Bhakti Yoga

Book excerpt: Bhakti yoga is the path of devotion that can lead every sincere seeker to self-realization. This book explains the devotional evolution that starts from an experience of a personal God and culminates in the unity of the lover and the loved. With astounding insight, Prabhuji describes a process that divinizes the earthly, spiritualizes the material, and transforms worldly attachments into transcendental love. This yogic path reveals that love is the perfume that emanates from our own presence, here and now. When we experience this love, we discover that it is not an emotion or a feeling but what is real within us. Bhakti is the purest and most elevated love arising from the depths of consciousness and the silence of meditation. David, Ben Yosef, Har-Zion, who writes under the pen name Prabhuji, is a writer, painter, and avadhūta mystic. When he was eight years old, he had a mystical experience that sparked his search for the Truth. Since then, he has devoted his life to deepening the early transformative experience that marked the beginning of his process of involution. For more than fifty years, he has been exploring and practicing various religions and spiritual paths. For Prabhuji, awakening at the level of consciousness, or the transcendence of the egoic phenomenon, is the next step in humanity's evolution. Prabhuji has chosen to retire from society and lead the life of a hermit. He spends his days in solitude, praying, studying, writing, painting, and meditating in silence and contemplation.