Bhakti yoga

[Venkatraman.Chandrasekaran at NOKIA.COM]

Sri Sankara defines Bhakti in Vivekachudamani in one sloka thus:

sva svarUpa anusandhaanam bhaktirityabhidhIyatE ||
                                (sloka. 31/32, I think)

By this is meant, according to His Holiness Sri Chandrasekhara 
Bharathi of Sringeri, "Bhakti is a continuous contemplation 
of one's real nature". In the line preceding this, Sri Sankara
points out that "this bhakti" is the foremost amoung the 
saadhanaas for attaining mOkshaa.

In the sloka that follows, Sri Sankara says "some other people
tell that bhakti is contemplation on one's inner aatman which
is paramaatman" as,

sva aatma tatva anusandhaanam bhakti iti apare jaguh ||

Can someone please explain these Vivekachudamani lines in 
the light of how Sri Sankara has dealt with Bhakti in his 
numerous hymns and soulful prayers.

I will search for Sri Ravishankar's post in this regard as
somebody suggested.

Thanks,
chandrasekaran.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ext Stephanie Stean [mailto:cerebral_rose at MAC.COM]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 6:39 AM
> To: ADVAITA-L at LISTS.ADVAITA-VEDANTA.ORG
> Subject: Bhakti yoga
> 
> 
> Hello:
> 
> I have a couple of questions.
> 
> 1)  Could you direct me to where/ which text Sankara 
> discussed bhakti yoga
> (If he did)?
> 
> 2)  If bhakti only refers to devotion towards a personal god, 
> then what is
> the Sanskrit term to describe devotion to Brahman (Ultimate Reality)?
> 
> 3)  If we show devotion towards family or plants or whatever temporal
> object, even though we are ultimately seeing Brahman in those 
> objects, is
> there also a different term used to describe this type of devotion?
> 
> Thanks for your time and information.
> 
> Stephanie
>