sri-prahrada uvaca
sravanam kirtanam visnoh
smaranam pada-sevanam
arcanam vandanam dasyam
sakhyam atma-nivedanam
iti pumsarpita visnau
bhaktis cen nava-laksana
kriyeta bhagavaty addha
tan manye 'dhitam uttamam
Below is an overview of the “Nine Modes of Devotion” – the practices that someone who is interested in Bhakti Yoga would concentrate on. I am not an expert on this, but did do a little research on these 9 forms of devotion for the retreat, as I was concentrating on storytelling, myth and hagiography.
1. SRAVANAM - Speaking of which… telling stories of Gods and great practitioners is the first mode of devotion! You may have heard of this mode as “Krishna lila,” for instance, the divine play of Lord Krishna in his many incarnations (baby, Krishna, charioteer Krishna, young lover Krishna (or “cosmic playboy” as Swami Atma suggested recently!))
2. KIRTANAM refers to chanting and singing the names of the divine.Kirtan is traditionally a call and response type of singing, so it requires at least two people to participate. It is therefore a practice that allows us to connect; with others in the room, with the music, with the mantra and with the deity or idea we are invoking.
As with all of Bhakti, when we connect with something beyond our small selves, we are taken outside of the unhelpful aspects of ego, and the mind relaxes into something larger and more happiness-producing. Connecting with sound or music specifically enables some of us to have a longer, more constant experience of this state.
Kirtan helps us get outside of the chattering, narrative voice inside our heads through song, music, clapping or playing an instrument, chanting repetitively, building an intensity of concentration, working with the breath and, traditionally, through the vibratory resonance of the Sanskrit syllables themselves.
Like our yoga practice, Kirtan moves the prana throughout the body and into a more centered place, so at the end of the song we remain silent, meditative and balanced for a while (as we do in shivasana) to consolidate these energies peacefully.
3. SMARANAM means “remembering” and it refers to being aware of the divine constantly. This can be practiced through remembering the name of one’s “Iṣṭa-devatā,” or chosen deity, through mantra recitation or prayer. Again, this functions to uplift the mind to something happiness-producing, rather than the continual chatter of complain
Swami Vivekanada says of smaranam:
1. SRAVANAM - Speaking of which… telling stories of Gods and great practitioners is the first mode of devotion! You may have heard of this mode as “Krishna lila,” for instance, the divine play of Lord Krishna in his many incarnations (baby, Krishna, charioteer Krishna, young lover Krishna (or “cosmic playboy” as Swami Atma suggested recently!))
2. KIRTANAM refers to chanting and singing the names of the divine.Kirtan is traditionally a call and response type of singing, so it requires at least two people to participate. It is therefore a practice that allows us to connect; with others in the room, with the music, with the mantra and with the deity or idea we are invoking.
As with all of Bhakti, when we connect with something beyond our small selves, we are taken outside of the unhelpful aspects of ego, and the mind relaxes into something larger and more happiness-producing. Connecting with sound or music specifically enables some of us to have a longer, more constant experience of this state.
Kirtan helps us get outside of the chattering, narrative voice inside our heads through song, music, clapping or playing an instrument, chanting repetitively, building an intensity of concentration, working with the breath and, traditionally, through the vibratory resonance of the Sanskrit syllables themselves.
Like our yoga practice, Kirtan moves the prana throughout the body and into a more centered place, so at the end of the song we remain silent, meditative and balanced for a while (as we do in shivasana) to consolidate these energies peacefully.
3. SMARANAM means “remembering” and it refers to being aware of the divine constantly. This can be practiced through remembering the name of one’s “Iṣṭa-devatā,” or chosen deity, through mantra recitation or prayer. Again, this functions to uplift the mind to something happiness-producing, rather than the continual chatter of complain
“When this kind of remembering has been attained (in relation to God) all bandages break. Thus it is spoken of in the scriptures regarding constant remembering as a means to liberation.”
Remembering is considered one of the “Five Powers” of yoga, according to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, and is also related to the mindfulness, awareness and recollection one cultivates in meditation. With smaranam, we might initially only remember the divine during our practice sessions, as something transcendent we are trying to reach. Later, though, we try to infuse all of our reality with the name of the divine through remembering, until all phenomena appears as a manifestation of the divine, and therefore immanent. And finally, as Shunryu Suzuki once commented, we “don’t chop the potatoes and think of the Buddha,” we just chop the potatoes.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says to Arjuna:
“I will never be separated from one who sees Me everywhere and sees everything in Me… One who resides in this oneness worships Me as abiding in all beings. That yogi, no matter what he or she is doing, is engaged in Me.”
Rather than smaranam being a practice of worshiping the divine at the expense of all others – the divine as opposed to the profane – Krishna defines this kind of remembering as being a worship of all, and seeing the divine everywhere. In the Tibetan tradition, Shantideva refers to the “two fields of merit” – the conquerors and all living beings – as the equal field worthy of our praise, honor, worship and service. Seeing the divine everywhere and in everything brings these two fields together as one.
4. PADASEVANAM – “Pada” means feet and “seva” means service. An opportunity to blend the practices of Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga, the Narada Bhakti Sutra suggests that because of a Bhakta’s constant remembering of the divine, they “make all actions beneficial.”
Traditionally the feet of the deity was an important symbol of sacrality, and one bent down to touch or kiss the feet of the Teacher to cultivate and consolidate humility and the willingness to learn.
5. ARCHANAM refers to the worship of God through rituals such as a fire ceremony (puja).Many of us don’t understand ritual and its purpose, but we do, of course, perform our own rituals every day. In Bhakti Yoga, ritual is used as a way to commune with the divine using sacred gestures, substances, syllables and so on that, again, take us out of the cyclic chatter of the mind.
Ritual also allows us to enter into sacred time – a space where we use our body, speech and mind to perform the actions, words and thoughts of an enlightened being. We enter a sacred body through gesture, and a sacred speech through mantra and the mind is thereby hopefully seduced into emulating the mind of an awakened one. We perform a ritual to the best of our ability in exactly the same way it was enacted the “first time it happened,” before it was emulated and therefore became a ritual. Simultaneously, though, we also enjoy the activity in the here and now, the only place enlightenment could ever happen, the only place the sacred could ever be found. Ritual allows us to do something old but make it new, as it lives through us today.
6. VANDANAM – Prostration is another action that may feel foreign to us, but we do perhaps understand in some other way.Instead of bowing in the West, some of us we were taught to rise from our seats when a person we wanted to show respect to entered the room. Specifically, a traditional prostration uses the whole body and one touches one’s forehead to the floor.
7. DASYAM – The term “das,” as in Ram Das, Krishna Das and Lama Surya Das means servant, or even slave!The servant of Ram or Krishna, the slave of the Sun. This is not supposed to be taken with some kind of victim mentality and fear that one will be “taken advantage of” (by God?!)
Dasyam means that one willingly serves their highest purpose in life – to be awakened to reality and love for all – so the practice requires us to want to be free from the ego’s clinging to pride, arrogance, selfishness and sense of separateness, which are the clouds that mask the clear blue sky of our true nature.
8. SAKHYAM is a feeling of friendship toward the divine, considering God or deities as your best friend.Interestingly, this is sometimes considered the most important of the 9 forms of devotion and the necessary prerequisite for a complete surrender of the lower self.
When working with a teacher, this aspect is extremely important as it takes us out of the potentially stifling and psychologically damaging neurosis we can develop by thinking we are essentially in some unhealthy parent/child relationship with them. By cultivating a balanced sense of friendship toward the mentor we are working with (after the necessary establishment of respect and humility), we are able to fully open to the possibilities of what we can learn through the relationship. Rather than continuing the patterns of closing off to “angry dad” or lashing out at “bitchy mom,” this attitude of friendship asks us to deeply trust the relationship and the situations it puts us in. As we do with our best friends, we try to put the other first, and practice a more fearless unconditional love that receives the reality of life with trust, whether it be joyful or difficult in the moment.
The word “bhava” or “attitude” is of utmost importance in all practices of Bhakti Yoga – signifying the correct attitude toward the object of our devotion, whether it be our teacher, parent, lover, child or boss. Rather than cultivating a superficial or hysterical obsession, the bhava we try to cultivate is a stable and intelligent yet boundless and fearless love. In relationship to that, we also live in the challenging gift of assuming that we, ourselves, are loved.
9. ATMANIVEDANAM – This is the ultimate manifestation of Bhakti Yoga, a complete surrender of the lower self to realize union with the divine, our true nature.
Surrender does not mean a laying down of personal responsibility for our life, it means taking complete responsibility for all. Surrender does not mean being a victim of other people or circumstances but cultivating a mature, heroic, joyful and active participation in one’s own path – studying, critically evaluating, meditating, experimenting with new models of living and discarding ones that are not working to bring the happiness we all deserve. Surrender does not mean a zombie-like, blindly fundamentalist following of people, traditions and organizations – this victim mentality should be completely eradicated before embarking on such a journey! – one never cedes agency, but rather offers up the ego to dissolve into something greater.
If your love letters are true dear God
I will surrender myself to
Who You keep saying
I
Am.
~ Hafiz
I will surrender myself to
Who You keep saying
I
Am.
~ Hafiz
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