Bhakti- The Yoga of Devotion

I was drifting somewhere in the space between this world and that. I floated in a thick grey mist but I could hear sounds. I followed the sound until I found myself in the yoga room where I often practice. There was beautiful music playing and I felt my heart open and move. A voice caressed me and said, "Now flow to the music however it moves you." I poised myself to dance in that space but suddenly I was awakened by my alarm. I lay back disappointed. I was moved to follow that voice into the flow.

Today I found myself in that space again but this time I was awake. At first we chanted, led by the voice in my dream. Then, we moved into a practice accompanied by music like that which I remembered in my dream. We moved as one and then the instructor said, "Now flow on your own however you are moved." My skin prickled with deja vu and I embraced that alluring moment again. Now I did indeed flow as I wished, a yogic dance to the music.

A guru may be a teacher but if you put a comma into the word after the "G," and then repeat the letters of the word you hear. "Gee, you are you." Long before I entered the room today to engage in Bhakti (the yoga of devotion) I knew deep down that this was what my soul craved. I awoke from my dream but my dream came to pass in my waking life. It gives me chills just to know this.

I have been living in a state of self-doubt. I often think I see myself through the eyes of others and I do not like what I see. But this is a trap. Even if I see clearly what they see, it is a voice inside me expressing the distaste. I deem myself unworthy of regard and loathe parts of myself and yet in yoga they tell me that, "Inside, you have everything you need for a beautiful life." They say that our best teacher lives within us. If this is true then I must forget what I believe others see and decide for myself what parts of my behavior and modus operandi that I despise. Then, without judgement I must decide what changes, if any, I should be trying to make. This is all so clear to me in moments like this, moments where I truly find myself awake and living that which I have dreamed.


Joan of A Short in the Cord wrote about affirmations yesterday. I commented on her blog that in yoga we use "mantra" (a repeated word or phrase) to calm the mind and to self-affirm. That is what Bhakti is all about. We chant various sanskrit mantras for so long that at times we seem to become one with each other and with our words. There is an electricity in the air. Sometimes I fight these feelings of union because they remind me of a past I have chosen to leave in my past but at times I embrace the feeling and I am lifted outside myself. Gone are my worries, obsessions and self-doubts and I am left with a feeling of pure bliss.