The path of devotional love
“There is no lack in this, my Lord!” sang the famed Carnatic singer M.S. Subbulakshmi. This line is found in Kurai Ondrum Illai, a devotional Tamil piece composed by Chakravarti Rajagopalachari in the 20th century.
For many, the intellectual path, otherwise known as jñāna yoga in Sanskrit, seems to be the gateway to eternity. We access the worlds through our minds, so there is a great temptation to philosophize ourselves out of our suffering. This path is rife with different scriptures, philosophical arguments and myriad schools of thought. It’s attractive to those who approach the world through their intellect, but many are surprised to find that the intellectual gateway is just that — a gateway.
The intellectual path seems to stand in opposition to devotional love, or bhakti yoga. It seems to make the most philosophical sense. Dissolve one’s attachments, investigate the source of one’s selfhood, and discover one’s self to be the same as the one consciousness that pervades this entire universe!
However, the yogis that roamed the Indian subcontinent were on to something important when they prescribed the path of devotional love. To those on the path of meditation and inquiry, the path of love usually seems too emotional and fantastical. What’s the point of devoting yourself to some external concept of God, when God is what exists at the core of…
