Page 161 - Wisdom Unfurled

the devotional element. Most persons who enter the mansion of spirituality have but done so through the door of religion. The Master says characteristically that end of religion is the beginning of spirituality. Devotion relates to the sphere of sentiments, emotions and feelings and hence is concerned predominantly with the vital plane. All of us know through experience that we can never achieve anything in life without a passionate attachment towards it which alone makes it possible for us to put in determined efforts for its successful attainment. Naturally devotion is rooted in the heart whereas thought and intellection (usually understood as the ‘mind’) are connected to the brain. It has been held by most sages that the path of yoga demanding control and regulation of the senses and the mind is more suited to the ascetic way of life and quite difficult to follow for ordinary householders. Hence the path of devotion is recommended for them as it is possible to transmute and sublimate the natural human feelings of love and attachment by turning them towards the Divine Supreme and win His grace through which the most desired objective, namely, union with Him could be achieved relatively easily.
Tradition on Bhakti or Devotion
The concern with the sentiment of devotion to the Supreme Being is as old as the Vedas themselves in the Indian tradition. The Rig veda samhita is full of it although at later times it even the purely devotional hymns have been adapted for ritualistic use and propitiatory rites. Though the main theme of the Upanishads has been to get at the knowledge of Brahman, the path of devotion is discernible even in the oldest Upanishads, the Brihadaranyaka and the Chandogya. The doctrine of grace is expressed in the Katha and the Kausitaki while the Swetasvatara teaches a full-fledged devotional attitude and discipline, along with the conception of a deity who can be communed with and prayed to and who responds to such prayers, going to the extent of saying that the truths of the Upanishads will fructify as realization only to those aspirants having supreme devotion to God and his Guru. The Puranas in general and the Bhagavataand the Vishnu Purana more specifically, supplement this Vedic development with highly personalized conceptions of Deity suited for purely devotional purposes without losing the link with the Upanishads and to elaborate the devotional sadhanas into a highly specialized system.
This has resulted in the three fold ways of attaining to God realization or God-union, namely karma, jnana and bhakti yogas, namely the paths of action, knowledge and devotion. Of these the bhakti yoga has been declared by the sages of yore to have special significance to the hapless mortals with weak constitution and reduced longevity, plagued by fear, insecurity, disease