Bhakti Yoga – The path of Devotion
Bhakti Yoga tells us that love is the most natural & basic instinct of life. In its purest form, it is Cosmo centric. But when polluted and perverted by self-love, it becomes egocentric.
The ego blocks the free flow of love toward all beings and things equally. In Bhakti Yoga Love, the lover and the beloved become one.
The basic obstacles in the path of Bhakti Yoga are as follows:
1. Bad company 👉 Bad company arises all the dormant passions of one’s mind.
2. Idle gossip 👉 By dwelling on the shortcomings of others, yogi themselves become infected of those shortcomings.
3. Dogmatism 👉 A yogi often becomes dogmatic and he wrongly justifies that dogmatism as love for chosen ideal
4. Emotionalism 👉 Unless one emotions are tempered by reason, they are obstacles.
5. Lack of spirituality 👉 Seekers lacking in the chosen ideal inevitably find meditation difficult.
6. Dullness 👉 Lapsing into dullness and inertia, seekers often become irregular in their practice.
7. Gullibility 👉 Yogis develop an aversion towards reason & discrimination & fall victim to gullibility
8. Fastidiousness & Ostentation 👉 Yogis sometimes instead of keeping their minds busy with meditation, they often busy themselves with non-essential details.
The ways to overcome these obstacles respectively are as follows:
1. Maintaining a meditative state, repeat god’s name
2. Cultivate the habit of seeing the good qualities of a person
3. Do not keep hatred to other religions
4. Control emotion with help of reason & discrimination
5. Remain faithful & steadfast to your path
6. Be alert to avoid becoming deluded
7. Study the scriptures & self-analysis
9. The deepest the seeker’s love for God the lesser the outer display for spiritual emotions