surrender it to
that higher Reality; we surrender the ego.
In the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says:
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If
you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will
destroy you.” We cannot run from our issues. Our issues are part of our
spiritual journey.
In the beginning stages of practice, there is
usually a sense of ego-identification present in our acts of worship, “we” are
making the effort and taking the credit for it. But at this stage, we surrender
the fruits of our actions and let go of our identification as the doer. We see
ourselves as the witness rather than the object. The more we are able to
surrender, the more we can open ourselves to being a channel for Divine Light
to manifest through our thoughts, speech, and action.
In this stage, we experience the sweetness of our
journey, because we have faced our inner
darkness and have gained wisdom, strength, and compassion. This allows us to
act in the world from a deeper place of inner stillness, with more clarity and
love.
Transformation through Love
The timeless path of divine love is as alive
and relevant today as it was in the days of the ancient sages. Through this
path, we can transform our everyday life from the mundane to the sacred, from
the trivial to the profound. By cultivating the principles of love, compassion,
gratitude, surrender, and selfless service, we can prepare our hearts and minds
to receive the grace of unconditional love and wisdom. Then we become the
instruments of the Divine, and everything we do is an expression of love and
devotion. Our lives become a joyful celebration.
No comments:
Post a Comment