Living a Bhakti Life

Book excerpt: In Living a Bhakti Life, author A. R. Pashayan recounts experiencing a “spiritual download” in 2004 during meditation that literally changed her life. She was tormented with repetitive dreams of death, night after night, brought on in part by a death in the family, stress from work, and no alone time. She, along with a friend, tried analyzing the dreams. Nothing was clear until she took a month-long break in a place that looked like Heaven—Telluride, Colorado, where she finally left her old self behind. Her dreams made sense now. Her spiritual download paved the way for a new level of understanding life, illness, stress, and practical spirituality. She started practicing Bhakti yoga and meditation, and she finally found calm. Bhakti yoga is defined as a spiritual path described in Hindu philosophy used for fostering love, utter faith, and surrender to God. There is only one path to God: the path to grace, or Bhakti. Through yoga and quiet contemplation on top of the mountain, she soon discovered that it was possible to literally “be” unconditional love. In Living a Bhakti Life, Pashayan opens a pathway to enlightenment and God’s love through Bhakti yoga through divine power and divine love.