India is known as the home of religions as there are more than 250 linguistic groups is living together with different shades of religious faith and beliefs. The bond that links the religious minded throughout the length and breadth of the land is bhakti. ‘The aim of life is to attain bhakit’, said Ramkrishana (1836-1886), the saint-prophet of Bengal.
Bhakit is intense devotion to God, springing from a deep love of Him. It finds it a spontaneous expression in the Bhajan, or religious love lyric. Bhajans are composed by literate villagers in the remotest part of India known as pundits. These love song of God reveals the yearning of the human soul to possess him here and now. This ecstatic love of God flowers in the other religions sects as well.
Hence by religion in India is meant no formal dogma embodied in an institution but the realization and appropriation of God in the personal life of every single individual upon earth. This goal is to be achieved through Sadhana or self –discipline. The Guru, or spiritual guide, must be found, and he will show his pupil the path of mukti or moksha, the spiritual liberation. This, in belief, is the Hindu view of life. The Hinduism divided a man’s life in to three stages, from the ages of seven to twenty-one years when, in the past, a boy was handed over to a rishi or sage who dwelt in the forest and taught his pupil the Vedas as well as the cultural arts of music, song and dance. The second stage is that of the Sansari, when a man marries, rears a family and follows a trade or profession. The last stage is that of sanyasa, when a man renounce the world and all worldly duties, at the age of fifty-five years or so, and retired into seclusion to meditate and commune with God and attain moksha or seclusion.
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