What is devotion, and how do you practice Bhakti yoga?

Understanding the state of devotion is crucial to understanding the essence of Bhakti Yoga. Let’s examine the two.

You may have heard of somebody being ‘devoted to their job’ or their spouse or a certain movie star! In your idle moments, you may have wondered what this really means. Is it infatuation? Is it obsession? How is devotion different from love or worship?

Devotion (or ‘bhakti’) is an intangible concept that may take one many years to fully understand. Simply put, it is a state of mind that is driven by intense emotion. Human beings are driven by emotion in daily life. But the difference between emotions driving devotion and other emotions is that the former are pleasant. These pleasant emotions are intense enough to keep one awake at night, just like a person in love cannot sleep at night owing to thoughts of the beloved. Bhakti makes the entire world seem like a lovely place to be in, and life seems rosy and bright.

Uniting devotion with yoga

You have control over only four things in your life: your body, mind, energy and emotion. You can use your emotions to search for and find the ultimate truth in life. This is called Bhakti yoga.

Bhakti yoga is the path of devotion, and it converts unpleasant intense emotions into pleasant ones that light up one’s life. It can be explained in terms of a love affair in which one does not expect a favourable end result – if you fall in love with someone but do not expect them to reciprocate or marry you, but you still continue to love them with the same intensity, that is devotion. Another example is that of Radha’s devotion to Lord Krishna. She did not expect favour or commitment from the Lord, she was a married woman who did not have romantic illusions about her relationship with Krishna. Yet, her devotion to him was unabated.

In the same way, Bhakti yoga is like a love affair multiplied several times over. A person practicing it places their ultimate devotion in God or their Creator, and sends out enduring love towards the Lord. God’s way is the only way, God’s wish is their command. They surrender themselves to God’s will and go along with the rhythms of the universe on a constant path to reach God.

There is no room for expectation of reward in Bhakti yoga. Nor is this devotion an obsession. Over time, bhakti becomes more and more committed to God and His will. It means that the person is able to convert unpleasant, nasty emotions into pleasant emotions at will. It induces a slightly euphoric state that may seem like a trance to the rest of the world. However, one is not in any hypnotical trance, one is simply in abject surrender to the object of one’s devotion.