Whatever you do, whatever you do!




Whatever you do, whatever you do,
whatever you do, don't drop the bindu.

This, my friends, I share with you the secret to all sādhana.

In Radha-Krishna bhakti-sādhana, the bindu is the moment of divine union between the Divine Couple.

It is the compact, condensed moment before the big bang. It is the love that existed in the Divine Couple before the conception of the universe. It is the ānanda from which all things have sprung. That is the bindu.

Bhaktas! Find it, and don't drop it!!!

It is Radha and Krishna on the bed of lotus petals in the nikuñja. It is Radha and Krishna in oblivion. It is  Their asamprajñāta samādhi, their total forgetfulness of everything but pure being, consciousness and bliss. That is the bindu. Find it and don't drop it!

प्रेमा योऽसौ राधिकाकृष्णयुग्मं
स्वानन्देन प्लावयित्वा सखीश्च ।
शश्वद्विश्वं प्लावयन् सुप्रसिद्धः
सोऽयं बुद्धिं नः समिद्धां करोतु ॥

premā yo'sau rādhikā-kṛṣṇa-yugmaṁ
svānandena plāvayitvā sakhīś ca |
śaśvad viśvaṁ plāvayan suprasiddhaḥ
so'yaṁ buddhiṁ naḥ samiddhāṁ karotu ||

That love, it is well known,
first inundates the divine pair of lovers,
Radhika and Krishna,
with its own bliss --
and their girlfriends too --
and then constantly engulfs
the entire universe.
May this very love
here inflame our intelligence. (Gopala-champu 1.15.4)

Here one should understand yo'sau... so'yam "that love... which is this very love here."

That is the bindu, pure prema, mahābhāva.

राधाया भवतश्च चित्तजतुनी स्वेदैर्विलाप्य क्रमात्
युञ्जन्नद्रिनिकुञ्जकुञ्जरपते निर्धूतभेदभ्रमम् ।
चित्राय स्वयमन्वरञ्जयद् इह ब्रह्माण्डहर्म्योदरे
भूयोभिर्नवरागहिङ्गुलभरैः शृङ्गारकारुः कृती ॥

rādhāyā bhavataś ca citta-jatunī svedair vilāpya kramāt
yuñjann adri-nikuñja-kuñjara-pate nirdhūta-bheda-bhramam |
citrāya svayam anvarañjayad iha brahmāṇḍa-harmyodare
bhūyobhir nava-rāga-hiṅgula-bharaiḥ śṛṅgāra-kāruḥ kṛtī ||

The God of Love is a great craftsman:
he has taken the lac of Radha's soul and yours,
and melted them together with his perspiring heat.
O king of the elephants in the groves of Govardhan!
He has joined your souls together and washed away
any sense you had of difference between you.
Then, in order to paint the inner chambers
of the universal mansion, he added
yet more vermilion to the mix. (UN 14.155)

Vermilion is rāga. Rāga is also a technical term in the Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi.

दुःखमप्यधिकं चित्ते सुखत्वेनैव व्यज्यते
यतस्तु प्रणयोत्कर्षात् स राग इति कीर्त्यते

duḥkham apy adhikaṁ citte sukhatvenaiva vyajyate
yatas tu praṇayotkarṣāt sa rāga iti kīrtyate

"When the greatest misery is experienced (or is revealed as) only happiness in the mind due to the increase of praṇaya, that is called rāga." (UN 14.126)

To understand the increasing categories of love in Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi, you must understand each of them as an alternating unity and duality, union and separation. In 15.3, Rupa says that separation increases the pleasure of union like dye that renews the color of a fading cloth.

Of course, Radha and Krishna's love never fades, but nevertheless, it goes through these alternating phases purely for the sake of līlā. In the nitya-līlā, the nitya-vihāra, where there is only union, Radha and Krishna experience the effects of separation even in union.

This is usually given the name prema-vaicittya, but even that is not necessary. It is the inherent characteristic of mādanākhya mahā-bhāva. It means that they again become separated. By which I mean that they become as if separate identities.

yoga eva bhaved eṣa vicitraḥ ko'pi mādanaḥ
yad-vilāsā virājante nitya-līlāḥ sahasradhā

There is an indescribably amazing kind of love (i.e., mahā-bhāva) named "the maddening" (mādana) whose manifestations exhibit their overlordship in thousands of ways in the nitya-līlā. (UN 14.225) 

Verse UN 14.155, quoted above, describes the base-line for all subsequent manifestations of mahā-bhāva, including mādana. That is the bindu.

It is there, right there. Find it. Don't drop it.



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