Bhakti Yoga: Fully Inhabit Your Life through Devotion

We naturally gravitate toward the things that we love and care about in our lives, however we don’t always have the ability to tend to them how we’d like to. Culturally, the quality of devotion is held in great esteem (“he is such a devoted father”), but we are rarely taught what devotion actually is, how to do it, or it’s relationship to our happiness. In the ancient tradition of Bhakti Yoga, devotion is considered to be a doorway to greater joy and illumination. It is not seen as a quality that you either mysteriously have or don’t, rather something to be developed through practice and repetition. The primary practice is devotional call-and-response chanting of Sanskrit mantras, hailing from the temples and hearts of India, where it has been practiced for thousands of years.

In this workshop, Lily Cushman infuses these ancient techniques with practical tools for a framework to help us fully inhabit our lives through devotion. Students gradually cultivate the skills to:

• Offer the gift of your full attention
• Be less fragmented and scattered
• Infuse your actions with greater purpose and meaning
• Connect with yourself and others (even in challenging circumstances)
• Reconnect with your aspirations when you become sidetracked or bored
• Build resilience to begin again when things don’t go as planned
• Expand your caring circle to include those you have difficulty with or don’t notice at all

Workshop includes dharma talk, call and response chanting practice, discussion and Q/A. Open to all students, no prior experience necessary. This workshop is part of the Science of Self Teacher Training Program, and is also open to the pulbic.