In this post, we discuss how we believe Bhakti yoga affects, and has affected in the past, the collective Indian subconscious. We clarify that we are not critiquing Bhakti yoga, nor do we consider ourselves qualified to critique it, but are only attempting to analyze it neutrally.
Bhakti yoga is defined as [1]:
Bhakti yoga, also called Bhakti marga (literally “the path of bhakti”), is a spiritual path or spiritual practice within Hinduism focused on loving devotion towards any personal deity.
We note the following observations in the abstract about Bhakti yoga:
-
It assumes a hierarchy, i.e., there exists an entity A, the deity, that is more powerful than the entity, B, that is the devotee towards that deity.
-
It redirects the emotions of the devotee, B, from materialism towards the loving spiritual devotion for the deity, A.
-
It teaches practicing detachment from material things.
We believe that this thought-pattern can leave an entire population very vulnerable if applied towards an entity A that is not a God-like figure. If this thought-pattern is applied when A is a normal human being, it can lead to observations like what the late Henry Kissinger said about India in the 1970s. Note that we interpret the observation in a neutral manner, i.e., after removing all the nationalistic and sterotyping sentiment from the quote [2]:
They are superb flatterers, Mr. President. They are masters at flattery. They are masters at subtle flattery. That’s how they survived 600 years. They suck up — their great skill is to suck up to people in key positions.