Bhakthi Yoga : The Path of Love

Perfection Man’s emotion is the expression of a force within, which is perfection. Love is the positive expression of that force. By purifying the innate emotion of love within man, his inner perfection may be realized.

THAT is the proposition of bahkti yoga. The highest goal in bhakti yoga is infinite love, or God. Bhakti yoga regards man’s natural power of love as a manifestation of the Divine within and teaches him to purify that love until it becomes omnipotent. By perfecting, magnifying, and extending the spark of love we have within us, we are enabled to realize God, who is infinite love. God is love; love is God. Manifestation appears out of love, is held in shape by love, and goes back to love again.

Devotion to God, to a higher, superhuman power, has always stirred the heart of man. The Vedas and other ancient scriptures of the world abound in beautiful sentiments, sometimes expressed in hymns which man poured out from the depths of his heart in adoration of , in awe of, and reverence for, a Being manifesting greater power than himself. In India, this primary urge to revere and to love a higher power was developed into a scientific procedure, a systematic method to gain realization, called bhakti yoga. Therefore, bhakti yoga teaches the science and art of attaining perfection through the purification of man’s innate love. It is science that teaches you to know; art that teaches you to do. All emotion may be resolved into love. Love is the positive expression of that mighty force which is perfection. The negative reactions are anger, hatred, and so on. Instances of great heroes cherishing intense antipathy towards God, yet even then attaining. Him, have been cited in bhakti literature. But, in all such cases, the ego-consciousness must be absorbed in the Ideal. In fact, it is the conclusion of bhakti yoga that any primary emotion, consistently cherished and intensified and carried to its logical conclusion, unfolds the inner, potential perfection in man.

The God of bhakti is identical with the Brahman of the Vedanta – one, universal, and Infinite. But a bhakta, in order to cultivate his love, projects out of his consciousness a concrete, lovable God of his adoration, finite in nature, and calls it his Ishtam. Love is the recognition of one’s higher Ideal, we superimpose that on an object and love that object. When the highest Ideal, the higher Self, is projected and objectified in the form of a personal spiritual Ideal, it is called the Ishtam. Supreme devotion to God, conceived as one’s Ishtam, is what it means by bhakti. Any object on which one exercises extreme love can be an instrument. But it is preferable to have a transcendental Being as the object of adoration.

A bhakta is taught to accept the personal Ideal, his Ishtam, and to love that Ideal until it absorbs his whole being. Hence, a bhakta’s God, although a personal Deity or conception, is not an anthropomorphic conception of God. The theory of bhakti recognizes the psychological fact that in order to direct and cultivate his love, man needs an object in which to find manifest the highest ideal of his adoration. A bhakta makes God “in his own image,” insofar as his Ishtam is a projection from within. It is his own private and relative interpretation of the universal Reality. Therefore, it is not to be discussed with or imposed upon others. The Ishtam is “chiseled” out of the huge God of philosophy. The “stuff” is the same; you may make it any shape or size. There can be as many Ishtams as there are people. They are all personal readings of the Impersonal. No need to quarrel about the personal conception of God. I make my God and you make yours! I have not exhausted the “stuff” out of which gods are made. That is Infinite.

Let us take an example. A woman has four relatives : a father, a brother, a son, and a husband. Although she is one, she appears differently to each of these persons. She has a different relationship with each, since each regards her in a different way. And the woman? She is all those things for which she is loved. Realizing that each man has the right to his own conviction, hold firmly to your own. Hold firmly to your own but be ready to say, “yes” to everyone. This tolerance of other displayed by the people of India is one reason why the Christian missionaries have not made more converts. The thirty-two-million “gods and goddesses” of India are Ishtams, which the people have gradually come to accept recognizing that each is a correct conception. The theory of Ishtam gives us latitude, gives us tolerance. Read Next