Bhakti

 

“Nothing evolves us

like love.”

–Hafiz

 

It’s February and our bodies are dense with cold and fatigue; though the sun is setting a little later every night, we are still deep in winter and most likely staying inside, maybe even turning inward. So I love that this month my yoga studio has decided the theme of February is Bhakti or devotion. I never feel less devoted to anything than while sliding down an icy sidewalk, sharp winding blasting my face, cursing my decision to move to New York instead of California . But as the winter solstice celebrates the beauty of light as it is disappearing, so February is a month where we celebrate the feeling of devotion–when we are least likely to feel it.

Bhakti yoga is a devotional path of yoga that began in opposition to the traditional Brahmanic path of yoga. Bhakti yoga transcended caste and education; its followers proclaimed that no one caste or social group was closer to God than any other. Followers of Bhakti yoga valued devotion and love over knowledge or jhana. This knowledge related particularly to the idea of karma and one’s relationship to God. For traditional Brahmans, karma must be “burned” away through lifetimes and only then can the individual become close to God. But for followers of Bhakti, God answers love with love, any time, day or night, good karma or bad.

But this blog isn’t only for people interested in God or believers. My belief of the moment is that “God” (I’ll explain the italics in a minute) is within. God is, to me, a symbol for all life–the light and the dark, everything that makes energy and creation. So, rather than the person “God” I used to think of as a wizened-but-tough old man with a beard, I think more of something ineffable; something like wind or light. And I’m playing with the idea that this energy is part of me–or as the followers of Bhakti would say, it is the divine light within.

I’ve been thinking about what got me on the yogic path and even writing this blog. It begins on a day when I was walking down Riverside on my way home, and there was a running monologue of self-criticism going on in my brain, as usual. I was living with Randy, but not yet married. There seemed to be a lot of bumps with us as we began to share our lives–I always seemed to be grasping for something that wasn’t there and then I was angry. So I’m walking along, saying awful things to myself, when all of a sudden I thought “I don’t need to say these awful things to myself anymore.” It was like I pushed the mute button during an obnoxious commercial; there was silence! Then I thought, “would I ever have said those awful things to my best friends? Would I ever make them feel so low and verminous?” Again, there was silence. “Well,” I said to myself “that’s ok, you’re forgiven.” And I kept walking. I almost burst out laughing at how simple it was–turn that voice off, forgive yourself, keep walking.

The next months brought a lot of opening, and a lot of softening. I had thought I was mad at Randy, I thought he was too hard on me; but then I had this tremendous realization that I was too hard on me. So any little thing he said became part of this horrible torture chamber in my mind about how I was not good enough. Maybe I had been at some point, like in infancy, but basically as soon as I was mobile, it was all downhill. Randy couldn’t convince me, no one could convince me that I was ok, and so I was hard, reactive, moody. I was, shall we say, le bitch.

This experience of learning to devote mental energy towards loving myself has so transformed my relationship to the world, I feel like a crazy convert that wants to hand out fliers in the subway station. And you know, there’s a part of me that’s embarrassed–really actually, deeply embarrassed–by the sentimentality of this “self-love.” But I think that’s because our society is embarrassed by it, so we’re conditioned to feel the same. Stuart Smalley, from SNL in the 90s, was hilarious, but you know what? He was right! We are all good enough, smart enough and, doggone it, people like us!

When we have love for ourselves–when we realize we are made of the same material, energy, substance of the divine–we are able to do great things. Since this month is also the month we celebrate Valentine’s Day, let me urge you to squrim through your embarrassment and take some time to practice bhakti towards yourself. My teacher in yoga tonight, a beautiful woman named Lauren, advised us that when we feel unloved, unworthy, when we feel stuck, a sense of permanent winter in our chest, there are three things to do: sing, dance and serve. As I wrote in a previous post, sometimes we must move out of our bodies to move into them again and singing, dancing and serving others is a way to move from our sometimes stingy minds to our generous hearts.

Hafiz, the great mystic of the 13th century writes:

“If God invited you to a party and said

‘Everyone in this ballroom tonight will be

my special guest…’

And Hafiz knows

There is no one in this world

Who

is not upon

his Jeweled

dance floor.”

With this in mind, I leave you with a song and a dance ( and a nod to the eternally glamorous Godard). Get out onto that jeweled dance floor with yourself!

 

 

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