Theme of the month February – Bhakti Yoga
“Looking for Your Face by Rumi
From the beginning of my life
I have been looking for your face
but today I have seen it
Today I have seen
the charm, the beauty,
the unfathomable grace
of the face
that I was looking for
Today I have found you
and those who laughed
and scorned me yesterday
are sorry that they were not looking
as I did
I am bewildered by the magnificence
of your beauty
and wish to see you
with a hundred eyes
My heart has burned with passion
and has searched forever
for this wondrous beauty
that I now behold
I am ashamed
to call this love human
and afraid of God
to call it divine
Your fragrant breath
like the morning breeze
has come to the stillness of the garden
You have breathed new life into me
I have become your sunshine
and also your shadow
My soul is screaming in ecstasy
Every fiber of my being
is in love with you
Your effulgence
has lit a fire in my heart
and you have made radiant
for me
the earth and sky
My arrow of love
has arrived at the target
I am in the house of mercy
and my heart
is a place of prayer”
This month at the studio we move our focus onto all things BHAKTI. What else should we look at during this month of LOVE??
Love it or hate it, Valentine’s Day infuses this month with hearts, love songs, broken hearts, lovers, romantics and cheesy cards! I think maybe due to my time living in the states, that I have learnt to love Valentines Day for all its cheesiness! I love the whole anonymous card sending, red rose delivery, torturous love song listening vibe of this month, call me a hopeless romantic, I don’t mind!
And of course we have our yogic way of expressing love and devotion through the practice of Bhakti…Bhakti is the Sanskrit word for love and stems from the root bhaj meaning to participate…love being the most profound participation of which we are capable.
“The world is full of beauty when the heart is full of love”
When we truly love, we are in harmony not only with our beloved but with all living things, Love is blind and unconditional and extends to everyone and everything liberating us from the prison of our egos by dissolving the veil of separation to union with all and our natural state of Love and Bliss.
However, in this beautiful practice of Bhakti, true love has to start with the self. Forget your lovers past and present and think about the one soul that is with you for your whole life…yours. Could you write one of those anonymous cheesy cards to yourself this year and tell yourself in compassionate and caring words, how much you mean to you? From there we grow.
This month in class you can expect to hear the poems of the Bhakti poets – Rumi, Hafiz, Mirabai, Kabir, Tagore, Rabia or more modern Christopher Poindexter, Taylor Knott and of course Mary Oliver – these are my favs, who are yours?
You can also expect some chanting and mantra, myth telling and backbends, pranayama and meditation to open our hearts through the use of yogic tools. We can’t wait to share this practice with you all this month
And to each and every one of you, I Love You, thank you for making FYS the community that fills up my heart every day
