Aim of Bhakti Yoga

  

For a Bhakta who wants to practise Bhakti yoga, is very important for him to understand the need and the aim, since these would strengthen his will for doing the same. Bhakti yoga seems to be very simple and easy to practise but for a person, who leads a hazy path, has to practise this yoga continuously till he reaches the realm of realization. Then after the continuous practise, there comes a time when he soon, reaches a point where pedantic and powerless reason is left far behind and the more direct perception comes on to the fore. Bhakti yoga is no merely a stage of emotionalism, but it is actually a thorough discipline and training of one's will and the mind, to initiate spiritual realization of god through intense love and affection for him. It is a means to acquire true knowledge of Reality, beginning from the ordinary form of idol worship till the highest form of cosmic realisation of a Bhaktas oneness with god.

This is a transition phase for the bhakta, since he is no longer the individual who reasons, believes, or argues but the one who perceives and senses the knowledge, which the otherwise normal person cannot. A bhakta literally sees and feels god and for him, this is more important than even moksha liberation. Thus, for such Bhaktas, God and the love of God form the highest and the only utility of human existence.

A Bhakta can practise Bhakti yoga only when he can discriminate, control his passions, practice this yoga with purity, sacrificial work, strength and also by suppressing his excessive joy but at the same time remaining cheerful as well. The meaning of discrimination or Viveka is, discriminating the pure food from the impure one, since amongst the other things the question of food has always been one of the most vital one with the Bhaktas. There are many materials in the human body, and for a healthy spiritual body, it is required for the materials to enter the body properly. The materials, received through the food into the body structure, determine the spiritual and mental constitution in the human systems; hence the food is of great importance.

However, the Discrimination of food is of secondary importance. Since, the very same concept is explained by Shankara in his Bhashya on the Upanishads in a different way, by giving an entirely different meaning to the word Ahara, translated generally as food. According to him, the knowledge of the sensations, such as sound etc., is gathered in for the enjoyment of the enjoyer; the purification of the knowledge, which gathers in the perception of the senses, is the purifying of the food. Purification of food refers to the acquiring of the knowledge of sensations untouched by the defects of attachment, aversion, and delusion; such is the meaning.

These two explanations are apparently conflicting, yet both are true and necessary. The manipulating and controlling of the mind are higher in their functions than the human body. But the control of the body is absolutely necessary to enable one to arrive at the control of the mind. The beginner, therefore, must pay particular attention to all such dietetic rules as instructed by his teachers; hence the discrimination in the choice of food is necessary for the attainment of a higher state of mental composition, which cannot be easily obtained otherwise.

After the food, it is very important for the individual to control his Passions. It is necessary for the religious culture to restrain the organs from going towards the objects of the senses, to control them and bring them under the guidance of the will. Then comes the practice of self-restraint and self-denial. Such all the immense possibilities of divine realisation in the soul cannot get actualized without struggle and without such practice on the part of the aspiring devotee. It is required for the mind to always think of the Lord. Though it might be a very difficult target to achieve in the beginning, but with every new effort, the power to do will surely grow stronger within a Bhakta and he will be compelled to achieve this aim.

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