Bhakti Yoga -1

I am restarting my Notes after a bit of a break…  and start blogging again…  I thank you for your patience since you have not unsubscribed. 🙂 Let us start continuing Bhagavad Gita topics.

Today we talk about Bhakti yoga, Bhakti yoga needs no explanation as it’s ingrained in our culture… According to Bhagavad Gita (7.16), 4 types of individuals reach out to GOD, and hence technically they all are ‘Bhaktas’ and have already started the journey on the path of bhakti yoga. They are – the distressed, the seeker of knowledge, the seeker of status, growth and wealth, and the one established in wisdom.

But though they are on the path, their ‘bhakti’ or ‘methods of reaching out to GOD’ in terms of their action/attitude/intent needs a bit of correction for their efforts to yield results….

To understand what is right, let us look at ‘the imperfect ‘ things we usually do…

We do “give-take” transactions and call it bhakti. We go to God and say, you do X, then I will do Y. You solve this problem; I will offer a nariyal (coconut) or donate at a temple… and we very smartly even evaluate the effectiveness of a deity / temple in solving our problems.…this is natural when one is distressed.

  • Even this can be bhakti, just need to understand that God helps those who help themselves…

We behave as if we are the centre of the universe and expect that the best of everything should come to us (whether we deserve it or not). Here, we go to GOD with a wish list / “softly worded instructions” about what GOD should do…  We are so obsessed with our desires /wants, that GOD is almost treated as a service provider whom we are ‘hiring’ 😊…this is natural when one is needy or greedy about social or material growth.

  • Even this can be bhakti, just need to realize our humbling minuscule existence.

We do faith shopping, we keep jumping from deity to deity – temple to temple – based on our changing needs and wants, we find it right and call it our discriminative wisdom. Though the ‘nameless and formless’ divine is just ONE, and that ONE manifests in different ‘names and forms’, we think we are choosing something different… by becoming jumping jacks, we don’t reach anywhere and don’t gain anything …it’s like we always remain thirsty, because we keep looking at different bottles instead of drinking the water – though all bottles carry the same water…This is natural for the over-curious without the foundation or guidance.

  • Even this can be bhakti, just need to develop real deeper understanding and be anchored…

Blaming God is our favourite form of bhakti – With self-obsession, arrogance and short-sightedness, we continue to feel pain, frustration and depression, and very conveniently we overlook our own shortcomings, errors (our karmas) and blame God for being unfair and unreasonable for not ‘doing HIS job’ of preventing difficulties in our lives. We call our problems and difficulties a failure of GOD…This is natural for desperate individuals with a lack of knowledge…

  • Even this can be bhakti, just need to develop understanding about how laws of karma operate and work on one’s own conduct and paatrata…

Showing off loudly to be noticed by God – ‘show off’ and demonstration of one’s bhakti or intention to reach out to God done very loudly, decoratively, dramatically by public display of one’s intentions and skills, is what we call bhakti. We think if we irritate GOD with our noise, he may notice us faster…😊…This is natural for over-enthusiastic and impatiently enthusiastic individuals….

  • Even this can be bhakti, just need to realize that the ‘source’ one is reaching out to is right inside oneself and can best be connected in silence…

A ‘Bhakta’ with all above imperfections is still much better than other self-obsessed, materialistic disbelievers who do not even do any of these and haven’t started on the right path of reaching out to GOD at all (7.15), so though these imperfections look negative on the face of it, it’s in fact a positive sign that one is already on the path of bhakti yoga…

Now, how to do and what to do, to develop on the path of bhakti yoga? Who is actually a bhakta?

Well, that would be the next page in my NOTES DIARY. Next blog article… Stay tuned.