Bhakti
BHAKTI. The Sanskrit term bhakti is most often translated in English as "devotion," and the bhaktimārga, the "path of devotion," is understood to be one major type of Hindu spiritual practice. The bhaktimārga is a path leading toward liberation (mokṣa) from material embodiment in our present imperfect world and the attainment of a state of abiding communion with a personally conceived ultimate reality. The word devotion, however, may not convey the sense of participation and even of mutual indwelling between the devotees and God so central in bhakti. The Sanskrit noun bhakti is derived from the verbal root bhaj, which means "to share in" or "to belong to," as well as "to worship." Devotion, moreover, may not suggest the range of intense emotional states so frequently connoted by bhakti, most of which are suggested by the inclusive English word love. God's love, however, whether answering or eliciting the devotee's love, is denoted with other words than bhakti. Thus bhakti is the divine-human relationship as experienced from the human side.
While bhakti is sometimes used in a broad sense to cover an attitude of reverence to any deity or to a human teacher, the bhaktimārga is understood to be a "path" of exclusive devotion to a divine or human figure representing or embodying ultimate reality, a path whose goal is not this-worldly benefits but supreme blessedness.
This page contains 201 words.
Bhakti article
Read the rest of this article.
This article contains 3,406 words
(approx. 11 pages at 300 words per page).
Order our Bhakti Article
