Bhakti-Yoga: The Easy Path of Devotional Yoga: From the Depths of Illusion to Making Contact With God by Knapp Stephen

Author:Knapp, Stephen [Knapp, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-09-27T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Different Types of Love for God

When we begin reaching love for God in our practice of bhakti-yoga, we should understand that there are different kinds of love, which leads us to understand how there are different kinds of activities that we can engage in to express these various emotional feelings in our service to the Supreme Being.

This is described in the Caitanya-caritamrita (Adi-lila. 4.19, 21, 24-25, 27-28, 32): "In whatever transcendental mellow My devotee worships Me, I reciprocate with him. That is My natural behavior... If one cherishes pure loving devotion to Me, thinks of Me as his son, his friend or his beloved, or regarding himself as great and considering Me his equal or inferior [as one friend to another], I become subordinate to him... Mother sometimes binds Me as her son. She nourishes and protects Me, thinking Me utterly helpless. My friends climb on My shoulders in pure friendship, saying, 'What kind of big man are You? You and I are equal'... Taking these pure devotees with Me, I shall descend [into the material world] and sport in various wonderful ways, unknown even in Vaikuntha. I shall broadcast such pastimes by which even I am amazed... I shall taste the essence of all these rasas , and in this way I shall favor all the devotees."

In this way, Lord Krishna engages in spiritual loving exchanges in all kinds of rasas or relationships, just to accommodate the expressions of the innumerable pure devotees that live in the spiritual world. And from time to time, He brings some of these devotees with Him to display these many pastimes to the residents of the material worlds just to attract them to Him, as further described, "Then, by hearing about the pure love of the residents of Vraja, devotees will worship Me on the path of spontaneous love, abandoning all rituals of religiosity and fruitive activity." (Cc .Adi.4.33)

This is the process of bhakti-yoga, to go deeper than mere rituals, and for that, Krishna sometimes displays His personal pastimes in this material creation with His numerous pure devotees. Then as we hear of these pastimes of Krishna, we go deeper and deeper into the feelings of devotion, which turn into feelings of love. This love, as it becomes more spontaneous, develops into rasa , or feelings in a particular form of expression. These are basically categorized in four different forms, which then develop in more personal distinctions, based on the mood of the devotee's pure love for Krishna. These are described as servitude [dasya ], friendship [sakhya ], parental affection [vatsalya ], and conjugal love [shringara ]. These are the four main transcendental mellows [rasas ]. By the devotees who cherish these four mellows, Lord Krishna is subdued. (Cc .Adi.3.11)

There is a fifth mood of devotion called shanta-rasa , which means the mood of neutrality. This neutral stage is the feeling that God is great, but does not go much beyond this, nor displays loving exchanges like the other four rasas , which is what pleases Krishna the most.

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