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Bhakti Yoga helps with Sexual and Non-sexual Relationships
During my silent fast the last few days, I did a quick read of “The Perfection of Yoga,” a small book written by the Founder of ISKCON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. The pamphlet by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda reconfirmed my understanding of the relationship between me and the divine, known in the Sanskrit language as bhakti.
Bhakti Yoga is seen as the process of awakening that supreme or highest form of love. With the capacity to love being inherent to our human form, most, if not all, human beings are seeking the highest form of love they can achieve, which means they are, knowingly or unknowingly, engaged this form of yoga. Unfortunately, I have to agree with Swami Prabhupāda that many of us fall short of the goal of higher love due to the many pitfalls of seeing love as a physical or mental process.
According to the ancient Sanskrit teachings upon which Prabhupāda’s writings are based, the supreme highest form of love is devotion, which involves the lover, the beloved, and the loving relationship, all of which are eternal. In this understanding each individual soul is the lover, the beloved is the divine personality of the universe or GOD for some, and bhakti is the spiritual loving relationship between the two.
In reading this refresher, my thoughts brought me to the understanding that regardless of one’s belief in the eternal state of the individual soul that inhabits the being, one can surely utilize this understanding in executing their relationships and sexuality, by which I mean expressing their love physically with another.
Prabhupāda points out that “Love between bodies is bound to be temporary, because the lovers’ bodies are temporary.” With this said, he also brings up the question that many who believe in the eternal character of the lover offer when hearing this. “What about the soul? Will the lovers not meet in the external spiritual world, and there enjoy deathless love?” Although that is a good question and Prabhupāda gives an answer of his own, my answer is why worry about the deathless love that potentially comes after life as we know it is lost when we can be preparing for it by practicing the highest form of love in our human forms while we have them.
The way I understand it, if each of is an eternal soul, then we each are individual reflections of the eternal beloved or divine personality of the universe. In other words, the whole divinity of existence is the sum of its parts. Therefore, in a state of loving others here on Earth, we should see ourselves, the lover, as a divine reflection and those we love as divine reflections; hence, the beloved.
By doing so, human relationships have no choice but to become more expansive and free of the pitfalls we experience. When one truly experiences themselves and others as a reflection of the divine, the understanding surfaces that each divine reflection operates from the universal center. This makes another’s thoughts feelings and behaviors just as pure and from love as one’s own. This understanding also dispenses with psychological hierarchy that takes the form of “I’m right and you are wrong.” It also liberates us from the idea that the mind and the body of the other are ours to possess since both beings are reflections of the same and there is nothing in the universe from which they are separate, which creates the need to possess. This freedom opens the door for relationships of any type that involve one other or multiple others.
So what am I saying here? My point is that all relationships sexual or otherwise with one or with many have the potential to be divine and it only requires the individual souls who are taking part in them to not only see themselves as divine reflections but to see their partners in those relationships as beloved reflections of the divine as well. With this practice, surely our relationships here on Earth will be more wonderful, fulfilling, and ecstatic while preparing us for the potential eternal bliss of the relationship with the divine beyond this plane of existence.
Happy Easter with the hopes that you will thoroughly enjoy your relationships here on Earth.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Brian N. Hewlett. Brian N. Hewlett said: Easter signifies symbolic resurrection and renewal with divinity. Use Bhakti Yoga as a tool for divine relationships. http://alturl.com/cg4d [...]