Spiritual Devotion

The poet writes within the Hindu tradition of bhakti, which represents the devotional path to union with God. Bhakti is an attitude of the heart rather than the mind, of feeling rather than intellect. In the bhakti tradition, devotees surrender themselves completely to God, the object of their devotion, and God responds by allowing them to share his infinite love and his infinite consciousness. (Alston points out that in Sanskrit, “the word 'bhakti' comes from the root 'bhaj,' meaning 'to share.'”) For devotees, loving commitment to God is absolute and total; it is more important than anything else in life. Motivated by love, the devotees lose their individual selves in order to find themselves in God, the universal consciousness. They are like small rivers of love that flow to the vast, eternal ocean of pure and universal love, where they find their fulfillment. In the...