The Eleven Forms of Love — An Overview
Narada describes eleven distinct expressions of supreme devotion, each a different flavor of the one love directed toward God.
Narada enumerates eleven forms in which para bhakti expresses itself (Narada Bhakti Sutra 82): love of God's glory, of His beauty, worship, remembrance, service, friendship, parental affection, conjugal love, self-surrender, absorption, and the love that lives in the pain of separation. These are not competing paths but varied moods (bhavas) of the single love, much as one light passes through different colored glass. The tradition holds that each devotee is drawn to the form most natural to their temperament, and that any one of them, fully developed, leads to the goal. This rich typology honors the diversity of human hearts within the unity of devotion. The following principles take up each form in turn. Together they map the full emotional landscape of the soul's love for the Divine.
It becomes elevenfold: love of His greatness, of His beauty, of worship, of remembrance, and the rest.
The systematic typology of devotional moods (bhavas) was later elaborated in great detail by the Gaudiya Vaishnava theologian Rupa Goswami, whose Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu maps the relationships of love into a refined aesthetic of devotion.
Narada Bhakti Sutras
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- What is bhakti? Narada's definition of devotion
Devotion is not one feeling. Narada counts eleven: love of God's greatness, of beauty, through worship, remembrance, service, friendship, as a parent, as a lover, as self-surrender, as absorption, and the love that lives on separation.