The Yoga of Spiritual Devotion

Book excerpt: • The first translation of this great but little-known path of spiritual devotion written for the modern Western audience. • An insightful commentary aimed at making the path of love immediately accessible to Westerners. • A life-affirming and relationship-positive path of yoga. • Written in the spirit of the kirtans (ecstatic songs and dances) of Narada, sensitively translated by Prem Prakash. Bhakti Yoga, the path of devotion, is considered one of the primary paths for spiritual realization in yogic tradition. Its representative, Narada, is the embodiment of the enlightened sage who travels the universe spreading his sacred teachings. Unlike Jnana Yoga, the Yoga of Wisdom, the bhakti acolyte does not discriminate against material phenomena--for him, all phenomena are aspects of God. Within the context of Ananda, blissful love, the temporal is realized as the reflection of the eternal, and the soul is realized as the expression of God.