Bhakti Yoga
What is Bhakti Yoga?
I understood my real purpose in life was service to God. But how could you serve someone you couldn’t see? It was confusing, yet daily I was getting more and more information on who God was, and how I could begin to ‘practice’ serving Him in order to get a taste for devotional service. In the beginning I realized the only person I wanted to serve was myself!
I wondered why the Hare Krishnas, as we were called, didn’t do the prescribed Hatha yoga simultaneously with our Bhakti We should have! Many do. The positions are meant to help your spine get straight and breathing helps free your mind so you can meditate. I read the paperback book by Patanjali with the yoga sutras and understood a little, but it seemed complicated and did not really address the emotional part of connecting with God which was what I personally needed to hear.
The process prescribed by the saint, Patanjali, was as follows:
1. Yama
Yoga deals with human evolution. It starts with advice on harmonizing the external and internal life while living in society. It helps to create a harmonious and peaceful society.
There are five yamas – Satya (truthfulness), Ahimsa (non-violence, not hurting other beings physically or mentally), Asteya (non-stealing), Aparigraha (not taking more than what one needs or not accumulating beyond ones needs) and Brahmacharya (a balanced sexual life, meaning control over your senses and living without over-indulgence. It can also mean celibacy for renunciants and monks).
2. Niyama
Similarly, there are five Niyamas contributing to the personal mode of conduct. They are Saucha (cleanliness or personal hygiene, including mental purity), Santosa (means contentment), Tapas (self discipline), Swadhaya (means self-study, or studying the nature of one’s own mind and doing inquiry into one’s own reality) and Iswara Pranidhana meaning total acceptance of life, facing all life situations with equanimity.
3. Asana
The next step is called Asana or postures. Asana means a posture that is steady and comfortable. Asana is an essential step towards the higher practices of yoga. Asanas can be meditative poses aimed towards attaining strength, balance and steadiness. Apart from the spiritual benefits, each Asana can have particular health benefits too.
4. Pranayama
Pranayama means the regulation of breath. The breath and mind are closely related. If one can control the breath, one can control the mind. Pranayama gives steadiness and calmness to the mind. Our health improves, one gets clarity and experiences a sense of well being. Only a calm mind can go inwards. An agitated mind cannot be meditative.
5. Pratyahara
Pratyahara leads the mind inwards, preparing it for meditation. In pratyahara, the mind is withdrawn from the senses and the sense objects, yet remains fully aware of the inner processes.
6. Dharana
Dharana has to do with concentration. This means absorption. If the mind can be absorbed on an idea or an object, it is called dharana.
7. Dhyana
Prolonged period of dharana leads to Dhyana. This is real meditation. It is the absorption of the mind on one object, or idea, without distraction for a prolonged period of time. It is continuous and without break.
8. Samadhi
The last stage of Yoga is called Samadhi or super conscious awareness. As one proceeds on the path of dhyana or meditation, a point comes when one loses self-consciousness or the sense of ‘I’. Samadhi is the highest stage of self realization, the final goal.
Then, the Bhagavad Gita described four spiritual paths of karma-yoga, raja-yoga, jnana-yoga and the highest was described as bhakti yoga.
Karma-yoga, or the yoga of action, seeks to eradicate the ego. It is the ego, born of ignorance, that binds us to this world through attachment. Non-attachment to the results of action is the goal. Karma-yoga believes the ego is the sole problem. But when transformed through yoga, the same ego becomes a friend. The process is gradual, as with all the processes.
Raja-yoga seeks to attain the knowledge of the Self within. Since it is ignorance that binds the human soul to the world of dreams and desires, only Self-realization can dispel this ignorance. To attain Self-knowledge, raja-yoga asks the seeker to develop strong will power by the relentless practices of concentration and meditation on the Self, with the support of pranayama, or control of breath, asana, or control of posture, and an uncompromising adherence to austerity and self-control.
According to raja-yoga, eradication of the ego through karma-yoga is a long process, and most seekers do not have the patience to endure the sacrifice it calls for. Raja-yoga contends, the mind is generally too weak and perverted to follow the path of reason, or jnana-yoga. Impurities of the mind are too deeply imbedded and cannot be uprooted simply by reason.
Jnana-yoga is the path of knowledge. The darkness of ignorance can only be dispelled by the light of knowledge. It calls for the practice of discrimination between the real and the unreal, renunciation of all desires—both earthly and heavenly—mastery over the mind and senses, and an intense longing for Self-knowledge.
The mind does not give up its attachment to worldly pleasures unless it has tasted something greater and higher. Self-knowledge, according to jnana-yoga, is true liberation.
Bhakti Yoga is the path of devotion. This path of bhakti is more likened unto Christianity. While practicing devotion, one simultaneously does the practice of all the above, eradicating the ego, trying to understand the self within and acquiring real knowledge from the Vedas or from wherever God gives it.
Bhakti yoga is the practice of devotional service and concentrates on gradually attaining pure love in the heart, which is normally full of unwanted things. This devotional service is not only trying to serve God directly, but starts with serving God through helping others to understand this path as well as to help others by giving them spiritual food (food that has been offered to God, thus no karma is acquired). The philosophy is, if you do something just for yourself, you will enjoy or suffer the results of that activity, but if you do something for the pleasure of God, the only result will be your own enlightenment. Also, if you eat only for your own pleasure, you will get the karma from killing the food, plant or animal. If you eat food that is first offered to God, then there will be no karma because you are not acting only for your own pleasure.
This process is very gradual as well. We do not give up our desires instantly. How could we? But as we gradually experience the ecstasy and the natural high derived from Bhakti or devotional service, we lose the desire for lesser things.
This process is theoretical. I definitely experienced the bliss or I would not still be working on it, but I had not achieved the perfection of losing all material desires. I was working on being steady, number five. Amy was still up and down, up and down and up and down!
With all this information, I still needed more clarification and I finally received that from my Siksha Guru. This finally started to give me some real faith, unlike the faith from the beginning of my search. He spoke about the actual process of how one comes to the absolute truth gradually.
I was amazed! It made me feel I could actually have a chance to achieve the goal, whereas before, I thought it might be attainable for some, but certainly not for me.
Srila Narayan Maharaja quoted from Madhya Lila 23. 14-15
“In the beginning there must be faith. Then one becomes interested in associating with pure devotees. Thereafter one is initiated by the spiritual master and executes the regulative principles under his orders. Thus one is freed from all unwanted habits and becomes firmly fixed in devotional service. Then, one develops taste and attachment. This is the way of sādhana-bhakti, the execution of devotional service according to the regulative principles. Gradually emotions intensify, and finally there is an awakening of love. This is the gradual development of love of Godhead for the devotee interested in Krsna consciousness.”
There it was! There was my answer as to how, if ever, I would achieve the goal and it was described in nine steps. Srila Narayan Maharaja personally told me I needed to work on number five, firm faith or steadiness.
So, this was Bhakti Yoga. This was how I was going to fulfill my promise. I was in ecstasy just knowing the process and what stage I was in. Life was becoming promising and my doubts were gradually clearing. Bhakti yoga was for me!