Manjari Bhava: Are the manjaris asexual?

The idea of mañjarī-bhāva as "asexual" is perhaps a misunderstanding. What is stated is that they are not interested in personally having sexual relations with Krishna in the lila, but are satisfied with seeing Radha and Krishna being united. They serve the lila:

vibhur atisukha-rūpaḥ sva-prakāśo’pi bhāvaḥ
kṣaṇam api nahi rādhā-kṛṣṇayor yā ṛte svāḥ
pravahati rasa-puṣṭiṁ cid-vibhūtir iveśaḥ
śrayati na padam āsāṁ kaḥ sakhīnāṁ rasajñaḥ

Nandimukhi continues, “Hey Vrinde! Even though the loving moods of the Divine Couple, Radha and Krishna are all-powerful, the embodiment of exceeding joy, and self-manifest, the rasa of their pastimes cannot attain fullness without the help of the sakhis, not even for a moment, any more than the Supreme Lord can accomplish anything without his spiritual powers. So, what rasika bhakta would not take shelter of the sakhis?” (GLA 10.17, CC 2.8.205)

I believe that this position, deliberately taken by Rupa Goswami, is of great significance. At one time, it seemed to me that it was perhaps nothing more than a somewhat artificial way of justifying celibacy, taking the principle of selflessness to an extreme and turning it into a somewhat gross expression of self-superiority. Let us just say that some people use it that way, but that Rupa Goswami was surely wiser than that.

The problem is in the inclusion of tad-bhāvecchāmayi bhakti (the mood of the mañjarīs; tad-anumodanātmaka in Priti-sandarbha 365) in the kāma-rupā (Brs 1.2.290) or kāmānugā categories of bhakti. If the manjaris are in an asexual dāsya-rasa, then why are they included in madhura-rasa?

Or, put another way, if they are not engaged directly in a one-on-one romantic relationship with Krishna, the Supreme Other, then how can they be said to be in madhura-bhāva or experiencing śṛṅgāra-rasa? Should not sambhogecchā-mayi bhakti have the only legitimate claim to being kāmānugā bhakti? (Brs 1.2.297-299)

The essence of sakhi-bhāva is trust, or viśrambha, which Jiva Goswami has further defined as meaning a feeling of mutual identity (Brs 3.3.106). Nevertheless, it is said that since the manjaris experience Radha's pleasure equally (if not more!) they are satisfied to experience Krishna through her. The two verses (from Govinda-līlāmṛta) found in the teachings of Ramananda Ray are explicit:

sakhyaḥ śrī-rādhikāyā vraja-kumuda-vidhor
hlādinī-nāma-śakteḥ
sārāṁśa-prema-vallyāḥ kiśalaya-dala-puṣp-
ādi-tulyāḥ sva-tulyāḥ
siktāyāṁ kṛṣṇa-līlāmṛta-rasa-nicayair
ullasantyām amuṣyāṁ
jātollāsāḥ sva-sekāc chata-guṇam adhikaṁ
santi yat tan na citram

Just as the moon enlivens the lilies, so Krishna is the bright moon who enlivens the lily-like hearts of the residents of Vrindavan. His pleasure-giving potency is personified in Radha, who is like a creeper whose fruits are prema. Her girlfriends are like the unlimited branches, leaves and flowers which expand out from her self and are thus equal to her. For this reason, when that winding creeper of love is watered with the heavenly potion of Krishna’s sporting activities, then the leaves and flowers, the sakhis, find hundreds of times more pleasure than if they were themselves to be sprinkled. This seems quite normal. (GLA 10.16, CC 2.8.210)

spṛśati yadi mukundo rādhikāṁ tat-sakhīnāṁ
bhavati vapuṣi kampa-sveda-romāñca-bāṣpam
adhara-madhu mudāsyāś cet pibaty eṣa yatnād
bhavati bata tad āsāṁ mattatā citram etat

If Krishna should touch Srimati Radharani,
then lo and behold! her sakhis start to tremble;
they sweat and their body hairs stand on end
and tears well up in their eyes.
And if Krishna should carefully sip
the spirituous liquor of Radha’s lips,
it is they who become intoxicated!
This is truly something wonderful.

So, clearly, the sakhīs and mañjarīs, no matter what their specific actions are in the lila, do not miss anything experientially.

So let us try to understand this on two levels, first of all the spiritual, second the material. On the spiritual plane, though there are apparent distinctions (bheda), in fact there is no bheda--everything is cinmaya. This is what I meant when I was talking about the "bhāva-rājya." Therefore, genital contact, erogenous zone stimulation, etc., sexuality is not a necessity for anyone, not even for Radha and Krishna. After all, Krishna's senses are interchangeable, it is said. The ecstatic experiences are experienced primarily through bhāva rather than sense contact. The sense contact in the lila is entirely subservient to the bhāva. This is the actual purport of the final kārikā in Ujjvala-nilamani :

vidagdhānāṁ mitho līlā-vilāsena yathā sukham na tathā samprayogeṇa syād evaṁ rasikā viduḥ 

Those who are knowledgeable about sacred rapture have experienced that the actual sexual act is not as great a cause of happiness for these experienced lovers as their various flirtations and loving exchanges. (15.253)

So when it comes to the spiritual world, for the sakhis to experience direct sexual relations with Krishna is of no consequence. The important thing is that they are participants in this non-dual realm of Goloka Vrindavan. Now, when referring to the sādhana under discussion, we must first of all bear the above in mind.

When I said that "the bodies are Radha and Krishna," I realized immediately that there was a certain lack of clarity. My point is that the distinction between the archetypal Radha and Krishna (entering into all aspects, physical, mental, emotional, of the experience) and the individual consciousness within the body remain distinct. The object of bhakti and service remains the Divine Couple; one never becomes Radha or Krishna, except of course in the sense of mystical participation in their being, as described in the previous paragraphs. All bhakti is a culture of the bhāva. However, the particular culture of mañjarī-bhāva remains true to the particular relational (sambandha) diagnosis given by Rupa Goswami and Krishnadas Kaviraj, that is as servants to the Divine Couple; first, as servants to their pleasure and second, as participants in it. In this lila, we are primarily servants of Radha, just as we are primarily her parts and parcels.

The experiences in this world between men and women are the mirror reflections of those existing in the divine archetype, in the objects of our devotion: the Supreme Person and his Hladini Shakti. Of these experiences, the bhāvas are more important than the physical sexuality, but clearly the two are tied in with one another. However, the mundane consciousness puts primacy on the physical. This is why I think it is tragic that with all the scriptural analysis of different activities in the modes of nature, sexuality has not been discussed in that light.

Sexuality in the mode of ignorance--rape, for instance, and other kinds of sexual deviancy--generally emphasize the physical aspects of sexuality or are connected to fantasies arising out of abuses of the body. As one rises through the modes, one transcends primarily orgasmic sexuality, i.e., selfish genital-oriented sexuality, and focuses on the bhāva. This in itself has nothing to do with bhakti, but it refines the consciousness. This is, of course, why yogic sexual practices can be associated with different kinds of metaphysical and cosmological schemes.

So, in answer to your first question, "I don't think you are getting it right here... It is not the physical body which is identified as Radha and Krishna but the taking on of the archetypal persona of Radha and Krishna, an internal self-identification using Radha and Krishna as archetypes for the relationship between the male and female."

This is correct inasmuch as the external phenomena are somehow mirroring the Divine Realm. But the stance of the soul in relationship to those phenomena is that of a manjari. On the material platform, this translates as a kind of distancing from the erotic pleasure itself, subsuming it to the bhāva. I will leave this matter here for now.