Jagat

Meanwhile, back at the blog. Poor blog has been quite neglected these past few months. It really started in Karttik when I was doing both Krishna Sandarbha and Vrindavan Today . Even so, a little surprisingly, readership has not diminished overall, and I am still running an average of close to 10,000 pageviews a month, which is up slightly from before I stopped posting. In particular I notice I have been getting a surge of Russian readers of late and Russia surged to the top of the list of countries from which readers are coming. This is not altogether unsurprising. VT, on the other hand, gets triple that, over 60% from India, 40% just from Delhi alone, which is also unsurprising. Articles are generally shorter and less demanding. Vrindavan Today is a fantastic and important project, but so far I haven't been able to find good people who will be able to help move it forward, other than the occasional contributor. We have had a few promising candidates, but so ...

This was one of the sights that fascinated me when I lived in Bengal. I can remember seeing this in Mayapur after every rainy season when the ponds and ditches start drying out, especially in the Ganges flood plain. Gadadhar Pran had problems with people raiding a part of his property that usually contained fish flapping in the mud. But even in the flood of 1977, I went with the cows to the Chaitanya Math because there was higher ground at Ballal Dighi, and I was amazed to see how many people were catching fish in the Ganges current as it came flowing over the road embankment. I guess they were thinking, our houses might go but at least we will have fish for dinner. From Uddhava-sandesha (122): “When the sun of separation dries the lake of the heart until all that is left are sands; I know that your life, oh emaciated one, like that of the fish, is caught in your throat and ready to escape. And I, meanwhile, far away from you, drown in the ocean of thirst what ca...

The world exists for bhoga (experience) and apavarga (liberation). These are the two options the material world gives you. The spiritual world, however, offers you the added option of prema . It is the hope of this prema , its transmutation, sometimes into bhoga and sometimes into apavarga , that keeps saṁsāra rolling around and around. One of the other important ideas that comes up in Yoga Sutra and has its origins in Sāṅkhya is the following: "Prakṛti is parārtha (for another), Puruṣa is svārtha (for itself)." This terminology is very significant, as it pervades "normative" Hindu philosophy, including both Advaita and Vaishnava Vedanta, though with some adjustments, especially in the latter. According to Sāṅkhya, the Consciousness Principle is called Puruṣa. In this philosophy, the Puruṣa is consciousness only . To even be aware of the world requires that consciousness be reflected in the material nature, starting with its subtlest form, which is buddhi ...