Jagat

After writing the first draft of the previous post, I was sitting in my room working. There was a group of Italians from Sarva Yoga in the ashram, and I was more or less aware that Swami Veda would be lecturing, but I was not intending to attend, as I have all this work I have to do. Suddenly, though, I felt the pull that Swamiji was calling me. I am getting used to these subliminal messages, whether they are intentional from Swamiji or from anyone else, I don’t know, but I didn’t bother to question and immediately left for the meditation hall. The lecture was in progress and Maharaj was talking very poetically about the Yoga tradition. He was placing the historical context into the universal context of infinite time and space. Usually we put ideas into historical context, but Swamiji was rightly reminding us that there was no first person, and that there will be no last person, to whom the revelation of the Infinite was made. It is not that Yoga came into any religion, but rather that...

I have stated before that I do not think that there is a direct connection of the Gaudiya Sampradaya to Madhvacharya and the Tattvavadi Sampradaya of Vaishnavism. Srila Jiva Goswami directly mentions Madhva in Section 28 of Tattva-sandarbha as his final paragraphs in discussing the sources he will use in composing his Sandarbhas. This section is often used by defenders, beginning with Baladeva, of the Madhva connection to the Gaudiya line. Madhva's commentaries are stylistically unusual in that they consist mostly of verse citations and have little in the way of original prose statements, in the way that most other commentaries are written. And of course Madhva's citations have been a source of controversy since the very beginning. This is documented interestingly by Roque Mesquita's excellent study, Madhva's Unknown Literary Sources: Some Observations (Delhi: Aditi Prakashan, 2000). Jiva says the following in Tattva-sandarbha 28 with regards to Madhva's pr...

A number of different things coming together here, so I will try to pull them together as best I can. (1) Just finished reading Lajja by Taslima Nasreen, in the Hindi translation. The story here is really that of Muslim violence on Hindus in Bangla Desh, in all its historical manifestations from Partition in 1947 to 1992, when the Babri Masjid incident set off a series of communal clashes in India. This also gave Bangladeshi Muslims yet another opportunity to engage in a round of ethnic cleansing in their country. The book is about a Hindu family that both loves their country and considers themselves non-religious, even atheistic. Despite their identification as Bengalis first and nothing else, they are forced into a communal identity by circumstances. In the end, despite a long-held determination to stick it out, in the faith that this was their country, they make the decision to leave. There is no longer any place for them in their own country. That is their "shame" ( lajj...

Now let us look at the second half of the verse: ata RSayo dadhus tvayi mano-vacanAcaritaM katham ayathA bhavanti bhuvi datta-padAni nRNAm The immediately obvious translation here is that the Rishis place ( dadhuH ) in You ( tvayi ) their thoughts, deeds and actions. But both Sridhara and Jiva divide mano-vacana-Acaritam in a different way as, "the actions of the mind" and "the actions of the speech." Sridhara interprets the first to be the tAtparya , or inner sense, and the abhidhA, which in the overall context of the chapter means the direct meaning. In other words, this is about the actions of the Shrutis: the inner meaning applies to You ( tvayi ), the personal God, as do the meanings of the words themselves. Now the last line is, according to Sridhara Swami the alankara (rhetorical device) known as nidarshana , to Jiva it is an arthantara-nyasa . There is also the alankara known as drishtanta , or example. The three are quite similar and it is a bit hard to ...

Slogging away on the Bhagavat-sandarbha . So many distractions it is hard to give the attention to this book that I am supposed to be giving it. I am currently working on the final leg of the journey through some of the most difficult passages of all. That is, the Shruti-stuti in chapter 87 of the Tenth Canto. In section 87 of the Bhagavat-sandarbha (according to our new number system, Heaven forgive us), Sri Jiva takes us through a number of the verses that are in this Stuti, which without a doubt is one of the most important in the entire Bhagavatam. Why? Well, the Bhagavatam indicates in the very first verses and claims in several others to be the essence of the Vedānta or the Upanishads. The Shruti-stuti is one place where many of the most important texts of the Upanishads are referred to, sometimes directly, sometimes obliquely, and so give a fairly good idea of the Bhagavata author's interpretation of the Vedānta. The verses themselves are mostly not very easy to unde...

Here are a couple of photos from the January 30 kirtan at Keshi Ghat. The high point for me certainly came with Shyam Das's kirtan after the arti ceremony itself. A very sophisticated and moving performance, done under the lights, with floating deepas speckling the darkness in the background. It felt like a campfire, but very intimate and very transcendental, with a small but enthusiastic group in the audience. There were many participants, including a very enthusiastic kirtan led by Deenabandhuji. Another patented Ahindra kirtan. On the whole a very enjoyable day. Krishnadevata Dasi organized the global kirtan at more than 230 sites around the world. Things are quieting down a bit, as expected, but I hope that the concern for Vrindavan's future will not abate. Many people were walking through Keshi Ghat on parikrama, as this was one of the Kumbha Mela Shahi Snanas. Some of them stopped to listen and enjoy the kirtan. Paramadvaiti Maharaj is the steadiest and most consistent vo...

Sometimes time really does seem to fly, and one barely knows where it went. Certainly on the trip to Vrindavan, two entire days were lost in traveling. May I never take the Utkal Express again. Got into Vrindavan well after midnight. Was up late in the morning, but started off immediately for Keshi Ghat. As usual, it was a dreadful shock to see the garbage piled up in the old ghats, the running nalas overflowing onto the road, and general mess and neglect. You can see here and here that even in India, it does not have to be so. You can see pictures of the kind of situation that prevails on the Yamuna Vrindavan Heritage Alliance website . Just scroll down through this slideshow to get an idea. On the way, I noticed that there was activity at one of the sewage treatment plants along the Parikrama Marga, so I stopped in to see what the story was. The engineer there told me first of all that the plant was functioning. I asked him whether the pipes that had been laid throughout the wester...