Bhakti Yoga
Swami Vivekananda · 1896
5.0 · 9 ratings
About the book
The yoga of love: devotion taken seriously as a discipline, from choosing an ideal and a teacher to the point where love needs no object smaller than everything. Vivekananda argues the heart is a faster vehicle than the intellect — then proves he has both.
Try the short course
Part 1 · Love that is its own reward. The first six slides, free.
1 / 6
Vivekananda opens without ceremony. Bhakti-yoga, he says, is a genuine search for God, and it is a search that begins, continues and ends in love. Love is not the reward you get at the finish, and it is not the fuel you burn to get there. It is the road, the walking and the arrival.
He borrows his definition from Narada, the old teacher of the devotional aphorisms: bhakti is intense love to God. Then comes the claim that tells you how seriously he means it. A single moment of the madness of that love, he writes, brings eternal freedom.
Narada adds what such a person looks like from outside. She loves all and hates none, and she is satisfied for ever. Keep that description in mind, because the rest of the chapter tests every kind of devotion against it.
Inside the course
12 parts- The definition of bhaktiFree above
- The philosophy of Ishvara
- Spiritual realisation as the aim
- The need of a guru — and the tests for a real one
Questions
Is Bhakti Yoga free to read in Astra Trainer?
Yes. The full book opens free in the app’s reader, in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Russian.
What is the short course?
12 short parts that walk through the book’s key ideas in slides, each with a quick quiz. The first six slides are free to try on this page.
Where do I get the app?
Astra Trainer is free on the App Store and Google Play. Bhakti Yoga is waiting in the app’s library.
