Why We Chant

by Swami Sitaramananda | Apr 19, 2015 | Bhakti Yoga

Why we Chant

by Swami Sitaramananda

There is another way to connect to the inner truth within you. That is through chanting. If I go to a restaurant in China, I want to order food and communicate with people, then I have to speak Chinese. If I go to Spain, then I have to speak Spanish. If I go to Vietnam, I have to speak in Vietnamese. If I go to heaven, I have to speak the divine language. So Sanskrit is considered to be the divine language. It is universal. It’s not Indian. It doesn’t belong to any culture. It belongs to you.

Kirtan Chanting is a Divine language that talks to your soul

The Sanskrit language has the vibration in your chakras; that means in your energy body.

When I went to a Yoga retreat for the first time, I heard the chanting for two days and the chants followed me home. It is not a normal language. People can talk to you, and then you forget. But the divine language talks to your energy directly, and it says things to you that you cannot even understand.

It is said that it will remove all impunities in your astral body, or remove all the impurities in your heart and in your mind, and communicate with you about the divine truth that is within your heart and is universal. That is why mantras are made of the Sanskrit alphabet.

Power of Music

Now with mantra, you have the music. Kirtan is made of mantra with music and melody. Music is very powerful. It can bring joy and calm the mind down. If somebody is angry at you, you sing a song, and then they will be ok.

Because kirtan is the language of the emotions. Now, you have Sanskrit/Mantra, and you have music/melody.

Now, the third thing you have is your love. Because when you love somebody, you like to repeat their name. You like to talk to them all the time.

Story of attachment

I know a lady and she loves her son. When she meets with us, she talks about her son all the time, “My son did this, my son wears this kind of clothing, my son plays this sport, my son is good in school…” All the time, she finds stories to talk about her son.

So we were traveling in India, and on the bus she talked to everybody about her son. So one day, we went to many temples, and in the temple, you have to bow, you have to get the three powders and you have to drink some water, which are symbolic actions. She is tired. She is from America. And she said, “I don’t want this temple business. I don’t like it anymore.” To say that one time is okay, but when you say it many times it is more than just curiosity, it becomes a practice.

Understand Symbols

She said, “I don’t want it anymore, all this temple business.” And then on the bus, she took a photo of her son and passed it along to everybody. When the photo came to the swami there at that time, he was about to tear the photo. She said, “What are you doing? It’s my son.” So the swami said, “It’s not your son. It is just a piece of paper.” “It is my son’s picture. It’s a picture of my son!”

So the swami explained, “The same thing in the temple, you have the picture or statue, they are made of clay, they’re made of paper, or they made of metal. It’s just the symbol.” It’s like the flag of a country. If you are going to take the flag of a country and wipe your feet, you will be put in jail. It just a piece of cloth. So it’s not just a piece of cloth, instead it’s the idea behind it that you respect.

Any symbol, like the picture or statue or image of God, just represents the divine reality that is universal and that is within you, but you forgot. So you have a symbol, so that you can remember. That’s all. The way our mind works is with sound or image.

To think about something you cannot think about something abstract, you have to have words so that you can describe it. And you have to have an image.

Let’s say I say the word apple. I say apple, then I see a round shape. Let’s say I say a house. I have the word, then I have the image. But each person will have a different image, you might have the image of your house, another person may have the image of a big company, another person has a small house image… It doesn’t really matter what kind of image you have.

But the image comes from your mind, and the image comes from something you already know. Just the same, if you want to communicate with the divine, you have to communicate through the language and through image.

Connect to the Truth

That’s how you connect to the universal truth that is within you. The truth is not outside. It is not on the altar. It is not in the temple. The guru is not in the guru either. It’s not in the body of a person. It’s a universal truth that the guru has realized, and he shows you the way how to realize this truth yourself. It’s not something external. It’s something inside you.

When we chant, remember again mantra, which are pure sounds in Sanskrit that resonate with your chakras, purify your mind and bring pure energy to your mind. The next thing is the music, the melody that makes your emotions feel good. What’s the next?

It is the love that is within you, that you express through the love of the name and form that represents the divine. It doesn’t really matter, what name or what form. Everyone has love inside. But you’re not just loving your husband, your wife and your children. There is an essential love within you.

Divine Love

That’s the love of the divine, or love of the truth within you, or love of the Creator, or love of something that is connecting everyone together. We say love of the sun. It’s like the sun. The sun is shining on everything, and giving life to everything. The sun gives light and life. That inner sun, everyone has it. We say that’s the inner truth or inner light that gives light to yourself or your soul, makes you and me one, and connects everything together and makes everyone have light and happiness. Sometimes there is darkness inside, which comes from our own mind.

So the mind is busy thinking, “I don’t have enough money, I don’t like my job, I don’t like my relationship.” So this kind of mind and thinking creates the blockage to the light. That’s why we need to chant, loud! We express our love and devotion. We express our connection to that inner sun. So we bring the best thing within us outside.

We use Kirtan music and Mantra to be happy. So it cleanses the body and mind, especially, uplifts your emotions, and it opens your heart. Kirtan is about clearing away all the negative emotions, so you can connect to the divine within you. That’s very simple.

Mantra sacred sound

I can talk more about Mantra. Mantra is a sacred sound formula that resonates and that lifts your consciousness from a low level to a high level. It is a sacred formula given by teachers that have realized these mantras. They realize the power of the sound and the formula of the sound.

As I said, if you speak a language, you have to speak correctly so that the other person understands you. If you just say words without being correct, nobody will understand you. So the Mantra is a way of connection that is given to us by these Yoga masters, and we’re receiving it. (You chanted very nicely. I’m sure for many of you it’s the first time.)

The idea is not that you are chanting good or bad. The main thing is that you just have to feel the love and devotion, and then you have to be willing to open your mouth and follow the chant. It’s very natural within you, and your whole body and your whole mind will go with it, and you feel good and you don’t know why. You feel happy and you don’t know why.

I can explain the meaning of these words. These are the Daily Chants being given by Swami Sivananda from the Himalayas; that Swami Vishnudevananda-ji adopted in his Ashrams called the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centers. Of course, we learned it. We have been chanting it for years every day, morning and evening. These are Mantras. The more you chant, the more beautiful they are. These are not just some songs to entertain the emotions. These are the names and sounds of the Divine. You want to wake up the Divine within you, so you chant the mantra and you feel good.

Ganesha

So in the beginning, we always worship Ganesha, which you see on the altar, the elephant-headed one. The elephant is a very big animal, they are very wise, they live long, and they are vegetarian. They have big trunks. Wherever they go, they remove the obstacles. It says that when we live in life, there are obstacles that come from our mind, such as our own beliefs about ourselves and everything else. We need to remove these thoughts out of our way.

Then we can connect to the Divine, to our own inner light and our inner intelligence. Ganesha has the body of a human and the head of an elephant, which means when you change your head to become the head of wisdom, then you are a different person, and everything you do and everything you think would be okay. It will not create obstacles for you, and everything will be good in your life.

Do you want everything to be good in your life? So every day, pray to Ganesha. If you think about it a lot, all the time you pray, May all the obstacles be removed from my life, my life be successful, my health be good and my family be good and my relationship also good. So symbolically, you keep a picture of Ganesha, because the subconscious mind works with image. Inside of us, there is a kind of mind that works with image and symbols.

Like for children, you cannot reason with them too much, but if you draw a picture and tell a story, then children understand. So the same thing with us, there is a kind of mind inside of us that understands stories, understands pictures, but doesn’t reason very well. This is the way the sages communicate, by image and Mantra, so we can understand something that our reasoning cannot understand. This is Ganesha.

Lakshmi

Now you see here, Lakshmi. Lakshmi is like Kuan Yin, the female form, very beautiful, sitting in lotus, holding a lotus in her hand. Lotus represents purity, so she’s the one that makes you understand that you need to be purified, then you will be able to bring the good energy to you.

That good energy will give you health, give you money and success, and also remove negativities out of your mind. She will give you everything good: good food, good friends, good company, everything good, so that is Lakshmi.

Krishna

Now here in the middle, you have Krishna. Also it’s a symbolic representation of Divine Love. He is standing with a flute in hand. So the teaching is to empty yourself like the flute and remove your ego, and I will play beautiful music through you. He’s very nice.

He is standing in the moonlight. See the moon? It is more for those who like the moon. Some people like the moon, and some people like the sun. It’s just different characters. It doesn’t matter. The teaching gives you many images. So you can choose what you want, depending on your mind. Just like some people like green apple, some people like yellow apple, and some people like red apple.

It doesn’t matter. So you have the image of Lakshmi. You have the image of Krishna. It is very beautiful, very romantic, in the moonlight chanting music. Maybe for you, this is very important.

Saraswati

Then you have Saraswati. She is a beautiful female, and she plays music. She has a book in her hand and she has mala beads in another hand. And she has the swan. She sits on the white lotus. It’s a different energy. You see she is very calm and very pure. She represents the purity within you. You have that purity, then the knowledge will come.

Durga

Then you have Durga. You see she is very different. She sits on a tiger or a lion. She has many arms, and in every hand, she has a weapon. She has a sword to cut. She has the bow and arrow to shoot. She represents the power of action of the divine, and that is stronger than your own mind, which can remove all the negativities in your mind. And she becomes victorious.

Sometimes, we fight against our own negative emotions, our fear, our anger, and our desires, and we cannot make it. Our desires and negativities are stronger, so at that time you call Durga. You place a picture of her, and you say, “Mother Durga protect me”. And she will come and she will fight and you will feel good.

Conclusion

So whatever you want, you can place a picture. And you can connect by devotion and by prayers, then it will happen. So what will happen? You will feel good, because inside of you, the peace is there, happiness is there, everything you want is there, but there are many obstacles that come from your own mind.

So chanting Kirtan can remove the obstacles, and practicing love and devotion will lift you up, make you more able to love, and then after that, you can love everybody in your life, and when you love, you become happy.

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The Dynamic of Concentration and Self-Surrender

by Swami Sitaramananda | Feb 20, 2015 | Bhakti Yoga, Jnana Yoga

Remember, Forget

Swami Sivananda’s last instructions are, “Remember, Forget.” Remember the Divine and forget or let go, of everything else. This simple instruction summarizes the basic approaches of Yoga.

Jnana and Bhakti

On the one hand, Jnana Yoga nurtures the concentrated state of mind which is ideally focused on an uplifting object such as a divine name (mantra) or presence; and on the other hand, Bhakti Yoga is the practice of self-surrender, or letting go of our attachments: ideas and expectations, memories, concepts, and limited knowledge.

Both Jnana Yoga and Bhakti Yoga require conscious effort. The Jnana Yogi focuses the mind and attaches to a worthwhile goal, such as Knowledge or the Self. Whereas, the Bhakti Yogi releases oneself from effort, trusting in God, to relax on what already is.

Jnana practices strength

The Jnana Yogi practices to strengthen the mind, to bring stillness and calm to the mind, to be able to reflect the true picture of the Self within, which is Happiness Absolute.

Bhakti practices letting go

The Bhakti Yogi knows already that whatever we come up with in our mind is limited, and knows that we do not know the bigger picture or the will of God. Therefore, the best strategy is to let go of all preconceived ideas and to detach.

Attachments bring suffering

If you are attached to any object of this world, be it a person, an object or a circumstance, you will lose your freedom and become enmeshed in that object. Attaching oneself to the Supreme purifies all Egoistic intentions, and draws one closer to the Supreme Being, to the Pure Reality. Attachment to the Supreme will eventually give you your Self and your Freedom.

To practice detachment refers to our human tendency to involve ourselves in every aspect of our life
to treat even temporal objects as absolute truth or reality.
Through our attachment to objects we lose the perspective that life is but a big school to learn
(to remember!) that we are the Atman, that we are the Truth in all things and not some separate entity or appearance.

Detachment implies that one remains established in the Self and lets go of everything else.

Conclusion

How much we practice concentration and how much we practice self-surrender and detachment depends on one’s personality in the first place. An emotional person works it out by remembering God and by offering all of one’s emotions to the Divine, trusting that God knows best and all is happening by His will. A strong-minded person practicing Jnana Yoga, might just focus the mind on an uplifting object, meditating on the Divine, until nothing else remains.

Swami Sivananda said, “Serve the Self, Love the Self (or God), Meditate on the Self, and Realize the Self.”

Om Tat Sat

Swami Sitarmananda

Spark up your Life with Spiritual Practices

Yoga of Relationships: The way to Selfless Love

How do emotions work?

by Swami Sitaramananda | Oct 20, 2014 | Bhakti Yoga

The first thing to know is how long has that negative emotion like anger for example has been there. How long have you been depressed? Some people would say that they have been depressed all their life. Others would say, I have been depressed for one month since my mother died.

Second, you need to know how strong that thought is. The strength of the thought depends on how frequent it comes to you.

Third, what is the nature of the negative thought. And you need to memorize the main ones.

One is anger, which comes from desire unfulfilled. The little children of anger are frustration, irritation, rage annoyance, annoyed, resentment. Thoughts have different power. Rage is very strong but annoyance and irritation not so strong.

The other one is fear. Fear comes from attachment. You want something. You get attached to it and you are afraid to lose. The ramifications are worry, anxiety, shyness, panic attacks, overwhelmed, terror.

How do you counteract desire unfulfilled? There are many ways but there is one very direct. You translate the words into the opposite. So it will be count your blessings or you can say contentment. Sometimes people say patient. But patient does not really go to the root of it. It only negotiates it. Like you don’t get it now you will get it later.

You counteract fear, which comes from attachment with detachment, letting go. For example, if the wife is afraid the husband will leave her, because attachment comes from the idea this he is the source of her happiness. You are attached to something external. That person has to let go of the idea of the husband is the source of happiness and to realize it will not be here forever. So she needs to detach from it and somehow the love will remain but it is not distorted. Swami Vishnudevananda used to say if you are afraid of speaking in public then the first thing you need to is to speak in public. Confront your fear do the opposite. And detach from the idea of people liking you or not liking you. You have to let go of that. If people don’t like me, fine. If people don’t like me, fine. I am who I am. That is how you have to confront it.

Another big one is hatred. Hatred comes from the opposite of love. Love is our true nature. If you don’t love somebody it drains all your energy. It kills you. The hatred of somebody in your system you become sick sooner or later. It will block life and love is life and life is love.

Jealousy comes from the idea that I should have that. Jealousy and envy – You have to know love is eternal and it is not in the person. Comes from not knowing your own karma your own situation and thinking of something that is completely ungrounded something that I should have. Jealousy and greed come from a lack of assessment of your own karma. The opposite is acceptance, contentment.

The next one is pride – Pride comes from the ego – intellect or ego of wealth. You build up your ego. Let’s say you have wealth and you are proud of it. You have intellect and you are proud of it. You are talented and you are proud of your talent. All these come from the ignorance of not knowing that all these talent did not come from you. It is the ego that identifies with it but it did not come from you. It came from God. You are being given this and it can be taken away. That is why people that are so proud get so humiliated because they think they are on to and then there will be situations with people better than themselves and the humiliation comes and resentment comes and anger. These things they do not come alone they are mixed up together. Anger, fear, resentment, and greed they are all messed up together. Swamiji used to say to treat pride like a balloon. So you need to take a little needle and pock in there. Accept that somebody will be better than you. Don’t think that you invincible. That is the ego, wrong thinking. Opposite is humility.

Obsession or delusion – means you take something and you think it is something else. They have not understanding at all. The emotions just create a story and they believe in it. It is misperception. Delusion means completely misinterpreting about things. Deluded people think so wrong. For example “I am a princess and everybody should serve me.” Or somebody may say, “I think all Muslims are bad.” That is completely deluded and a misperception. You need to reason to get out of the state of delusion. Opposite is you need to be able to think about with clarity

Greed – insatiable to fulfill yourself from the external the material. The mind is in the material world and they are not thinking of the spirit so they think the more they accumulate the material the more they are great. It is a distortion of the reason. They think they more they have the more they are powerful. It comes from insecurity. So you accumulate to feel stronger and the more you accumulate you become weaker.

Lust is the sexual desire and the sensual desire the passion that takes control completely. Lust is sexual energy that is not understood properly. The passion is not understood as divine. Sexual energy needs to be understood as divine which means it doesn’t belong to you. The same thing like your talents do not belong to you and you should not develop pride over them. Sexual is the divine energy that comes through you for the reason of procreation. If you understand it for what it is and don’t miss it with anything else like possession, love, anger. It is a spiritual energy that is powerful that can create life and you need to understand it and not use for your own gratification. Opposite of lust will be abstinence. When the passion is too strong you need to practice self-control.

Four different ways to be equipped with.

These are the yoga techniques of positive thinking or yoga psychology.

Raja Yoga. The teaching about the mind. The method is awareness. Know the nature of the though and then replace it with the opposite. Hatred replaced with love. Fear with courage. Greed with charity. Lust with chastity. You have to try many things it is like medicine you need to try this and see how it works. Sometimes it is combined methods. The thoughts in the mind are numerous. You need a toolbox. In a toolbox you have different things like hammer, nails, etc. People get stuck in situation because they use only one tool. Like whatever situation be angry. You know the thoughts. You know the thoughts are not you. You oppose them. That is one method. It takes a strong personality to do that. It is very difficult to do that. If you don’t have a strong personality then don’t do it. Then you need to take a simple method of God loves you. And remember that God is beautiful.

The other method of Raja Yoga is to be indifferent. That means know the thoughts come and go and they are not real. Notice them but carry on with your life and the thought will die on its own. It needs to be done with awareness of the negative thought but you are being indifferent to it. You don’t think too much of it.

Next is sublimation. It means instead of opposing it you are going to take the energy and transform it into some thing positive by channeling it. For example if the person is sad then sublimation will be singing positive love songs. Work can be sublimation. You have a work that you don’t like it then you do karma yoga. Transformation of energy.

Visualization: You know the mind works with names and forms then you use a visualization to see the situation different. If they are shy they can visualize them talking and expressing themselves freely. You need to have the image that represents what you want. See yourself very confident if you lack confidence. Positive visualization and positive affirmation. Repeat the positive affirmation many times a day. I am a powerful person. God has given me all the talents I need. Like this. It works like a miracle.

Concentration – The more thoughts that you have in mind the more the negative thoughts can happen. That means you need to have less thoughts. Reduction of thoughts. Live a simple life. Keep the mind engage in positive thoughts. The mind needs to be busy but not stress.

Relax technique. Do not try to change all the thoughts at the same time because it will not work and it will create negatives thoughts. You need to say everything is fine. I can change one thing at a time. Today you change one thoughts and that is a victory. Then again and again without giving up. You don’t wait till negative thoughts come. You need to do prevention. Cultivation of virtuous. You can chose a virtue for a day of the week. For example like Monday you practice courage. Tuesday you practice love. Wednesday you practice charity.

Cheerfulness the same of humor – That means in reality nothing matter everything is maya. Do not take yourself and the problems too seriously. Laugh about them and they will solve themselves. When you are able to laugh you get detachment.

Bhakti Yoga – Bhakti yoga is about God. Pray – Surrendering to God. God knows best. It is not my will it is God’s will. Instead of complaining surrender to God’s will. You need to refer to a bigger picture. Everything happens for the best.

Karma Yoga – Karma is related to action – Lot of negativity comes from the idea of controlling the action and a lot of work problems. Karma yoga is a good tool. I am not the doe. I am only the instrument. That means I offer the result of my work. So you become detach of your work. I am doing my duty. That means doing the best you can is the most important thing and offering the results. You let go. It prevents you from wanting to control. When trying to control you get a lot of negative emotions. Everyone has certain duty. The intention is what counts. Keep a good intention. What you do is not important. Put the identity in the right place – no attachment to your skill thinking that it is your value.

Jnana Yoga – This is the idea of truth and illusion and the Self as one. I am the Self of all – This too shall pass – The idea the world is an illusion – Try to be the witness and do not identify too much with that story – Play your role – Like in a movie but you are not the role. Everything is like a dream – It changes – You are not the character – Illusion – Then affirm yourself – I am Sat Chid Ananda – I am truth – I am bliss – I am knowledge – Basically the idea is detachment –

Yogic Tools for Transforming Negative Emotions

by Swami Sitaramananda | Oct 20, 2014 | Bhakti Yoga

To work with the emotions, we need to understand their forms and manifestations and learn how to properly handle them. All emotions are forms of Love, but distorted. Because love is at the root of every emotion, we can learn to bring the emotions back from negative manifestations to positive ones. Pure love is the remedy to all emotional problems. Love is God and God is love.

We can trace back the origin of almost all diseases to negative emotions, which dam up and affect the flow of prana. If we catch these emotions and begin working to sublimate them early on, we can avoid the detrimental effects they have on our physical and mental health, and begin to transform them into sattvic emotions that will elevate ourselves and those around us. Negative emotions (tamasic and rajasic) need to be converted back to sattvic emotions (positive emotions) and from there to Love.

Anger: Anger comes from unfulfilled Expectation or Desire. It is hot, fast and destructive. Its forms are frustrations, irritations, rage, fury, etc. It is most prominent in a Pitta nature (constitution dominantly of fire). The best way to bring anger back to love is to practice contentment and letting go of expectations. Instead of focusing on something that did not go your way, practice being grateful for the many positive elements of your life. Practice acceptance and surrender, knowing that there are many things you cannot control. Another alternative is to use patience, which will mitigate the desire.

Fear: Fear comes from Attachment. It is cold and paralyzing and makes you lose your faculties. The root is the fear that comes from our primitive instincts (the instinct of survival, the herd instinct). From there, we have the fear of death, the fear of being alone, and fear of public criticism or general fear of losing. The antidote is Courage, also Detachment–to oppose the Attachment. However, Detachment needs to be understood properly. Detachment does not mean rejecting; it means learning to see the true Self that is Love Absolute and Bliss Absolute, and feeling fulfilled, not needing anything else.

Hatred: Hatred comes from love turning in a wrong direction. It is the opposite of love. When we cannot love someone or something, it corrupts to Hatred, which makes us smaller, and unhappy. The antidote is to practice active love or at least compassion. We must learn to see the Self in others. Practicing selfless service is love in action—it can foster compassion and ease open the knots of the heart that corrupt love into hatred.

Lust: Lust comes from Desire and Passion manifested through our senses, and sexual energy that wants gratification out of instinctive habit. We project our desires on material objects or people and seek for union with them externally, when in reality we seek for union with the Divine Self. The antidote for lust is chastity, and devotion to the union with the divine through pure love. We must beware of our reproductive instincts taking control over our being. Even though we are part instinctive, part divine, we need to exercise reason and control to transform our lustful tendencies to pure love. Through the practice of pure love, we learn to experience the union of the divine in all beings.

Greed: Greed comes from our desire for safety and fulfillment twisted into insatiable desires for material objects. The keyword of greed is more. We think wrongly that if we have more of something we will feel satisfied, gratified and content. We end up wanting more and are restless and not satisfied. We want more money, relationship, power, houses, cars, possessions, food, etc. The antidote of Greed is charity and contentment. Count your blessings and give indiscriminately, instead of accumulating and taking.

Jealousy/Envy: Jealousy and envy come from our lack of acceptance of our karmas and what comes to us by God’s will. We project the inner idea of our accomplishments and greatness to someone else that has what we want and become jealous–instead of accepting our conditions and working on ourselves. The antidote is acceptance. We should remind ourselves that everything we experience is due to our karmas, and that by humility and by acceptance we can work through our karmas and learn our unique lessons.

© Swami Sitaramananda 2014 No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author.

9 Ways to Practice Bhakti Yoga in Daily Life

by Swami Sitaramananda | May 21, 2014 | Bhakti Yoga

Bhakti Yoga is the branch of yoga that focuses on devotion and devotional practices. God is love and love is God. Bhakti yoga uses our fundamental emotional relationships and sublimates them into pure, selfless, divine love. There are 9 traditional ways to sublimate emotions to devotion, overcome egoism, and realize God according to the teachings of Bhakti Yoga. These methods can be applied in our relationships with others:

Listen to inspiring divine stories – Develop the capacity to listen to others without judgment. Be honest in what you say about yourself.
Sing God’s glories – Learn to praise others and to look for their positive qualities and be appreciative of one’s own positive qualities.
Remembrance of His name and presence in prayers – Learn to hold people you love in your heart in a prayerful mood, feel the sacredness of relationships. Be detached and forgiving. Be grateful for all people who you interact with in your life.
Service with humility – Learn to actively serve everyone as God whether you like them or not.
Worship – Learn to see God in your relationships. Offer your time and presence, as well as beautiful gifts, as if they are being offered to God.
Prostrations – Learn to give utmost respect to people you encounter or people surrounding you no matter who they are.
Cultivate the feeling of being a servant of God – Learn to develop an attitude of self-sacrifice.
Cultivate feelings of friendship for God – Learn to open your heart equally to all, without ulterior motives and discriminating who is higher or lower than you.
Complete self-surrender – Learn to accept all things happening to you with equanimity and overcome your own expectations or feelings about anything done by yourself or others.

Yoga of Relationships: The way to Selfless Love

by Swami Sitaramananda | Mar 20, 2014 | Bhakti Yoga

In order to practice Bhakti Yoga in Daily Life we should learning to See God Through Our Relationships with others. There are many different types of relationship and in fact, life is nothing but relationship. Nothing is independent. If we think we are independent we are creating problems for ourselves because we are in relationship at all times.

Learning from past relationships

The Yoga of Relationship teaches us to understand that we are in this constant and complex network of relationship and teaches us to learn from the emotional patterns that we usually follow within relationship. It is through our network of relationship that we learn and grow. People in relationship serve as mirrors to each other emotionally and in various ways, so that we may reach the core issue of what it means to live in relationship, which is the relationship with our own Self. In Yoga we aim to stop the cycle of recurring negative emotional patterns in our past relationships by looking within and by developing awareness about oneself. It is about being self-sufficient – not in an egoistic manner but in a spiritual manner.

Finding self-love

We must find ourselves in order to have true relationship with others. The moment that we improve our level of self-love, our level of love for other people also improves. It is automatic. If we hate ourselves we will hate others too. If we are angry at ourselves we will be angry with other people. If we are disconnected from our Self, then we will also be disconnected from other people. So there is no point in projecting blame or in trying to correct things externally, we need to correct things internally. If we find that we are always losing ourselves in relationship, it is because we have lost connection with our inner Self. If we can constantly maintain that relationship with our Self, then we will have beautiful relationships externally.

Ideal Relationships

In Yoga an ideal relationship is based on respect, devotion and self-sacrifice.

Respect means tuning our mind to the needs of the other person, and that we accept their uniqueness, no matter what we may think about them. It implies a non-judgmental attitude.
Devotion is about seeing the other person as God; that means treating the person with pure, unreserved love and trust, and being ready to dedicate our time and effort to make them happy.
Self-sacrifice in relationship implies that we are aware of the ego’s tendency to be selfish. We consciously offer up our own needs in order to serve others who we consider as God, because we understand that while we are serving him or her, we are, in reality, serving our own Self.

So self-sacrifice does not mean we are losing something. Instead, we are exchanging our limited view and egoistic needs with the unselfish desire to purify and uplift our self.

Reproducing Impressions of Past Relationships

Usually we reproduce relationships that we already know. Our minds already carry impressions of our past relationships. The way in which we view ourselves, and the way we view other people is seen through the prism of those impressions left by past relationships. The impressions created by the relationships with the mother and father are especially strong. That is because those relationships began when we were very young and only our subconscious or emotional, instinctive minds are operating, so the impressions made then are very deep and unquestionable. In Yoga, it is said that our karmas choose our mother and father in this life so that we can learn and grow. Yogis believe that we carry the joys and sufferings that come from past lives and from the subconscious minds of our family and ancestors. We carry these in our own lives and we reproduce them in our relationships. As an example, a person who grew up in a dysfunctional and very angry family will likely form a dysfunctional and angry family later on, unless he/she does a lot of conscious inner work to develop detachment and awareness of the pattern. So many patterns begin in childhood and then just get reproduced. Some other scenarios:

when you were young, you were loved or not loved, isolated or put down
you were completely spoiled and told that everything you did was perfect, then you will keep reproducing these patterns. So the spoiled person will always blame something external. They think they are perfect because that is what they have been told all their lives.

Of course, we are all perfect inside but our minds are not perfect. Our minds need to be molded in order for us to be able to reflect the perfection that is lives within us. We will have to do a great deal of self-inquiry to become independent from past impressions and to correct the pattern of reproducing past relationships.

Remedy for Problems in Relationship

Healing our relationships starts with self-love or Love of God. We have to start to love our true Self or love God. This means we go through the maze of the mind and emotions to sort out who we are from who we are not. We have to look at our beliefs and examine whether they are true or not. If we can discard the ideas about ourselves that are not true and understand the core value of what is true, we come to accept and love our true Self. In other words, we stop waiting for someone external to us to give us permission to love our Self. That is what we usually do and it typically leads to a chain of projections and reproduction of expectations that creates confusion and pain. In Bhakti Yoga, either we address the partner as a symbolic idealized God himself/herself (the “Ishta devata” concept of personal chosen form of God) or we cultivate our ideal relationship by seeing our own Self or God in our inter-relationship with the people in our lives. In either case, the same principles apply. The same Love shines. Either we see God in our Self or see God in Others, or a mixture of both. We are all knowingly or unknowingly on this journey towards true Unity, Pure Joy and Pure Bliss, finding the relationship with Love Itself. © Swami Sitaramananda 2018 No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author.