Jagat

Srutakirti Das, Jayapataka Swami, Bhakti Rakshak Sridhar, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, Tamal Krishna Goswami, Bhavananda Swami (photo from ca. 1976) Jayadharma Prabhu revived this Facebook note from March 2010, but as the intro makes clear, these were written in 2002. Please bear that in mind. I could not find any of this on the blog, so I just repost it here without further comment. It seems strangely relevant. Anyway, I am backposting to March 2010, but sharing it today. (9/6/2019) Some friends have asked me about recent statements I made to Isa Das in response to his claim that Iskcon had no bhakti and no sat-sanga, etc. In case people make the improbable claim that I favour Iskcon over Narayan Maharaj or indeed have any favouritism towards any branch of the Gaudiya Math, I am posting a number of articles written many years ago on various forums. Bear in mind that they were written eight years ago and I may have a slightly different point of view now, or the people named ha...

This is the paper I presented in New Delhi on March 10, 2010, at the Jawarhalal Nehru University Centre for Historical Studies conference named "Devotion and Dissent in Indian History." Introduction: Symbol as Dissent Generally speaking, when talking about the relationship of religion to revolution, we are talking about some relationship of the ideal values inculcated in religious movements and their relationship to social justice. In this paper, I would rather like to discuss the relationship between such values as represented by the religious symbol of Radha and Krishna and what it can tell us of sexuality and sexual relationships, including the status of women. I am adopting a Jungian view of religious symbols as products of the collective unconscious, by which I mean that they spring from a non-verbal fountain of ideas, and have sustained power to provide meaning and a sense of the sacred. As such, they may produce a huge theological and hermeneutical superstructure aroun...

In Patiala and Delhi, I had a TV in my room and so I checked out what was going on in the 24-hour news cycle world. There were two major scandals in the last couple of weeks involving Indian sadhus, gurus and what-have-you, whom they call by the generic name "babas". At least they seem to have given up the term "God-men" which was a longstanding favorite of theirs I particularly hate. (I seem to be wrong about that.) There was even a little juicy video to play over and over again, what to speak of other clips of the babas dancing ecstatically. One TV station even played that up by juxtaposing the dancing guru with a belly dancer to make him look even more idiotic. The anchor man very sincerely said, "We are doing this as a public service as so many people put their faith in babas and they need to know who is genuine and who is not." Then Baba Ramdeva went on record in calling for the death penalty (!) for bogus babas, saying they are giving g...

satya-vrataṁ satya-paraṁ tri-satyaṁ satyasya yoniṁ nihitaṁ ca satye satyasya satyam ṛta-satya-netraṁ satyātmakaṁ tvāṁ śaraṇaṁ prapannāḥ We take shelter of You, whose very essence is truth: You, who are true to your vow, who value the truth above all, who are the unchanging truth that pervades past, present and future. You are the womb of truth; You are hidden in all truth; You are the very Truth that makes all truth true. You are the eye of truth in the cosmic law. (BhP 10.2.26) First I would like to thank the organizers of the conference, in particular Jodh Singh and Paramvir Singh, and Jaspreet Kaur Sandhu, but everyone else also. It has been a most enjoyable and gratifying experience to be so warmly received as a guest here at Punjabi University, Patiala. Furthermore, I would like to thank all the speakers who shared their thoughts on this important topic. I will not be able to list them all for fear of putting some first and some later. Suffice it to say that I have bee...