Jagat

There is no other bhakta like Vamsi; Gaurasundar is his siksha guru, and Vishnupriya Devi is his diksha guru. Just before Gauranga took sannyasa, He taught him Krishna's  rasa-rāja upāsanā  doctrine. These teachings are recorded in  Vaṁśī-śikṣā  by Premadas Mishra, the great grand-disciple of Ramai Thakura. In this chapter Mahaprabhu will tell what Krishna’s rasa-rāja upāsanā is and also explain how we can perform it. Then we will examine some of Vamsivadan's poetry and his rare book entitled Sri Gaurāṅga-līlāmṛta . Vaṁśī-śikṣā invocatory verses abhinna-rasa-rājāya śrī-śacīnandanāya ca gurave bhakta-rūpāya caitanyāya namo namaḥ śṛṅgāra-rasa-saṁmagnaṁ śṛṅgāra-rūpakaṁ param sukhadaṁ śubhadaṁ devaṁ rasarājaṁ namāmy aham I offer my pranam so the son of Sachi, Who is non-different from Rasa-rāja Krishna, and Who takes the form of a bhakta-guru to teach His Rasa-rāja worship. Rasa-rāja Krishna is deeply fascinated by  śṛṅgāra  (conjuga...

Today was the conclusion of the third year of the Jiva Tirtha program. The audience was small as a number of the students had already trickled back to their homes elsewhere in the world before our final end-day ceremony. Swamini Radhika is also a widely known senior scholar, writer, poet and artist. She has been sharing her appreciation of the vernacular bhakti poets and shared her insights each week to a core group of dedicated listeners. Altogether there was a lot of mutual thanking going on. Babaji complimented the students: It is actually amazing that even this many students have been sufficiently inspired to come and spend six months at their own cost to hear the scriptures from Babaji and, in many cases, to learn Sanskrit. Babaji particularly noted how Manu had managed to convince his boss to have a six months leave every year and still be able to come back to his job in the spring. Many of the students offered testimonials to the transformative nature of hearing shastr...