Advanced Course in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism by Yogi Ramacharaka

Author:Yogi Ramacharaka
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Published: 2010-10-26T21:11:45.195000+00:00

Lesson 7.Bhakti Yoga.

As we have stated in previous lessons, the Yogi Philosophy is divided into several branches or forms, each specially adapted to the requirements of certain classes of students. And yet, each path leads to the same end—unfoldment, development, and growth. The man who wishes to grow by force of will, or by the steady pressure of the mind upon the sheaths enfolding the Higher Self, will be attracted to Raja Yoga. Another who wishes to grow by knowing—by studying the Riddle of the Universe, and by an intellectual comprehension of the principles underlying Life, naturally is attracted toward Gnani Yoga. A third whose “religious nature” is largely developed, prefers to grow into an understanding and union with the Absolute, by the power of Love—by the inspiration that comes from the love of some conception of God, and some form of worship that may accompany that conception of Deity. Such an one is a follower of Bhakti Yoga.

Of course one may be an ardent Raja Yogi, or a learned Gnani Yogi, and at the same time be filled with such a reverence and love of the Absolute that he is an advanced Bhakti Yogi. In fact, we fail to see how one may avoid being a Bhakti Yogi, if he studies any branch of Yoga. To know God is to love Him, and the more we know of Him, the more we must love Him. And, likewise, to know ourselves is to love God, for we perceive our relationship with Him. And the more we develop ourselves, the more we find ourselves filled with a love of the Absolute.

Bhakti Yoga supplies the craving of the human heart for the love for, and of, the Absolute, which craving manifests itself in what we call the “religious instinct”—the instinct of worship. All men have this instinct, manifested in various forms. Even those who style themselves “freethinkers,” “agnostics,” as well as those who deny the existence of God at all, and who accept the intellectual conceptions of the materialists, feel this instinctive urge, and manifest it in the love of “Nature,” or Art, or Music, little dreaming that in so doing they are still loving and practically worshiping some of the manifestations of the God they deny.

But when we say that Bhakti Yoga is the science of the Love of God, we do not mean that it is a science which separates those who love and worship some certain conceptions of Deity, from others who may love and worship certain other conceptions of Deity. On the contrary, the true Bhakti Yogi recognizes that the love and worship of any conception of Deity is a form of Bhakti Yoga. To the Bhakti Yogi all men are worshipers of the Absolute—the Center of Life—Spirit—God. Notwithstanding the crude and barbarous conception of Deity the ignorant savage may have, the Bhakti Yogi sees that that man is worshiping and loving the highest conception of Deity possible to him in his undeveloped state, and that he is doing the best he can.

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