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Seen as a form of Yoga, or union, it seeks to dissolve the ego into God, since consciousness of the body as self is seen to be a divisive factor in spiritual realization. Essentially, it is God who effects all change, who is the source of all works, who acts through the devotee as love and light. ' Sins' and evil-doings of the devotee are said to fall away of their own accord, the devotee shriven, the sins even transcended, through the love of God. The Bhakti movements, which followed the establishment of the three Vedanta systems, rejuvenated Hinduism through their intense expression of faith and responsiveness to the emotional and philosophical needs of India, illustrated by BharatanatyamBharatanatyam (also spelled as Bharathanatyam, Bharatnatyam or Bharata Natyam) is a classical dance form from South India. It owes its name to Krishna Iyer and, later, Rukmini Devi Arundale's. Bharata is Bha Bhava (mood); Ra Raga (music); ta Tala (rhythm), and can rightly be said to have affected the greatest wave of change in Hindu prayerPrayer is an effort to communicate with a God, or to some deity or deities, either to offer praise to the deity, to make a request of the deity, or simply to express one's thoughts and emotions to the deity. There are a variety approaches to understanding and ritual since the advent of Adi Shankaracharya.
Adoration and loving devotional worship of a personal God (Bhakti) is an inherent part of most religious traditions. However, in Hinduism, an entire philosophy and system of thought dedicated to it developed into an arguably independent force of its own, drawing but otherwise separate from other movements within Sanatana Dharma.
The earliest idea of salvific devotion through love is amply demonstrated in the worship of the early Rig Vedic god Varuna. This early Vedic attempt at monotheism (not monism, which saw its beginnings in the Vedas and thorough explication in the early Upanishads of 1500- 1000 BCE) was later realized in post-Upanishadic movements that sought to, as Shri Ramakrishna once put it, embrace the Lotus Feet of the one loving Lord.
A recognized twentieth century expert on Indian Philosophy, S. Radhakrishnan, a professor at Oxford University and once- President of India, wrote this of Varuna in his book Indian Philosophy, Volume 1:
"The theism of the Vaishnavs and the Bhagavatas, with its emphasis on bhakti, is to be traced to the Vedic worship of Varuna, with its consciousness of sin and trust in divine forgiveness."
Varuna is indeed seen, unlike many of the other more capricious personalities, as a morally righteous and benevolent God, encompassing all others and ready to forgive the transgressions of the devotee.