Jagat

I was thinking about a section of the Bhakti-rasayānam by Madhusudan Saraswati that made a big impression on me when I first read it so many years ago. Madhusudan says that the goal of spiritual practice to transform the mind by reshaping it into the image of God. How does one shape the mind? In this, Madhusudan’s insight into the efficaciousness of bhakti is remarkably modern: he says that the mind is like a piece of sealing wax that softens on being placed near a source of heat; when overwhelmed by an emotion, it takes on the shape of whatever happens to come into contact with it. Then, subsequently, when the emotion subsides, the mind is left marked with formative impressions, just as the wax is after cooling off. These impressions are called vāsanās or saṁskāras in Madhusudana's terminology. We know that childhood experiences leave deep imprints on the subconscious that are indeed hard if not impossible to efface. These are the discoveries of depth psychology, which has i...

Hindu Encounter with Modernity As a result of thoughts expressed a few days ago on this blog, I decided to read through Shukavak's book again, from beginning to end this time, and review the points that he made there. I have mentioned this book many times and I would like to emphasize once again what an important contribution Shukavak has made to the future of the sampradaya by opening the door to this aspect of Bhaktivinoda's thought, which Bhaktivedanta, by inadvertance or by design, decided to omit from his own preaching. I wrote in Bhaktivinoda Thakur's meat eating and Lalita Prasad Thakur that Bhaktivinoda Thakur made two most significant contributions: the first is the opening of a door to a modern approach to Gaudiya Vaishnava doctrine and history, the other is the wholehearted acceptance of the raganuga sadhana practices that are generally rejected by all branches of the Gaudiya Math. Shukavak quotes several times a passage from the introduction to the Krish...

Yesterday and today, many of the media have been devoting time to the 60th anniversary of Pakistan and India's independence. This morning BBC had a very nice report on partition, with sound clips of Gandhi and Nehru. Last night PBS had a very good report on the economic situation. The Globe and Mail had a nice op-ed piece highlighting the positives and negatives. I liked this article by Shashi Tharoor in the Guardian. I haven't really got the time to get into the subject, except to say that I am feeling very Indian today. Happy Birthday, India! Many happy returns of the day. स्वाधीनता दिवस के मुबाराक !

This is the old Ula Chandi temple at the Birnagar Dwadash Mandir. This building, along with another Durga temple and ten Shiva linga temples form the complex which became Lalita Prasad Thakur's bhajan ashram. His room was in the Durga temple, and Gaur Gadadhar are upstairs in the same building. The temple complex would have been the site of rather elaborate goat and buffalo sacrifices for the annual pujas, as described by Bhaktivinoda Thakur in his autobiography. The Chandi temple, built by the Mustauphis (Bhaktivinoda Thakur's mother's family) in probably the 18th century, fell out of use during the cholera epidemic that wasted the town of Ula in 1857 when Bhaktivinoda was 19 years old. The building has been used of late as a goshalla and a place for storing wood. The photo is taken from Shukavak N. Dasa's book Hindu Encounter with Modernity, p. 32.

So it seems that there is a Hindi keyboard option on this blogger. Cool. अरे मन वृंदा विपिन विहार जद्यपि मिलै कोटी चिंतामणि, तदपि ना हाथ पसार बिपिनराज सीमा के बाहर, हरी हू कौं न निहार जै श्री भट्ट धूरी दूसरी तनु, इहि आसा उर थार OK It's a little tricky, especially since it seems to be designed for modern Hindi, so some of the Braja forms have to be corrected. Well worth mastering though. Does not seem to believe in certain vowels, at least not on first selection what to speak of some of the other unfamiliar combos that are found in Braj. Short vowels also seem unfavored. It is pretty annoying to have to edit each word to correct the spelling. भाग बडो वृन्दावन पायौ जा रज कौं सुर नर मुनि बंछित, बिधि संकर सिर नायौ बहुतक जुग या रज बिनु बीते, जन्म जन्म डहकायौ सो रज अब कृपा करि दीनी, अभै निसान बजायौ आइ मिल्यौ परिवार आपने, हरि हंसि कंठ लगायौ श्यामा श्याम जू बिहरण दोऊ, सखी समाज मिलायौ सोग संताप करू जिनि कोई, दाव भालू बनि आयौ श्री रसिक बिहारी की गति पाई, धनि धनि लोक कहायौ Very irritating, in...

I wrote the last article in a rush of feeling. I have to admit, however, that there is a bit of rhetoric as well as truth-telling ( parrhesia ) in the post. Philosophy of History Making a comment like "history has decided" indicates a facile and yet sweeping generalization about History, with a capital H. It's a bit funny, because at the same time as the subject came up, I encountered an article by David Greenberg on Slate discussing George W. Bush's concept of history ( George Bush, Hegelian ). Simultaneously, I am proofreading a dissertation in which someone is attempting to analyze the Krishna consciousness movement using Michel Foucault's historical method, so I am getting a bit inundated with these theories. In an article I wrote about charismatic renewal in Gaudiya Vaishnavism, published in Bryant and Ekstrand's book , I began by saying that India, with its strong avatar doctrines, would subscribe to Carlyle's famous idea that "history is...

When I see a discussion starting that deals with questions I was deeply involved in 10 or 20 years ago, or even more recently, I do not feel tempted to get involved again. One moves on, I guess. Rocana Prabhu has recently published an editorial on the Sampradaya Sun wherein he struggles to make sense of Bhaktivinoda Thakur's avowal that he engaged in meat eating. In the context of this article, he makes a few disparaging comments about my diksha guru, Sri Lalita Prasad Thakur. It is unfortunate that there is no one but me to currently come to the defense of my guru, and for me to do so means exposing myself to involvement in disagreeable disputes, which is certainly not appealing to me. Nevertheless, it seems to me that I am under some obligation to say at least a few words. Poor Rocana seems to have just discovered that Bhaktivinoda Thakur admitted eating meat and fish in his memoirs. He worries about "the potential this has to disturb the minds of many readers," w...