Para-Bhakti, Supreme Devotion Vivekananda

1. The preparatory resignation
2. Renunciation of Bhakta results from love
3. The naturalness of Bhakti Yoga and its key secret
4. The forms of love: The manifestation
5. Universal love and how it leads to self-surrender
6. Higher knowledge and higher love are one for the true devotee
   1. Knowledge of Brahman
   2. Royal and Discriminatory Knowledge
7. The love triangle
8. The God of love is his own test
9. Human representations of the divine ideal of love
10. Conclusion

Discourses on Bhakti Yoga (Volume 4)

1. The preparation to achieve intense love according to Ramanuja
   1. Shankaracharya's view
   2. Viveka (discrimination)
   3. Vimoka (freedom from desires)
   4. Abhyasa (practice)
   5. Kriya (work, doing good to others)
   6. Kalyana (purity), Satya (truthfulness), Arjava (righteousness), Ahimsa.
   7. Anavasada (joy)
2. The first steps in Bhakti Yoga
3. The spiritual Master
4. The need for symbols in Bhakti Yoga
5. The main symbols (Pratika, Pratima, Namashakti)
6. Ishta (the chosen path) by the Bhakta Yogi

Bhakti Yoga is the science of supreme love

We have to talk about a preparation for the practice of Para-Bhakti. All these preparations are intended only for the purification of the soul. The repetition of names, rites, forms and symbols, all these various things are for the purification of the soul.

The greatest purifier among all these things, a purifier without which no one can enter the regions of this higher devotion (Para-Bhakti), is renunciation. This scares many; However, without it, there can be no spiritual growth. In all our Yogas this renunciation is necessary.

1. The renunciation of the Karma Yogi has the form of renouncing all the fruits of his action
2. The Raja Yogi knows that all nature is meant for the soul to gain experience
3. The Jnani Yogi has to go through the hardest of all renunciations, for he has to realize from the beginning that all this solid-looking nature is an illusion. He has to understand that everything that is any kind of manifestation of power in nature belongs to the soul, and not to nature (All is One)

Of all the renunciations, the most natural is that of the Bhakta Yogi. There is no violence here, nothing to abandon, nothing to tear, so to speak, from ourselves, nothing from which we have to violently separate ourselves. The renunciation of Bhakta is easy, fluid and as natural as the things around us. The Bhakta does not have to repress any of his emotions, he only strives to intensify them and direct them towards God.

That is, the renunciation of Bhakta is that Vairagya or detachment from all things other than God that results from Anuraga or great attachment to God. Thus only the Bhakta Yogi has reached that supreme state of love commonly called the brotherhood of men.

In Bhakti Yoga, the central secret is therefore to know that the various passions, feelings and emotions of the human heart are not evil in themselves; They only have to be carefully controlled and given higher and higher direction, until they reach the highest condition of excellence.

“In this evanescent world, where everything is falling apart, we have to make the most of the time we have,” says the Bhakta; And really the greatest use of life is to put it at the service of all beings.

All other forms of Bhakti are only preparatory to the attainment of its highest form, namely Para-Bhakti, which is also known as the love that comes after attachment (Râgânugâ).

May God allow religions to multiply until each man has his own religion, completely separate from that of any other! This is the idea of ​​the Bhakta Yogi.

Source: “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda” by Swami Vivekananda. Volume 2,3 and 4

Translated by Pedro Nonell

Bhakti Yoga (Gita, Vivekananda)

The rest of this summary on “Para-Bhakti by Swami Vivekananda” is only available to students of the Gita Institute

Para-Bhakti or Supreme Devotion by Swami Vivekananda

Para-Bhakti: Election of the Guru (Master) by Swami Vivekananda

Parabrahman - Divine Manifestations - Universal Form

(c) Gita Institute

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