A section from the journey

"To Share in God": the Word Bhakti

Now the long road turns toward the heart. For a thousand years, all across this land, people will sing to God in love. That love has a name: bhakti. The word grows from a root that means "to share" and "to take part." So bhakti is not only a warm feeling. It is sharing in God, belonging to God. We will hold this word with care, for the whole age ahead is built on it.

We have come a long way. We have walked among rivers and fires, sat with sages in the forest, and crossed great battlefields of the heart. Now the road turns gently toward something warmer. It turns toward love.

For the next thousand years, all across this land, people will sing to God. Not in one temple or one tongue, but everywhere, in the words of the street and the home. This great rising tide of love has a name. The name is . Hold it with care, for the whole age ahead grows from it.

We often say bhakti means "devotion," and that is true. But let us listen to the word more closely, the way you turn a stone to catch the light. The word grows from an old root, .

And bhaj does not mean "to feel." It means to share. To take part. To give someone a portion, and to receive one. It is the word for sitting down together and dividing the food, so that each has a share.

So here is the heart of it. Bhakti is not only a warm feeling that flows from you toward God. It is sharing in God. It is belonging. The devotee is one who takes part — who is God's own, and to whom God gives a share of Himself. Love here is a two-way bond, not a one-way longing.

That is why a lover of God in this tradition is called a . The word means, almost exactly, "one who shares." Remember that. The bhakta does not stand outside, gazing up. The bhakta belongs.

When does this word first shine out clearly? We find it early, in one of the Upanishads, those forest books of deep questions we sat with long ago. At the very close of the Shvetashvatara , the teacher says that the highest truths shine forth only in one who holds the deepest love.

"These doctrines, if told to a high-minded man, who feels the highest devotion (para bhakti) for God, and for his Guru as for God, will shine forth indeed, — will shine forth indeed."

Hear what it joins together. Love for God, and love for one's teacher, set side by side. And hear the lovely doubling at the end, "will shine forth indeed, will shine forth indeed," as if the truth itself were glowing brighter as it is spoken. Here is the seed of the whole age to come.

Now an honest word, the kind your guide always owes you. Scholars place this hymn very long ago, yet they still debate just how old it is, and whether "bhakti" here already means the full, warm devotion that will later fill this land, or something quieter, like faith and attachment. We do not need to settle that. It is enough to say the seed is ancient, and we cannot date its first sprouting with certainty.

So we have our word, and we have felt its weight. Bhakti: not a distant gazing, but a sharing and a belonging. From here on in our journey, the heart leads. The thinkers do not vanish, and the rites do not stop. But now, more than ever, God is loved. Carry the word with you. We will meet it on every page that follows.

Think of the difference between admiring someone from afar and truly belonging to them — sharing meals, sharing days, being theirs. The rishis felt that love of God could be the second kind, not the first. Where in your own life do you know that warmer feeling, of belonging rather than only admiring?