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What is Bhakti-Yoga?

The Path of Love
The soul’s nature is to seek real freedom, to hanker for lasting pleasure. We seek satisfaction and happiness in the world around us, but our experiences over time expose the futility of such ephemeral pleasure. Enlightened souls, who are full of compassion, describe the reality of a permanent bliss based on a lasting spiritual existence. Their words provide us with an intimate insight into this divine reality, which is replete with variety, form, qualities and exquisite lustrous personalities. They invite us to participate in the sweetness of ever-increasing love, or prema, and direct us to that ultimate destination, which is achieved by attaining a spiritual perfection that they themselves possess. What they describe is called the path of love, distinct among the philosophies of India as bhakti-yoga, or devotion to God.

The Great Master
Bhakti-yoga is the essence of the Vedas (India’s vast body of ancient Sanskrit scriptures; veda means “knowledge”). It is the path that all paths ultimately lead to since it is the most pure, pristine condition of the heart. Although bhakti-yoga has been practiced since time immemorial, it underwent a renaissance five hundred years ago in Bengal, coinciding with Europe’s own Renaissance period.

The leading figure and reformer of this bhakti movement was Shri Krishna Chaitanya, also known as Mahaprabhu, “the great master”. Shri Chaitanya is famous as one of the most extraordinary saints to have appeared in this world, but more importantly, He is revered as an avatar, an incarnation of God, Sri Krishna, who comes to this world for a specific mission. [The Vedic scriptures had long predicted His birth. He appeared as a great devotee of the Lord to illuminate the path of pure devotional service specifically through chanting of the holy names of God. He laid the foundation of a universal religion for all humankind, regardless of distinction.]

The Form of Beauty
Shri Chaitanya preached the message of unconditional love, the constitutional nature of the soul. According to the Vedic scriptures, we, as souls are qualitatively one with God. The individual soul is non-different from Him, being composed of spirit. Quantitatively, however, the soul is substantially different from Him. God is infinite, whereas the soul is infinitesimal. God is analogously compared to the sun, while we are compared to the atomic particles of light that make up the sun’s rays. In simple terms, in the far distant past, each of us had a chance to serve God in the spiritual world, but instead chose to taste a material existence. Subsequently we exist in the illusion that we are separate from God. This choice has bound us to matter and to the cycle of birth and death, in which we futilely attempt, life after life, to find lasting happiness in a transient world.

Thus deluded by the material energy we desire to enjoy the world, and this causes us to act within it. By our actions we create reactions, which oblige us to perform yet more action and consequently receive more reaction. In Sanskrit, this cycle of action and reaction is called karma. Our karma binds us further in a web of self-delusion and to the futile hope of finding permanent pleasure in temporary material pursuits. The more we try to find a means in this world to free ourselves from suffering, the more karmic reaction we create.

Shri Chaitanya taught that only by rediscovering our loving relationship with God, that Supreme Personality who is worthy of our love, can we find freedom from suffering and attain ultimate, unending fulfillment.

But how? How can the soul rediscover its relationship with a mysterious and unknown God? Shri Chaitanya would refer to numerous Vedic descriptions of God’s name, qualities, forms and pastimes. There, God’s attributes are described in great detail – His unparalleled youthful beauty, His infinite strength, His omniscient wisdom, His supreme wealth and opulence, His incomparable fame and His complete renunciation and detachment.

Fundamental to Shri Chaitanya’s teachings was His exposition on the ultimate identity of God as a gentle, loving, blissful cowherd boy, Shri Krishna, the perfection of eternal youth. He also revealed the unlimited variety of four loving relationships which His intimate associates relish with Him, either in a mood of service, friendship, parental affection or conjugal affection – divine, romantic heroism. Most importantly Shri Chaitanya taught how by emulating the spirit of these relationships in our meditation, we can establish our own relationship with the ultimate form of Godhead, Shri Krishna the beautiful.

Chanting of the Holy Names
Shri Chaitanya is famous for the movement He started based on chanting the Names of God (nam-sankirtan). He taught that in the current age of Kali, in which people are busy, distracted, harassed and not inclined to spirituality, nam-sankirtan is most simple and effective way to revive one’s spiritual consciousness. He and His followers made famous the Hare Krishna mantra – Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare - chanting it congregationally in public, sometimes with hundreds of clay drums and hand-symbols, as well as chanting for private meditation.

Disciplic Line of Spiritual Masters
It is common knowledge that spiritual traditions are susceptible to the degenerating influence of time. It is therefore not surprising to find pure and valid traditions corrupted by self-interested parties. Often the saints’ sublime poetically simple teachings become distorted, misinterpreted and ultimately rejected. There are four main philosophical lineages whose traditions ensure the integrity of their teachings. Each has an unbroken chain of self-realised masters who have passed their knowledge on to their qualified disciples. This is known as the guru-parampara. As a result the philosophy remains unchanged and kept alive for future generations.

- Excerpts from the “School of Braja” book accompanying the “School of Braja” CD of Indian Devotional Music.