All those inclined to believe in God as Love come to experience expansions of their heart’s growth and personal capacity to love, rather than allowing a contraction of feeling.

But as we know, love is a very real primal emotional force and feeling that  has to be cultivated and directed into the various avenues of personal life as we see is appropriate, as well as existing as a general state or attitude.

Although the example of the traditional Bhakti is often used as a point of reference in Yoga, it is in fact the universal path we humans all traverse in seeking spiritual realities beyond the material world. We all dream of a greater and more beautiful life -a world that is at peace and we are loved.

World values fall short of reflecting our aspirations for noble human lifestyles. Yet in the freedom of each individual and because of our free will, we can if we wish, succeed in fulfilling our human potential for expressing goodness, peace and love.

Beyond the limitations that religions and dogma impose we all share the  the heart of all wisdom teachings and agree that love is the vital key and common inspiration – for our personal life, for that of the community and for our spiritual evolution as a civilization.

But we must feel love and as our emotions and feelings grow and extend outside the limitations of our personal ego, we gradually move into closer association with the Creator of all Love… to realize and experience Universal Love.

Is it that simple?

Rabindranath Tagore, the revered Indian Poet, was a Bhakti who writes of the Beloved as God in his ‘GITANJALI’  ………

” Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing that thy living touch is upon all my limbs.

I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts, knowing that thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind.

I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower. Knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inner-most shrine of my heart.

And it shall be my endeavour to reveal thee in my actions, knowing it is thy power gives me strength to act.”

Be still.

Pour your thought from the head down into the region of the heart.

From thinking love, begin to feel Love and radiate your Love – to things, creatures, to friends and to those in need and to Nature itself.  Love has no limits…

Having emptied our hearts in lovingness…again Be Still ….

To feel the incoming tide of Universal love drawn to replenish us!

Whether we seek for relief from pain and suffering, or for courage to melt our fears, or for enlightenment and understanding, or look towards a recipient for our aspiration and devotion, we turn to prayer.

Although it is generally formulated in religious observances and rituals, it is something that arises in us spontaneously from our hearts and most intensely when we feel the need for a power we cannot generate ourselves when seeking to relieve the pain of another.

Prayers can sometimes be very lengthy, sometimes poetic, brief or even reduced to a condensed mantric form. As prayer represents our individual link and communication with the Divine, it is essentially personal and considered a private experience other than in communal prayer forms.

Due to the extensive research of the scholar Manly Palmer Hall and others, we have some refreshing translations of ancient texts that are not limited to any religious doctrines. The following is a beautiful example that may help to balance up what seem to be gaps in the traditional classical Christian prayer form.

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JESUS’S INSTRUCTION FOR PRAYER

This excerpt from the ancient scroll “The Essene Gospel of Peace”, said to have been the writing of Jesus as translated from the parchment by Manly Palmer Hall being an instruction to His followers regarding prayer.

“And pray every day to your Heavenly Father and Earthly Mother, that your soul become as perfect as your Heavenly Father’s holy spirit is perfect, and that your body become as perfect as the body of your Earthly Mother is perfect. For if you understand, feel, and do the commandments then all for which you pray to your Heavenly Father and your Earthy Mother will be given you. For the wisdom, the love, and the power of God are above you.

“After this manner, therefore pray to hour Heavenly Father: Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory for ever. Amen.

“And after this manner pray to your Earthly mother: Our Mother which art upon earth, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, and thy will be done in us, as it is in thee. As thou sendest every day thy angels, send them to us also. Forgive us our sins, as we atone all our sins against thee. And lead us not into sickness, but deliver us from all evil, for thine is the earth, the body and the health. Amen”

It is not that we need more knowledge about the mind as much as finding how to construct a life- saving bridge from our minds to the knowledge deep in our hearts.

Stranded on the shores of knowledge of the intellect alone, we eventually find ourselves lonely and devoid of real life satisfaction and experience regardless of our accumulation of information.

If we should choose to depend upon our emotions and consciousness of our hearts alone, we soon learn that we need the mind to channel our affections and sympathies appropriately.

We may pay lip service to the importance of the heart and soul but are inconsistent in our references and often suffer some confusion in identifying how to apply this aspect of our nature.

It is not by alternating between our thought activity and our emotional states but by a blending.   We come to realize that it is only the harmonious cooperation between our minds and hearts that will produce the faculty we should cherish – that of ‘common sense’ where the two spheres are blended.

Common sense is capable of serving us as a good friend and guide through the maze of events and circumstances of our lives and throughout its duration.

There are frequent times in our lives when we place more emphasis upon either mental pursuits or emotional needs and perhaps are left wondering which sphere of our intelligence we should listen to – our thoughts or our feelings. It is likely that there are times where our mind says one thing and our emotions another and we must make choices.

In this, it may help to recall that the knowledge of the mind is ever active, changing and growing in our search for truth.

The knowledge of the heart, where the deeper knowledge of life experiences and wisdom resides in stillness is related to our enduring, immortal soul and our capacity to love.

Bhakti Yoga accents Love as Raja Yoga accents Truth. We need them to blend.

Love exists as a spark of the Divine Conductor of Life that commands the heart to beat.

Love and Life are synonymous in one who seeks to shine soft and warm whilst radiating energy and well being to all.

Having known how the mind can lead one astray the Bhakti knows and has faith to trust the heart.

It is within the heart that the secrets of life reside only awaiting our discovery of them.

There it is that Love grows and expands ultimately to embrace the Universe as the soul’s Beloved.

Here is love experienced beyond duality – beyond all differences of personality, mind or any individual thought…. a state of pure Being.

It is the growth of Love that leads us to experience love beyond previous experience, a total feeling of the soul that surrenders to the inpouring of spirit – Divine Love.

It is this that allows the most powerful and yet simplest realization to occur as our consciousness knows and feels identified as a spark of the One Web of Light that creates the spiritual realm and where we arrive at the truth of the teaching that indeed All Life is One.

There are many ways we express our emotional nature and particularly our devotional capacity to give our deeper feelings – whether to another person, to our work, to a cause for others or through an artform.

One avenue that is personally satisfying and also can give pleasure to onlookers, is the art of sacred dance that has had a long tradition through human civilization and has been associated with the sacred spiritual rites and culture within the protection of the temple structure of the priesthood.

The customs are seldom retained or witnessed in our modern lifestyle. Certainly the sacred dance has been returned to its place in the Indian temples and lifted out of association with mere sensuous entertainment. Here the religious stories and legends find an attractive outlet as dance and drama are conjoined.

Dance is not a traditional Christian expression of spiritual feelings. Many people in western countries and cultures are therefore deprived of an outlet for refined emotions. Many take the only avenue available for movement and dance and this is through popular loud and primitive harsh strident sounds and savage energies focused upon heavy rhythms that drug the mind and senses.

The devotional rather than fundamental emotional influence are however evident in the classical ballet that generally is interpreting classical harmonies and beautiful music. This is a very different world and our wonderful dancers have developed techniques and thrilled us with new awareness of the body as an instrument of expression.

However, all art must be associated with higher inspiration and a spiritual source in order to express beauty truth, love and wonderment of life that must surely be the supreme goal.

As the happiness of the soul can find release through beautiful music and song, or pure visual beauty finds expression on canvas, so we can develop a language all of our own, and move to harmonious music, release our inner beauty and harmony, strengthening our goodness and love for life.  This is sometimes the ideal choice for those who identify with the heart and mind of a Bhakti.

The Bhakti approaches spirituality along what is sometimes seen as the simplest path but which, in effect, is one of the most difficult. It requires selfless love and a devotional attitude that is sufficient to overcome all life’s obstacles – the path that Jesus and other great teachers have indicated as ‘the Way.’

The Bhakti loves. He practises expanding that emotion from the limited and personal feelings of the heart, to the limitless expanses of universal love for all things. To such a person Love and God are synonymous. Not only does love become the most intense emotion, but love and loving kindness dictate his day- to- day activities, his moods, his goals, and provides the source of his inspiration.

To develop greater love capacity is one thing, but to have the dedication, the wisdom and the appropriate expression of that love, is more difficult. All human experiences of the heart and all human emotions present us with many emotional dilemmas, many of which indicate the difference, and sometimes the chasm, between the ideal and the material worlds.

There are many types of human love, such as the love that will cause valiant deeds or displays courage in protecting another –the love that ensures a patient and reliable friendship – the love that is intellectually exciting in a meeting of minds – love that is sympathetic and healing, forgiving – love that is commanding and demanding – love that is based on sharing – love that is passionate, intense – love that focuses on the good of society – love that is quiet and devotional.

However, the love of the Bhakti is above and beyond any expectation of a human recipient – it is an emotion which embraces admiration, expectation, and spiritual devotion often first directed to the Master or Guru but which intensifies as a religious fervour and love for God.

We all seek to absorb and identify with the object of our love and to feel at one with the beloved. To the Bhakti, God is the ultimate Beloved. Expressions of love, whether in song, dance or written prose although seeming to refer to human, romantic love, are addressed to God. Love is seen as the magical key to spiritual life. To discover that God resides in the Heart is to reach the “Mecca” of the devotee – just as to realise God in the Mind is the diamond treasure of the Raja Yogi.

The spiritual devotee possesses a rare fullness of heart and spiritual passion directed towards God likened to the romance of the soul seeking union or marriage with the Creator. In Christian terms it is known as the ‘Mystic Marriage’.

We may not all understand the potential satisfaction of human emotions of love being fulfilled in the manner of the spiritual devotee, but we can all agree upon the very real need for our emotions to be cultivated and exercised in such a way that loving kindness dominates the lesser feelings of which we are capable.

Love is the cohesive and most central element in life. It is the most important factor in human life as it is in the invisible realms of the great Universe. Love is represented as the special love feeling born in the human heart. It is known as the law of attraction and of unification and can be observed in the order and design that patterns the Universe.

To the yogi, love is the ethereal but powerful fifth element. To the Bhakti yogi it motivates everything in his life as he attempts to express it in everything that is undertaken. It is exemplified in the love and devotion that permeates his lifestyle.

The Bhakti practises lovingness. His affection begins with appreciation of the agencies of nature that allow his body to function healthily and freely. It is expressed in his feeling of fondness in greeting companions, family and all his contacts with people, animals and living things. It is expressed in his early morning exercises and prayers, plans and purposes and overflows as he greets the energies in his garden or in nature outside.

He loves order and ritual as nature dictates and loves the sunrises, and the sunsets. He seeks to reflect nature’s laws through his ethics and in the simplicity and sincerity of a simple lifestyle.

He loves the ones closest to him but extends his heart further in respect and honour of the greatest human beings who have lived and who live still as he holds a special love and devotion towards his Master, his Guru.

The Bhakti loves human nature, and great human nature but it is devotion to the Creator that inspires him. He loves noble souls and spiritual leaders yet seeks to love the unattractive souls as he wishes to embrace all humanity if he aspires to grow towards the great intelligence and the great heart of the cosmos.

He loves the natural environment as representing the visible form, colour and spirit of Nature seeing it as do the poets, as “the garment of God.” He loves natural kingdoms of the earth – insects, animals, trees, plants, birds & fish as he loves the seemingly inanimate minerals, rocks and gems.

He loves the oceans and the fish and creatures of sea as he loves the mysteries of life as yet undiscovered in the deep.

He practises love as a harmony and as an embrace of his soul.

He radiates loving kindness. He feels loving and kind.

He is motivated by love.

He believes in goodness and that God is Love.

Prayer, aspiration and spiritual devotion are natural to the Bhakti.