Krishna-Seva: Traditional Ritual in the Practice of Bhakti Yoga

In today’s cultural atmosphere of competing spiritualism jostling with vague scepticism and strident ‘new atheism’, we do well to listen carefully to thoughtfully articulated wisdom of bygone ages. An important voice for finding existential meaning in daily devotional practices (bhakti-yoga) can be heard in the sixteenth-century Caitanya (Gaudiya) Vaisnava tradition. In this brief but carefully crafted work, the author takes readers step-by-step through the deep reasoning behind these practices with special focus on seva–conscientious attending–to sacred temple images, concluding with a cogent explanation of why this practice is not to be mistaken for ‘idolatry’.