The Bhakta’s Daily Practice – Br. Shankara

Sunday, January 5, 2014

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Bhakti Yoga coverA bhakta — someone who follows the devotional path toward realization, or Bhakti Yoga — may bring these thoughts to mind as she or he moves through a day:

  • “… does a man meditate on God only when his eyes are closed? Doesn’t he see anything of God when his eyes are open?” Sri Ramakrishna (Gospel, p779)
  • Jesus told his disciples, “If … the kingdom is in heaven, then the birds of heaven will precede you. If … it is in the sea, then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside you and it is outside you …” Gospel of Thomas, Logion 3.
  • Typically, Swami Vivekananda put it so simply: “Don’t seek God. See Him!”

Why return again and again to these ideas? For a bhakta, only the Divine Presence — in whatever form that Presence is worshiped — is truly worthy of his or her attention and adoration. Yet, so much of each day is spent in activities that are, seemingly, other than “divine.”

So, a bhakta’s daily practice is to “Divinize” all of life — to see the Divine wherever the eye or the hand falls, and in whatever happens as the hours pass by. Br. Shankara discusses how saints, swamis, and other seekers have accomplished this grace-full feat.