Bhakti as Belonging Beyond Collapse

Mirabai's bhakti (devotion) to Krishna was radical because it belonged to no kingdom, no family, no institution—only to the divine. When she danced and sang in the streets, she modeled a belonging that external structures could not contain or destroy. Bhakti for anticipatory grief means cultivating devotion to life, truth, beauty, or transcendence itself—something that survives the collapse of any particular civilization. This is not escapism but grounding. When empires fail, when systems crumble, bhakti asks: What remains worthy of my love? What relationship sustains me beyond catastrophe? Mirabai shows us that devotional practice becomes an anchor, a way of staying rooted in meaning when everything else shifts.