Why should we practice bhakti?
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Why should we practice bhakti? Because all of us want to be happy in life.
And we want to find out which is the best way to happiness. So, ultimately, what our heart longs for is not just things, but it longs for love. And we want to have things, we want to have possessions, for the sake of attracting the love of others and thereby becoming happy.
But generally, we don’t find a person whom we can love or who loves us back, and that loving propensity remains unfulfilled. So, we practice bhakti because bhakti is a systematic and scientific process that directs our love towards the most worthy object of love, towards the most all-attractive object of love, that is God, Krishna. So, happiness is always a by-product.
It is never a product. That means, I cannot get happiness by doing a particular activity just to become happy. For example, people go for parties, and they go for movies.
There is a little pleasure, but after some time it becomes boring. But generally, the deepest satisfaction in life comes when we commit ourselves to something important, and when we absorb ourselves in that, then the resulting happiness that comes because of that commitment is a very deep and fulfilling happiness. So, happiness is always a by-product, never a product.
Now, there are various ways in which, by doing various productive activities, various activities which give us fulfillment, we can become happy. But among all such activities, the only activity that we can do eternally is bhakti, that is relationship with God, Krishna. We have our body, but the body is temporary, whereas we have a longing for eternal life.
And eternal life is at the level of the soul. So, there are multiple ways, multiple paths of yoga by which we can come to the spiritual level, but the easiest way is the path of bhakti, because by bhakti we redirect our heart’s longing towards Krishna. So, we practice bhakti so that we can learn to love Krishna, and by loving Krishna we can get the highest happiness in life.
And the various rules and regulations, the various practices of bhakti are meant to assist us in redirecting our love from the worldly things to Krishna and thereby becoming happy.