Devotion (Bhakti)
Whole-hearted love of God — not a lesser path, but for many the highest one.
Bhakti is devotion — the loving, trusting, whole-hearted attachment of a person to God. More than an emotion, it is a complete orientation of the self: hearing about, remembering, serving, and surrendering to the Lord. In the great Vaiṣṇava and Śaiva traditions, bhakti is not a lower path for the simple but the highest relationship there is, because the goal itself is eternal loving communion with God. It transformed Hindu religious life from roughly the mid-first millennium onward.
How it traveled
- Bhagavad-gītāKuru-Pañcāla region · -150explains
- Śiva-stotrāvalīKashmir Valley · 950explains
Key passages(15)
By devotion he knows Me in reality, what and who I am; then having known Me in reality, he forthwith enters into Me.
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Glorifying Me always and striving with firm resolve, bowing down to Me in devotion, always steadfast, they worship Me.
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Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
If these truths have been told to a high-minded man, who feels the highest devotion for God, and for his Guru as for God, then they will shine forth,--then they will shine forth indeed.
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