In my Bhakti Yoga workshops, its become clear that many people have issues with mythology. No doubt, many people are seeking refuge from the dogma of religion, but the elevation of spirituality. Many Eastern spiritual practices promise bliss through seemingly secular teachings.
My musings with mythology began early in my life in the pow-wow scene, where dances were performed to represent tales of healing, the hunt, or tales of creation. It wasn't until now that I realized I had a hands-on relationship with mythology, where I was part of the storytelling. Most haven't had the pleasure of conveying lore from the past into the present.
By nature, humankind seeks to be part of something bigger. And since organized religion has turned-off so many, there's a void waiting to be filled in the collective consciousness. The contemporary practices I share focus on the stories of Hindu gods and goddesses, which are, indeed, worshipped with flowers, incense, oil lanterns, and song. But this is only what's seen on the surface.
What is known as devotional yoga, or Bhakti Yoga, is a branch that honors the divine within each of us, depicting the many aspects of the human experience in separate deity-images. While humans are deep beings, were also thick-headed. We feel deeply, but we forget easily and it takes a long time to learn lessons. We are momentary beings living from one experience to another. We swing into and out of sanity, happiness, love, and darkness. These are cycles, these are aspects of the indescribable totality of the self. And Hindu lore has done a smart thing: it has made diety-images that reflect our beauty, creativty, pain, transformation, abundance, and clarity.
So when we chant, when we 'worship' with gifts and praise, we are actually honoring the human experience, the many aspects of the complex self. At a higher level, the yogic teachings say humanity is part of a bigger web of existence, we are all one. So the act of devotion goes in the front door by appealing to aspects of the self, but quickly brings you into the great room of the house, revealing the divine interconnectedness of all things.
For the longest time I resisted the idea of worship, I resisted devotion. I misunderstood it as idolatry mixed with idiocy. But after years of unfolding, devotional practice has laid the foundation for a deeper, more dependable joy. Devotional practice has helped to clear-out thorny traumas that inhibit my vitality, that keep me from choosing my wellbeing over my impulse. These acts of devotion - offering flowers, chanting words of gratitude, tuning into the frequency of love - I need to practice these acts to transcend survival thinking.
As we're dually deep and thick beings, we need stepping stones to connect to something as abstract as 'the divine'. Without exercising the muscles of love, of gratitude, I fall into survival mode. And I would say the majority of time in our culture is spent oscillating between survival and quick thrills. Our world - our economy, our entertainment, our social structure - is not yet built on joy and love. But it is through these practices that we can experience the real, deep bliss we're after. We can transcend the stories of the individual self and feel connected to the bigger picture, the unity of all things, the divine.
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