From Rituals to Realisation: Sri Swami Venkatesananda
===================================================================================================== Wednesday 04, February 2026, 05:45. From Rituals to Realisation: Sri Swami Venkatesananda This article is a chapter from the book “Yoga”. ========================================================================================== Bhakti Yoga or Love of God is basic to all religions that encourage their adherents to use icons and rituals in their spiritual practices: it is one of the main features of the Indian approach to God. This was regarded by the ancient spiritual teachers as so vital that they wove it into the fabric of the Indian’s daily life. It is often inevitable that the common man clings to the icon and the ritual and forgets the spirit underlying their use. Worship of the God-in-the-idol degenerates into mercenary idolatry which has nothing to do with religion but which is just another trade. However, whenever this has happened in India, it has immediately been arr...