Bhakti, the way of devotion

The teaching

As the way of devotion in the Gita, the Bhagavata and the poet-saints teaches it.

The path of love in the Gita

In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna sets three paths before Arjuna, knowledge, action and devotion, and in its twelfth chapter he says that those who fix their minds on him with love and faith are the most perfect in yoga, since the way of the formless is hard for embodied beings. Whoever offers him with love a leaf, a flower, a fruit or a little water, he accepts it, because it is offered with love. To those who worship him alone, ever devoted, he brings what they lack and keeps safe what they have.

Whatever their birth, he says, all who take refuge in him reach the highest goal. And at the end: fix your mind on me, be devoted to me, worship me, bow to me, and to me you shall come; I promise you truly, for you are dear to me.

The five loves

The devotional schools, the Bengal tradition of Chaitanya above all, describe the ways a soul can love God, each with its models. In peace, shanta, the devotee rests in God's greatness. As a servant, dasya, one serves a master, as Hanuman serves Rama. As a friend, sakhya, one plays and talks with God as with an equal, as the cowherd boys with Krishna, or Arjuna with his charioteer. As a parent, vatsalya, one cares for God as for a child, as Yashoda for the infant Krishna. As a lover, madhurya, one gives oneself wholly, as the cowherd women of Vraja, and above all Radha, gave themselves to Krishna. Each later love, the teachers say, holds the earlier ones within it.

The nine forms of devotion

In the Bhagavata Purana the boy Prahlada names nine forms of devotion: hearing of God's names and deeds; singing them; remembering God; serving at God's feet; worship before the sacred image; bowing in prayer; servitude; friendship; and the offering of oneself entirely. A devotee may live by one of them or by all. The Bhagavata gives saints for each, and Prahlada himself is its model of a devotion that holds firm under every threat.

Supreme love

The Narada Bhakti Sutra defines bhakti in two short lines: it is supreme love for God, and its nature is nectar. Gaining it, a person becomes perfect, immortal and content; wants nothing, grieves for nothing, hates nothing, delights in nothing else, and strives for no gain of their own. Its model is the love of the cowherd women of Vraja for Krishna, a love that forgot itself entirely in him.

With form and without

The poet-saints sing to God in two ways. Saguna bhakti loves God with qualities and form: Krishna the cowherd, Rama the king, Shiva the lord of the dance, the Goddess. Tulsidas, Surdas and Mirabai sang in this way. Nirguna bhakti loves the God beyond all form, met in the heart and in the name: Kabir, Ravidas and Guru Nanak sang in this way, and the Sikh tradition grew from it. In a song of Kabir, God asks the seeker where they are searching, since God is not in temple or mosque, not in the Kaaba or on Kailash, not in rites or in renunciation, but right beside them.

The monkey and the kitten

How much does the devotee do, and how much does grace? The followers of Ramanuja divided over it, and their two answers became a pair of images. The northern school holds the way of the monkey: the baby monkey clings to its mother as she leaps, so the soul must hold on to God with effort. The southern school holds the way of the kitten: the mother cat picks up her kitten by the scruff and carries it, so the soul need only surrender, and grace does the rest. Both teach prapatti, taking refuge, and both say that God's love comes first.

The name

Many schools hold that God and God's name are not two, so that to sing the name is to meet the one named. Chaitanya gave his followers a verse on how to sing it: humbler than a blade of grass in the street, more patient than a tree, wanting no honour for oneself and giving honour to all, one should sing the name of Hari always. The name is repeated on a string of beads and sung together in kirtan, and Chaitanya taught that in this age it is the surest way of all.

Love in separation

Bhakti knows the pain of absence as one of love's deepest forms, viraha, longing in separation. When Krishna leaves Vraja for Mathura, the grief of the cowherd women becomes the theme of countless songs, and the poets teach that longing for God is itself a way of being with God. Mirabai sings of waiting through the night for her dark lord, the Mountain Lifter, and signs her songs as the servant of Giridhar Nagar. In the Tamil south the poet Andal, who loved Vishnu as a bride, left the thirty verses of the Tiruppavai, still sung each winter at dawn in the month of Margazhi.

The body as temple

Not every devotee builds or visits temples. Basavanna, the Kannada poet of Shiva, set the inner shrine against the outer: the rich build temples for Shiva, but a poor man has only himself, so his legs are the pillars, his body the shrine and his head the golden dome; and what is built will fall, while what moves and lives remains. The saints of every region say the same in their own words: love is the worship, and the heart is where God lives.

The guru and the goal

Devotion is learned from a teacher, a guru, who gives the name and guides its practice, and the Gita says to learn by humble reverence, by questioning and by service, from those who have seen the truth. The goal the devotees name is not always freedom. The Bengal school calls pure love, prema, a fifth aim of life beyond the four that Hindus count, duty, wealth, pleasure and liberation, and the Bhagavata tells of devotees who would refuse even liberation if it meant they could no longer serve.