YOGABHARATI

Bhakti is a state of mind. One of the definitions of bhakti is that which makes our emotions tender, chaste, and pure. Bhakti Yoga is a form of emotional purification. We experience different emotions throughout the day – we feel affection when we see a child, feel jealousy when someone else possesses something that we do not have, feel hatred when we see our enemy, etc. Based on the emotion generated, thoughts start flowing in our minds and strengthen the emotion further. When our emotions result from the external world and what our sensory objects perceive, emotions such as greed, lust, jealousy, etc. arise. When the same emotion is disconnected from the external world and is directed towards the inner soul, its form is that of bhakti. From the thirteenth until the twentieth verse in Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna defines and explains bhakti. He says that there is tranquillity and equanimity within when our soul is free from the influence of the outside materialistic world and what o...

“Yoga a conscious process of home coming” This is a statement I heard in one of the online sessions by Raghuram ji and was my introduction to Yoga Bharti as well. It has stayed with me since then and this report is a reflection on similar lines.  Yoga is a word so overly and narrowly used in today's time that it limits itself to the gross existence of our being and for a common man restricts itself to the goal of a healthy body often synonymous to the idea of fitness. But as we widen our experience and become more aware of the process we can see the mind - body connection and how working on the body calms the mind and as we become aware of the most important thing that connects the mind and body i.e., our breath, it widens our idea and experience of Yoga and becomes a window to pause and reflect on our own life processes and gives us a chance to look within and become aware of our own inner landscape. And as this process unfolds for us, the physical aspect becomes a means and not t...