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Worth Ship
Whereas karma yoga is the yoga of action, bhakti yoga is the yoga of love, but not necessarily the love we think of most readily. The practices behind bhakti yoga resemble what we might at the surface call worship, but just so that we are all clear; What is worship? Devoting ourselves to something? To…
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Devotion to the Divine
Shall I start with personal gods or go into the complicated one first? Personal. Ok. The different traditional paths of bhakti have their root in traditions leading way back into the history of India. They refer to them as lineages. The divinity being shown devotion represents principles that are seen as both essential and transcendental…
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State of Being in Love
How do we know what love is? Do we know it just by saying it? A feeling? Can you describe the feeling clearly? I think we know the feeling before we can really understand it and not be afraid of it. I can’t and I think that’s why poetry gets so elaborate. People struggle with…
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Paths of Yoga Suit Individual Temperament
The paths of yoga each suit an individual’s temper- ament differently, and everyone experiences some element of each of the aspects no matter what their personal nature makes them lean toward. For some, using the channel of love and devotion that our social circuits use just doesn’t engage them fully and leaves them uneasy. One…
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Object of Devotion
Any questions about bhakti yoga/the devotional path”? There was an earlier question about whether anything can be the object of devotion. The answer was complicated so I put it off until now, but the answer is yes. Everything that exists has it’s existence in the divine, in the universal spirit that gives rise to all…
Category: Bhakti Yoga
The yoga of love. The purpose behind worship, as it is expressed in bhakti yoga, is not the pleasure of the divinity being worshipped. The acts themselves are to create an experiential place in our daily lives that builds our sense of connection with the divine.
The reason they have their prayers and rituals and charitable work is a way to express the love and feel it stronger. You either embrace love or distract yourself from it, at least in a certain way of seeing things.
Return to chapter on Yoga.
“What is important is not the specific manner in which God is worshiped but the degree to which the devotee is filled with love. (48-49)” Prem Prakash, The Yoga of Spiritual Devotion A Modern Translation of the Narada Bhakti Sutras