Worship of Krishna as svayam bhagavan, or the Supreme Being, known as Krishnaism, arose in the Middle Ages in the context of the bhakti movement.

One example of such group was the Hare Krishna movement ( ISKCON ) founded by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in 1966, many of whose followers voluntarily accepted the demandingly ascetic lifestyle of bhakti yoga on a full-time basis, in stark contrast to much of the popular culture of the time.

The name, a cognate of bhakti, meaning religious devotion, suggests its importance to the bhakti movement that spread from the south of India throughout the entire subcontinent in the Moghul era.

Moksha may be achieved by love of Ishwar / God ( see bhakti movement, see Mirabai ), by psycho-physical meditation ( Raja Yoga ), by discrimination of what is real and unreal through intense contemplation ( Jnana Yoga ), and through Karma Yoga, the path of selfless action that subverts the ego and enforces understanding of the unity of all.

it rises to importance in the medieval history of Hinduism, where the Bhakti movement saw a rapid growth of bhakti beginning in Southern India with the Vaisnava Alvars ( 6th-9th century CE ) and Saiva Nayanars ( 5th-10th century CE ), who spread bhakti poetry and devotion throughout India by the 12th-18th century CE.

The Bhagavata Purana is text associated with the Bhakti movement which elaborates the concept of bhakti as found in the Bhagavad Gita.

Scholarly consensus sees bhakti as a post-Vedic movement that developed primarily during the era of Indian epic poetry.

* Kabir ( 1398 – 1518 ), a major figure of the bhakti ( devotional ) movement.

Meerabai ( Rajasthani: म ी र ां ब ा ई ) ( c. 1498 – c. 1547 ) ( alternate orthographies: Meera, Mira, Meeraan, Meeran Bai ; the word ' bai ' in Rajasthani is an informal term commonly used to refer a sister or sometimes a girl ) was an aristocratic Hindu mystical singer and devotee of Lord Krishna from Rajasthan and one of the most significant figures of the Sant tradition of the Vaishnava bhakti movement.

With the rise of the bhakti movement from the 12th century onwards, religious works started being created in Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and many other Indian languages throughout the different regions of India.

The bhakti movement is eternal, but on Earth, in visible history, it began in South India and moved north, with an emphasis on devotion vs. ritual.

The Varkaris soon considered him their teacher and spiritual leader, who initiated his contemporaries associated with the Dvaita ( dualism ) school of the bhakti movement into Advaita ( non-dualism ).

With the rise of the bhakti movement from the 12th century onwards, religious works were created in the other languages: Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and many others.

From the very beginning of Lord Chaitanya's bhakti movement in Bengal, Haridasa Thakur and others Muslim or Hindu by birth were the participants.

Its form today contains traces of temple and ritual dances, and the influence of the bhakti movement.

Dasa Sahitya () is the literature of bhakti movement composed by devotees in honor of Lord Vishnu or one of his Avatars.

The interpretation of the word ' yoga ' as union is the result of later, external influences that include the bhakti movement, Vedanta and Kashmiri Sivaism.

However the Muslim subjugation of north India restricted Shaiva Siddhanta to the south, where it merged with the Tamil Saiva movement expressed in the bhakti poetry of the Nayanars.

From the fifth to the eighth CE Buddhism and Jainism had spread in Tamil Nadu before a forceful Shaiva bhakti movement arose.

Ron Geaves states that the Divine Light Mission " developed into a vigorous new religious movement with its own specific traits that included characteristics of a contemporary North Indian Sant panth ( sectarian institution ) and nirguna bhakti was combined with intense reverence for the living satguru and millennial expectations of the western counter-culture.

From the very beginning of Chaitanya's bhakti movement in Bengal, Haridasa Thakur and others Muslim by birth were the participants.

Hindu writers, theologians, and philosophers have distinguished nine forms of bhakti, which can be found in the Bhagavata Purana and works by Tulsidas.

The Brahma Vaivarta Purana mentions a ten thousand year period, starting from the traditional dating of the Kali Yuga epoch of January 14, 3102 BC / BCE, during which bhakti yogis will be present.

In the Vedas, Narada is described as a saintly traveler who sometimes while remembering Vishnu by singing His Glories his Brahminical holy thread breaks, because of bodily expansions through the emotions he feels of pure bhakti ( love of God ) in separation, which he derives from his unalloyed devotional service.

Hindu movements in which bhakti is the main practice are called bhakti movements — the major schools are Shaivism, Vaishnavism, and Shaktism.

He became a priest of the Dakshineswar Kali Temple, dedicated to the goddess Kali, which had the influence of the main strands of Bengali bhakti tradition.

The other class of jnanis, whose jnana is mixed with bhakti, are also of two kinds -- those who are devoted to the so-called " false form " ( however, devotee knows that all forms of Supreme Bhagavan are eternal, even those which are in mode of goodness, sattva-guna ) of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and those who understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead as sac-cid-ananda-vigraha 5. 1, the actual spiritual form.

The Haridasas spread the message of peace, love and bhakti in their Dasa Sahitya, which are also popularly known Devaranamas

McDaniel ( 1989: p. 7 ) in her work on the bhakti saints of Bengal holds that Plato defined four types of divine madness: the mantic divination of Apollo ; the telestic possession-trance of Dionysus which reaches its apogee in the maenads ; the poetic from the Muses ; and the erotic frenzied love of Eros and Aphrodite:

However, within Gaudiya Vaishnavism it is bhakti in its purest state ( or " pure love of God ") which is given as the ultimate aim, rather than liberation from the cycle of rebirth.

The two main elements of the bhakti-yoga process are vaidhi bhakti, which is devotional service through practice of rules and regulations ( sadhana ) and raganuga bhakti, which is taken as a higher stage of more spontaneous devotional service based on a selfless desire to please one's chosen Ishta-deva of Krishna or his associated expansions and avatars.

In this way, bhakti surpasses even yoga, which is aimed at the Supersoul, Paramatma.

He leaves aside the first ( of historic interest ), and the fourth ( due to the definitions of nirvana ), so that as exemplars of mystical experience he presents: ( a ) the Upanishadic " I am this All " which can be subdivided into ( i ) a theistic interpretaion or ( ii ) a monistic ; ( b ) the Yogic " unity " outside space and time, either ( i ) of the eternal monad of the mystic's own individual soul per the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali or ( ii ) of Brahman, the ground of the universe, per the advaita Vedanta of Sankara ; and, ( c ) the bhakti mysticism of love, per the commentary on the Bhagavad Gita by Ramanuja.

These works are therefore the earliest evidences of monotheistic Bhakti traditions, preceding the large bhakti movement, which was given great attention in later times.

The Bhakti movement was a Hindu religious movement in which the main spiritual practice was the fostering of loving devotion to God, called bhakti.

He believed in the Vedantic concept of atman, but unlike earlier orthodox Vedantins, he spurned the Hindu societal caste system and murti-pujan ( idol worship ), showing clear belief in both bhakti and Sufi ideas.

It also opposed the caste system, with prominent bhakti poets Ravidas and Kabir both writing against the hierarchy of caste.

Dogs are both wild and tame, and symbols of fidelity and devotion ( Sanskrit: bhakti ).

The Madhya-lila details Caitanya Mahaprabhu's sannyasa pastimes ; the life of Madhavendra Puri ; a philosophical conversation with the Advaitin scholar Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya ( wherein the supremacy of bhakti is promoted by Mahaprabhu against the arguments of impersonal advaita ); Caitanya ’ s pilgrimage to South India ; examples of the daily and annual activities of Caitanya and his devotees during the Ratha-yatra festival of Jagannatha near the Jagannath Temple in Puri, Orissa ; their observance of other festivities ; and his detailed instructions on the process of Bhakti Yoga to both Rupa Goswami and Sanatana Goswami.

It was during these years that Lord Chaitanya is believed by His followers to have sank deep into various Divine-Love ( samādhi ) and performed pastimes of divine ecstasy ( bhakti ).

The most widely known amongst his first spiritual teachers was an ascetic woman, called Bhairavi Brahmani skilled in Tantra and Vaishnava bhakti.

According to the Bhairavi, Ramakrishna was experiencing phenomena that accompany mahabhava — the supreme attitude of loving devotion towards the divine – and quoting from the bhakti shastras, she said that other religious figures like Radha and Chaitanya had similar experiences.

Sheikh Muhammad was a Sufi saint who embraced the Hindu God Rama as his chosen bhakti ideal.

The sage Narada, in his role as intermediary between gods and men, visited Vyasa to inform him that his unease was because he had not yet described the highest goal of knowledge — bhakti, or devotion to God.

Although Dattatreya was at first a " Lord of Yoga " exhibiting distinctly Tantric traits, he was adapted and assimilated into the more devotional ( Sanskrit: bhakti ) Vaishnavite cults ; while still worshiped by millions of Hindus, he is approached more as a benevolent god than as a teacher of the highest essence of Indian thought.

This question was asked by Vyasatirtha in a sabha, to actually bring light into Kanakadasara bhakti.

), also known as Thakura Mahasaya is a Gaudiya Vaishnava saint who was responsible for spreading Vaishnava bhakti throughout Orissa in and outside of Bengal in India.

After the tenth verse, Bhattatiri realised that the boy was the Lord himself, and understood that Poonthanam's bhakti was more pleasing to the Lord than his own superior knowledge of Vibhakti ( Sanskrit grammar ) and learning.

Sopan ( स ं त स ो प ा नद े व ) was a Hindu bhakti Saint and also younger brother of Sant Dnyaneshwar.

This openness and disregard for the traditional caste system received a boost from the " broad-minded vision " of Bhaktivinoda Thakura, a nineteenth-century magistrate and prolific writer on bhakti topics, and was institutionalized by his son and successor Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura in the twentieth-century Gaudiya Math.

The first documented bhakti movement was founded by Karaikkal-ammaiyar.

But, Prahalada, his son, was a devotee of Lord Narayana and always expressed his bhakti towards Him.

He was an orthodox saivite and represents bhakti at its highest form in his age.