Jagat

Over the last few days I have gone through a few anxious moments. There is no moment in life where a conflict does not lurk. In Gaudiya Vaishnavism, there is a big conflict between the so-called bhajanānandī and the goṣṭhyānandī , introverts and extroverts. I have been living in Vrindavan, the ultimate destination of all Vaishnavas, at least according to Rupa Goswami, who lived in a different time, a different world from the one today. I love Vrindavan and I wish to cultivate love for Radha and Krishna in the way I do best, by doing bhajan and writing. Indeed, I have a strong introverted tendency. For me it has been characterized by a sense of unworthiness, that I am never good enough or accomplished enough to make a worthwhile contribution.  On the other hand, in my youth I underwent a period of intense indoctrination in ISKCON to the idea of preaching. And that is characterized, as we often see, by an overinflated and borrowed  sense of confidence . Neither of these ...

The hot season is here. Satya Narayan Dasji sets off to his summer tour of Europe and America. We spent the last few weeks cramming in the last twenty or so anucchedas of Paramātma-sandarbha , and I must say it was invigorating. I will probably have occasion to talk a little more about Paramātma-sandarbha before I finish editing the translation. I was thinking of my good fortune to be here in Vrindavan and my day job is having to study and understand Jiva Goswami's Paramātma-sandarbha ! I just hope that Sri Jiva Prabhu lets me help work on the last two. In the meantime, the hot season is here, and Vrindavan is beginning to bake. But I notice that last year I had one of the most productive months where this blog is concerned. I think I did a bit of a housecleaning, like I am trying to do now also. Still trying to come up with a magnum opus out of all this. The last two days, I took a bit of a brain vacation, adjusting to the change of season, remembering a bit how much I en...

Today someone, after reading the following article, Raganuga bhakti and sahaja sadhana (Part I) ,  presented the familiar argument  on FB ,  "Don't you have to be at the stage of anartha-nivṛtti  to begin the raganuga path?" I answered, "How many lifetimes of  anartha-nivṛtti  do you think it takes to get to where you just like hearing about Radha and Krishna? So, if you like it, you are ready. And you are really ready if someone like your guru says 'don't,' and you do it anyway. Or if someone tells you that you must wait, you say, 'can't'. Then you are ready, nothing else counts. And if you fail (i.e., lose interest), what was the loss?" This was responded to with the customary protestations: how can one possibly ignore the orders of the spiritual master? There are of course numerous examples of individuals such as Bali who rejected their guru's orders when it went against a higher principle. So in the same spirit as in anot...

I heard today that Anthony Weiner, whose descent into unfathomable public stupidity two years ago left him hugely disgraced, now apparently wants to make a return and is testing the waters for a New York mayoralty run. This is relatively (totally, actually) irrelevant to me here in Vrindavan, except for the fact that Jill Filipovic wrote an acerbic article in the Guardian in which she makes some excellent points about the hypocrisy of American public life where sexuality is concerned. She inquires into the acquiescence of such men's wives with some well-placed stupefaction. I was musing on these matters back then when it all first came out, but I never completed the blog, which was sitting in the drafts. I guess it sneezed. Now I have posted the rather unsatisfying article on Samarthā rati that was going on at approximately the same time as these speculative musings on Anthony Weiner, I will take it as a sign that I should finish this one. But it really should be considered p...

I have been busy trying to complete the series I started a long time ago on the three kinds of rati. The final article in the series, a full investigation on samarthā rati is still in the works, being based primarily on a summary of the Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi commentaries on the relevant section of the 14th chapter, accompanied by my own insights. As I said in the beginning, the purpose is to try to understand these matters by reference to the world of experience and to see where that takes us. In the last article on samarthā rati , there was in fact very little but the straight information from the śāstras. So we look at these things and they do not register very much at first. In a sampradāya, you listen to your gurus. And you reflect on what they say. That is called manana . And then, when you have come to a solid faith in the conclusions of the śāstra, you engage in nididhyāsana , which is usually meant a constant meditation on that conclusion. [Please read the linked articles o...

A couple of years ago, I started summarizing the three ratis from  Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi   I never completed the series, but the first two articles can still be found here: Samañjasā and Sādhāraṇī . I will now try to complete this project by working on  samarthā rati . This may require more than one article, and I intend to tie it in with some other ideas. I will start off this discussion by simply quoting verbatim my translation of  Mañjarī-svarūpa-nirūpaṇa , completed in 1983. ======== The dominant mood of erotic sacred rapture is also given the name of samarthā rati (“competent affection”). Kṛṣṇa is the greatest lover in the supernatural affaires-de-coeur of the sacred land of Vrindavan and there, the supreme among his lady-loves are the cowherd girls. Here Viśvanātha Cakravartin makes some relevant comments about samarthā rati in his commentary on Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi : This samarthā rati is extremely potent and exists eternally in the gopīs; it does not dep...

I think this will be the last article I post from 1997. After reading one of the others, a friend on Facebook told me that this scientific mode of thinking has reached its limits and that mystical techniques including psychotropic substances open one's "doors of perception" in ways  that scientists have yet little hope of understanding, precisely because they are subjective experiences. I will have to return to this question later, but it does indeed form the crux of much of the thinking that I am just now in the process of crystallizing. It centers on the left-brain/right-brain type  duality  that it is imperative, our psychological and spiritual duty, that we learn to synthesize. Functional equilibrium is far from meaning genuine synthesis.  Different personality types will always lean to one or the other styles of thinking and experiencing reality. But my friend Mathura Das [for it is he!] is fundamentally right on the principle of bhakti . Bhakti is ultima...