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DEFINITION OF BHAKTI
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“Bhakti is intense love to God." The best definition is, however, that given by the king of Bhaktas, Prahlada : IT stranfaa mai face suferit algeca:
À EGYH4899 Il “That deathless love which the ignorant have for the fleeting objects of the senses-as I keep meditating on Thee--may not that (sort of intense) love (for Thee) slip away from my heart !" Love! For whom? For the Supreme Lord Ishvara. Love for any other being, however great, cannot be Bhakti; for, as Ramanuja says in his Sri Bhâshya quoting an ancient Achârya, i.e., a great teacher away from area: 1 uifua: कर्मजनितसंसारवशवर्तिनः ॥ यतस्ततो न ते ध्यान ध्यानिनामुपकारकाः । sfacenadas a fe gurit: 11-"From Brahmâ to a clump of grass, all things that live in the world are slaves of birth and death caused by Karma; therefore they cannot be helpful as objects of meditation, because they are all in ignorance and subject to change.” In commenting on the word
gerai (Anurakti) used by Sandilya, the commentator Svapnesvara says that it means (Anu) after, and TV (Rakti), attachment; i.e., the attachment which comes after the knowledge of the nature and glory of God; else a blind attachment to any one, e.g., to wife or children would be Bhakti. We plainly see, therefore, that Bhakti is a series or succession of mental efforts at religious realisation beginning with ordinary worship and ending in a supreme intensity of love for the Ishvara.
