Here is some clarification on my last blog post. After some feedback and discussion there are a couple things I should explain more. Firstly the chant is below, feel free to listen to me or just hear the pronunciation and then turn it off. I mean I wouldn't listen to me...
I think that Hanuman is the best example of Bhakti or devotional yoga. When we chant mantra that is bhakti, when we study and learn about the gods, and their stories, that is bhakti. Here is what I didn't explain well in my previous post.
Both in Hinduism and Buddhism the idea of single pointed focus when engaged in a task is seen as being in a flow state, it is when we feel connected to something bigger than ourselves. So in Buddhism in particular the idea of preforming everyday tasks as a devotional practice is central. With single pointed focus I can shovel the snow, I can think of the water cycle and all the things that had to happen for that snowflake to end up on my driveway. Religious or not, I can see that that crystal of water molecules was created in the same moment of the big bang that all the stuff that makes up me was. When we are fully immersed in what we are doing we are not only connected to all things. We are from the same starting point. So serving God is not necessarily working at an orphanage in a third world country (although it can be) it is the motives behind why we do the things we do.
I can "serve others" by doing things for them, but it the real reason is calm my own anxiety, or because I don't think they know how... that is not serving others. To fully serve others we must have no attachment to the outcome, and not have our own agenda. That's where it seems to get sticky. Shovelling my neighbour's sidewalk because they never do it and I am tired of slipping, is very different than shovelling their sidewalk to do something nice.
There is a pretty famous Ram Dass quote:
Treat everyone you meet as God in drag
That is what it really comes down to. Can you see each human as a soul? We are all created from the same star dust. Nothing for them to do to be worthy. That flash of connection. This is the invitation. This is when we are at our most powerful and strongest. Our we acting following the principals of ahimsa (non violence) and astray (non stealing)? That is when we are strongest. Unstoppable.
That is what Hanuman inspires us to be.
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