Living a Bhakti Life
Yoga of Devotion
by
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“People listened because they recognized the words as coming from somewhere other than the intellectual mind. They seemed to come from the Source of understanding itself.” Richard Hooper, from “The Parallel Sayings”
6:30am Telluride, Colorado
In seated meditation I relished in the bliss of my daily morning ritual. The sweet sound of nothing, strangely audible, fills my soul with a connection to God and the best of my Self. No human presence around me as of yet, all souls in the household still voluntarily unconscious in bed resting in the precious state that is as close to re-birth that is possible. I can feel the presence of the animals in and around my home; the elk and the coyote especially. I fill up spiritually with the mere silence of the most powerful connection I know how to achieve….as a new asana method arrives in a flood of warmth from the Sahasrara Cakra (crown of my head) to the Anahata Cakra (my heart). For some reason, Bhakti chose me.
When it occurred, the experience was likened to those who describe a Kundalini Rising except mine was in reverse. The feeing occurred from a shorter distance - crown to heart instead of the entire length of the spine. My feeling also occurred within the center of my body, physically from the Anterior Fontanelle (soft spot on crown at birth) through the center of my brain to my Vocal Chords and directly into my heart.
The “it” that occurred is best described as a download of information about yoga postures and their personal meaning, applicable to every practitioner individually.
The nature of Bhakti had not occurred to me in an intellectual way, though in hindsight I had been emotionally and physically living it daily for the past 2 years. You see, Bhakti is a state of mind that hails from deep within your spirit. And for something that deep to occur, there needs to be a protagonist. The protagonist can be a number of experiences but they are always founded in Emotion.
You can call God whatever you want; Allah, Kali Durga, Krishna, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Atman, Brahman. We are all looking for a personal relationship with the Ultimate Higher Source, and we are not meant to attain it in the same way. Some find it in the church, others through surfing the ocean waves, still others through their paintbrushes, and I through my Bhakti Asana practice. If we were all meant to find God through a single method, why did he send so many flavors of the same message?
I practiced this way for nearly two years, burning away the old residue of life’s experiences through daily Surrender. I practiced Warrior III every day, but this was the one posture that I did not receive a download for. I didn’t worry about, I just thought that there were some postures God skipped for some reason and I trusted that it was all right. Then one morning from Warrior I, I arched my back and let my arms fly open to the sides. It felt like an expression of Complete Surrender. Bringing my arms back to Namaste at the heart, I finally got the download for Warrior III: “Together we are Spiritual Warriors, take all the gifts I have put into your heart, Move forward and share those gifts with the world.” I leaned forward onto my front leg, tilted my body into Warrior III with outstretched arms offering my gifts.
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About the Book
In Living a Bhakti Life, author A. R. Pashayan recounts experiencing a “spiritual download” in 2004 during meditation that literally changed her life. She was tormented with repetitive dreams of death, night after night, brought on in part by a death in the family, stress from work, and no alone time. She, along with a friend, tried analyzing the dreams. Nothing was clear until she took a month-long break in a place that looked like Heaven—Telluride, Colorado, where she finally left her old self behind.
Her dreams made sense now. Her spiritual download paved the way for a new level of understanding life, illness, stress, and practical spirituality. She started practicing Bhakti yoga and meditation, and she finally found calm.
Bhakti yoga is defined as a spiritual path described in Hindu philosophy used for fostering love, utter faith, and surrender to God. There is only one path to God: the path to grace, or Bhakti. Through yoga and quiet contemplation on top of the mountain, she soon discovered that it was possible to literally “be” unconditional love.
In Living a Bhakti Life, Pashayan opens a pathway to enlightenment and God’s love through Bhakti yoga through divine power and divine love.
About the Author
A. R. Pashayan is a cancer survivor. She was born in Compton, California. While yoga came into her life in 2003, God has always been in her life. She is happiest when surrounded by nature or traveling. She is the owner of Yoga of Devotion and currently lives in Colorado. This is her first book.