Bhakti Yoga
Bhakti yoga is the path of devotion, the method of attaining God through love. Most religions emphasize this spiritual path because it is the most natural. As with other yogas, the goal of bhakti yoga is to attain oneness with the Divine. The bhakta attains this through the force of love, that most powerful and irresistible of emotions.
Love makes us forget ourselves. The ego loosens its grip as we think of our beloved’s welfare more than our own. Love gives us concentration: even against our will, we constantly remember the object of our love. In an easy and totally painless way, love creates the preconditions necessary for a fruitful spiritual life.
Our love for others becomes unselfish and motiveless when we are able to encounter divinity in them.
Many spiritual teachers have recommended adopting a particular devotional attitude towards God: thinking of God as our Father or Mother or Friend or Child or Beloved. The determining factor here is, which attitude feels the most natural to me and which attitude brings me closest to God?
