The Jesus Bhakti Poems

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Ramakrishna himself experienced nirvikalpa samadhi , the highest form of divine union in classical yoga in which the seeker and God as the Ground of Being are one. After this impersonal awakening, he returned to his personal worship. His personal worship produced ecstatic states of samadhi ecstasy , but within the realm of form, the example of Ramakrishna is used here to emphasize that Christian Bhakti Yoga is best expressed by a broad-minded universal love that is all inclusive. This inclusiveness can lead to a genuine appreciation of other forms of personal or impersonal devotion.

Ramakrishna is a particularly good example of a broad-minded approach to spirituality, because he was open to both personal and impersonal aspects of God and to other forms of spiritual seeking that were not part of his Hindu tradition, such as the spirituality of Buddhism and Christianity. In fact he sought out other forms of personal devotion in order to experience the divine everywhere. He opened his heart to the image before him and fell into an ecstasy.

He continued in devotion to Mary and Jesus for a few weeks, leaving all other duties. He had many disciples, but during this time was oblivious to his disciples, who were concerned that apparently Ramakrishna had left them. Of course, Ramakrishna eventually returned to his disciples and former worship, but he was only concerned with living a life that was motivated by the divine influence, in whatever way the divine influence presented itself in the moment.

Ramakrishna experienced the heart of Bhakti Yoga as an inner loving communion with the divine within and as an awareness of divine love being manifested outwardly through everyone and everything. Giving His life for the sake of others was His greatest expression of love, but what may go unnoticed is that Jesus lived every day as an expression of love in very little ways. A kind word, a smile, a touch of His hand—these are the ways He used to touch the hearts of those around Him. He did not let any small opportunity to express love pass by. He was able to consistently express love outwardly because He took time to make loving contact in solitude with the Father as His form of inner personal devotion.

Because Jesus is one with the Father, you can turn to Jesus in devotion and be united with the Father or you can turn to the Father in devotion and be united with Jesus. The Jesus Prayer , consisting of repeating the Divine Name of Christ, is one such form of devotion, as is Christian meditation and contemplation in every form. Christian Bhakti Yoga also includes heartfelt prayers of a formal or spontaneous nature to Jesus or God. Your times set aside for personal devotion or group worship can carry over into everyday life as an expression of recollection and prayerfulness.

Love is your true nature, but it is clouded over by desires for other things. The love that you receive from your Beloved and your own response of love gives you the strength to overlook all obstacles. You overlook the thoughts of separation, the thoughts of the ego, and you one-pointedly focus on looking toward your Beloved with the intention of divine union.

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Your looking is a maintaining of purity of heart and your overlooking is a letting go of any blocks to your purity of heart. Looking and overlooking have an external and an internal component.

The external component of looking is the purity of heart that enables you to see your Beloved in the faces of your brothers and sisters. The external component of overlooking is the letting go of any outer blocks, habitual behavior patterns, that would separate you from expressing love to others. The internal component of looking is the purity of heart that enables you to contact your Beloved within. The internal component of your overlooking is the letting go of any thoughts or desires that would disturb your focused inner devotion to your Beloved.

Your practice of Christian Bhakti Yoga can take whatever direction of expression best suits you. If you have a musical inclination, you may want to use singing or chanting to express your devotion. You may want to set up an altar for worship to your Beloved.

Of course, you may want to spend time reading the Bible or other inspired writings. A specific recommendation being made here for inspirational reading is The Poem of the Man-God. The author was Maria Valtorta, who is an example of Christian devotion. Maria offered herself to her Beloved, Jesus, as a sacrifice for Divine Love. She renewed the offering of herself every day and was elevated to great heights in her love of her Beloved.

Jesus appeared in visions to her on a regular basis for several years. In these appearances, Maria was shown visions of the entire life of Mother Mary and Jesus, and she was instructed to record these visions. Maria was not a scholar and asserted that often Jesus dictated to her what to write, but she herself often did not understand what she was writing. She considered Jesus to be the true author. This writing does not change or substitute for the Gospel, but does elaborate upon and illuminate the Gospel.

Because Maria was Catholic, there are references to traditional Catholic beliefs, which are very different than the spiritual principles described in this website. However, this book is not recommended here as a way of understanding theology. Rather, this book is recommended because of its very vivid picture of Jesus as a perfect living example of expressing love in the world. There is no way to prove if this narrative of the life of Jesus is objectively accurate, so it may only be an imaginary depiction. But even so, this close look at the events shows a picture of Jesus that portrays Him as the Master of Love.

Of particular interest is how He repeatedly and tirelessly makes every effort to help Judas, who repeatedly gives in to temptation and is lovingly forgiven by Jesus each time. The joys and sorrows of Jesus and His disciples are often expressed in conversations providing the reader with a sense of being a direct witness to the biblical events.

But perhaps more important than the events is seeing the humanness of Jesus and His disciples revealed in their actions and relationships. This intimate picture of their lives is helpful for the practice of Christian Bhakti Yoga as an opportunity to internalize the emotions of the times and vicariously experience the life of Jesus and His disciples in your own heart. Another recommendation for inspiration is seeing the movie Brother Sun, Sister Moon.

Spiritual movies often fall flat with hollow acting and uninspired directing, but this movie is an exception. Through the magical direction of Franco Zeffirelli, this movie comes alive as stunning visual poetry. It presents the devotional life of Saint Francis of Assisi, who was a wonderful example of the Christian path of love. The painting below by Carlo Saraceni shows one monk who is reading for his inspiration.

In contrast to that monk, Saint Francis is depicted opening his heart to divine inspiration. Anything that opens your heart is an expression of Christian Bhakti Yoga. A good place to start burning the flame of divine love is to focus the awareness during meditation on the physical heart itself or in the center of the chest.

Sometimes love is first awakened in the physical heart and then the loving awareness expands and becomes centered primarily in the center of the chest. Symeon identified the nous as the spirit located in the center of the heart the location of the physical heart or center of the chest and as the point of integration where the divine and human natures of man meet. This is also where you can awaken your awareness of the Atman of yoga and the Christ Self. The heart is essential for growth in Christian Bhakti Yoga.

Where Hindu and Christian Worlds Meet through the Yeshu Bhakti Music of Aradhna

Christian devotion is a matter of developing your feeling side by exploring your heart and then investing in whatever divine inspiration moves your heart. Can be purchased from Editions Paulines, , boul. In the Hindu tradition, Bhakti Yoga is the path of love. The person who is openhearted by nature will be drawn to Bhakti Yoga. But everyone is nourished by expressions of giving and receiving love.

In Bhakti Yoga the power of love is directed toward a personal aspect of God. This personal aspect is the Ishta , the chosen form of God. The Ishta may be a deva, a form of God, such as Vishnu or Shiva. The Ishta may also be an avatar, an incarnation of God, such as Krishna or Rama. The bhakti yogi gives his heart to the personal aspect of God that he has chosen, but realizes that there is ultimately only one Brahman, one Reality.

However, that ultimate Reality is too impersonal for the bhakti who seeks a personal relationship with the divine. The bhakti yogi has a choice of how to view his relationship with his chosen Ishta. Some bhakti yogis are attracted to relating to God in a very specific way. The choice of relationship can be similar to any way in which humans express love, as follows: The choice of how to relate specifically to the Ishta is a deeply personal matter, and this relationship may change in time. The bhakti yogi is involved in a dualistic relationship in which he sees himself and his personal Ishta as being separate and his devotion as a means of joining with his Ishta to become one.

Love is this two becoming one. But as the bhakti yogi succeeds in this loving union and his consciousness becomes totally filled with love, he becomes more aware of his true Self. He increasingly realizes that he is worshipping the Atman true Self or Christ Self in his own heart. In order to express his devotion, the bhakti yogi wants to constantly remember his personal God. To fill his consciousness with the awareness of God he practices another specific form of yoga, Japa Yoga , which is the repeating of an affirmation.

The most common form of Japa Yoga for a bhakti yogi is repeating the Name of God, which would be the Name of the chosen Ishta.

Constant recollection of the divine through Japa Yoga assists in cleansing the mind of lower impulses and directs the emotional nature toward the expression of devotion. Prayer is an important form of devotional expression for the bhakti yogi. Of course, formal prayers are helpful, but perhaps spontaneous prayers are even more helpful because they are a means of directing all of the emotions toward the divine. Just as you can talk with a friend about your fear, grief, anger, or pain, you can talk with your personal aspect of God and express every thought and emotion in order to relieve the human heart of any burdens.

Prayers that are packed with deeply felt emotions are wholehearted expressions. Prayers for others help to turn the consciousness away from self-centered motivations and toward divine inclinations. There is a Hindu awareness of the significance of praying for the benefit of all mankind. Prayers are a form of asking for divine assistance. When these are directed toward seeking virtues that would lead toward God, these prayers are consistently answered by God. The more fervent the prayer is the more likely it is that the prayer will be answered. It is a Hindu understanding that God reveals Himself by divine grace, but that a seeker who consistently prays with great longing for his Beloved will not be disappointed.

Just as the karma yogi views all action as worship, so too the bhakti yogi is very focused on worship. Unlike the asking nature of prayer, worship represents giving to God. Because prayer is asking it can be focused upon the needs of the self, but the nature of worship changes the focus from self-receiving to self-giving. The self is the giver of the worship and what is given is a gift, which, for example, can be a fruit or a flower. Yet the material gift is actually only a symbol of the giving of oneself to God. It is purity of intention that is important in the act of worship.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of worship is internalization. All outer actions of worship are performed with an understanding that the outer expression is to be experienced internally. For instance, the bhakti devotee may have a personal altar in his home devoted to his personal Ishta.

In an act of worship, he may lovingly place a flower on his altar, but in doing so he is internalizing this act. He will feel and inwardly experience that he is simultaneously placing his love, symbolized by the flower, on the altar of his human heart within his body where he can meet his Beloved. This internalization is central to the expression of ritual , which is a specific form of worship that symbolically represents the holy relationship between the worshiper and God.

Without internalization ritual worship becomes merely religious convention without conviction. Through the physical gestures and actions of ritual a sacred bond between the devotee and God is expressed in a way that words fail to convey. The devotee uses all forms of communication to express his holy and loving divine relationship. These would include music, singing, especially chanting, reading scripture, company with others of like mind, and travel to holy places on pilgrimage.

According to Jeffery Long, along with its strong focus on ethics and ascetic practices, the religiosity in Jainism has had a strong tradition of bhakti or devotion just like their Hindu neighbors. The Jain community built ornate temples and prided in public devotion for its fordmakers, saints and teachers.

Abhisekha , festival prayers, community recitals and Murti puja rituals before an image are examples of integrated bhakti in Jain practice. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Part of a series on Love. Nandi Tantrism Jyotirlinga Shiva Temples. Buddhist devotion and Faith in Buddhism. Concepts of Person in Religion and Thought. The Hymns of the Tamil Saints. Ritual, Culture, and Practice. An Introduction to Hinduism. Hay; William Theodore De Bary Sources of Indian Tradition.

Oxford University Press, , p. The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. A History of Christianity in India, — Singing to the Jinas: Frank Thompson , Hindu-Christian Dialogue: Perspectives and Encounters Editor: Pashaura Singh, Louis E. Adaptations of an Ancient Tradition Editors: In Malalasekera, Gunapala Piyasena.

The Embodiment of Bhakti. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. World religions in America: Westminster John Knox Press. A survey of Hinduism. Gale Encyclopedia of Religion. A Sanskrit-English dictionary, etymologically and philologically arranged: The many colors of Hinduism: The Advaitic Theism of the Bhagavata Purana. The earliest arrival dates are contested by scholars. They range from 7th to 9th century, with Muslim traders settling in coastal regions of Indian peninsula, to Muslims seeking asylum in Tamil Nadu, to raids in northwest India by Muhammad bin Qasim.

The Blackwell companion to Hinduism.

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Modern Indian Interpreters of the Bhagavadgita. The Strides of Vishnu. Theory And Practice of Yoga: Essays in Honour of Gerald James Larson. In Amiya P Sen. Acting as a Way of Salvation. Ramakrishna and his disciples. Glory of Spiritual India. Nelson and Russell R. Typology and History , Numen, Vol. Tantric Buddhism and Altered States of Consciousness: Durkheim, Emotional Energy and Visions of the Consort. Early Buddhist theory of knowledge PDF. Thus Have I Seen: Visualizing Faith in Early Indian Buddhism.

A thousand lives away: Buddhism in contemporary Burma. Tradition and modernity in Bhakti movements. A Guide for the Perplexed. Carving Devotion in the Jain Caves at Ellora. Frawley, David , Vedantic Meditation: Bhakti at Wikipedia's sister projects. Three bodies Five sheaths Chakra Nadi. Karma yoga Bhakti yoga Jnana yoga Raja yoga.

Fin De Millennium and the Jesus Bhakti Poems

Yoga philosophy Bhagavad Gita Yoga Vasistha. Vishnu-bhakti, Vaishnava theology and Vaishnava philosophy. Vaikuntha Goloka Vrindavana Ayodhya. Ekadashi Rama Navami Janmashtami Gaura-purnima. Vyasa Valmiki Vrindavana Dasa Thakura.

Retrieved from " https: Hindu philosophical concepts Bhakti movement Meditation Hindu behaviour and experience Yoga styles Yoga.

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