Bhakti Yoga

Bhakti yoga is an aggregate of methods for forming in oneself the emotional love for the Creator; it includes also ritual forms of worshiping Him. One should understand that realization of the goals of bhakti yoga is not possible without, first, the development of the organ of emotional love — the spiritual heart; and, second, in order to learn to love the Creator, one has to learn first to love His Creation.

The principle of bhakti — devotion-love for God — was first proclaimed by Krishna through the Bhagavad Gita.

In particular, Krishna said:

11:54. … Only love can contemplate Me in My innermost Essence and merge with Me!

9:27. Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you sacrifice or offer, whichever feat you perform… — do it for the sake of Me!

12:14. … Seeking unity with Me, resolutely cognizing the Atman, devoted the mind and consciousness to Me — such a loving Me disciple is dear to Me!

12:20. … All for whom I am the Supreme Goal… are dear to Me above all!

It is clear to everyone who has advanced already on the Path of spiritual development that without love for the Creator it is not possible to achieve the Highest Goal of human life: that is direct cognition of God in the aspect of the Creator and mergence with Him.

It is the emotions of love that help consciousnesses to become closer to each other and to unite with each other — consciousnesses of ordinary people and Those Perfect Consciousnesses that dwell in the Abode of the Creator.

So the task of every spiritual seeker is to develop love-aspiration for the Creator that can attract him or her to the Embrace of the main Beloved and can help to abandon all earthly attachments, all vices — so that there remain only the Creator and devotional service to Him.

In this way one can achieve disappearance of oneself — in Him. And then such a Perfect Soul acts from within Him, helping others who have not achieved the Highest Goal yet.

All who achieved the fullness of the Perfection were bhaktas of the Creator.

Let us note that Jesus Christ paid much attention to this.

For example, in the New Testament there are the following commandments:

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another!” (John 13:34).

“And above all things have fervent love for each other…” (1 Peter 4:8).

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God. The one who does not love has not known God, for God is Love” (1 John 4:7-8).

“We have to love one another… If we love one another, God dwells in us, and His perfect Love is in us” (1 John 4:11-12).

“God is Love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God — in him.” (1 John 4:16).

“Owe no one anything, except… love” (Rom 13:8).

“Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you…” (Matt 5:44).

“… If you love those who love you, what reward do you have?” (Matt 5:46).

“He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in darkness until now” (1 John 2:9).

“Let your love be without hypocrisy! Shrink from evil, cleave to good!

“Be brotherly loving one another!…” (Rom 12:9-10).

There are also methods developed in religious movements that contribute to the development of the emotions of love directed toward God.

For example, in Catholicism there are schemes of expressing gratitude to Jesus for the feat of His earthly life, compassionating Him with regard to His painful death on the cross.

There are also good Orthodox chorales.

There are meditations contributing to the development of exalted love for God practiced in some Protestant Churches.

There are also bhajans: short meditative formulas repeated many times in the form of chanting. Their purpose is to imprint in the consciousnesses of the participants the state of reverence, gratitude for God and to rid oneself of vices, to develop positive qualities in oneself.

Among bhajans one can mention mahamantra invented by Divine Chaitanya; it praises the Creator of the Teachings of bhakti yoga — Krishna. Mahamantra sounds as follows:

Hare Krishna, hare Krishna,

Krishna, Krishna — hare, hare!

Hare Rama, hare Rama,

Rama, Rama — hare, hare!

Its meaning is the following: praise to Krishna Omnipresent! (Rama means Omnipresent).

There are beautiful bhajans performed by Avatar of our days Sathya Sai Baba.

Also it is very important that there is a way to accelerate significantly the growth of the considered positive qualities by stimulating directly the development of the organ of emotional love — the spiritual heart — with the help of special esoteric techniques.

One of such techniques is Jesus Prayer — an attempt to invite Jesus into the spiritual heart by repeating frequently an appeal to Him: “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!…” In this way, one can invite Jesus to enter one’s chakra anahata from behind.

Then one has to grow oneself as a spiritual heart (with the help of the methods of raja yoga and buddhi yoga), which becomes more and more subtle, — in order to become capable of perceiving directly God.

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Bhakti Yoga