More beautiful than even non-duality
We appear to still be on the Gurukula issue here in 2016. I am rather pleased with that reflection. Weather snippets -- exhaustion from the hot season. A discussion on the connection of yoga to the bhakti-yoga path: pravartaka-sādhaka-siddha, a major subject of discussion in the early period of this blog and very important matter indeed for my way of understanding the spiritual path. A lot of articles.
FB Memories May 24.
2016
We have just had a delightful rainstorm. After the heat it has been a pleasant relief. And we have been having lots of power outages the last couple of days. Jai Sri Radhe Shyam.2016
I was told by a friend that "it is not about you, but about the children."
I accept that as a true critique. I would probably have ignored [Sanaka Rishi's] film if I had not been accused personally of being responsible for Bhavananda's actions, of all things.
And if there were no residual guilt, I would not have felt it necessary to open my heart publicly.
The fact is that my putting my admission of guilt in the public eye is precisely that I want my lack of wisdom to be known by those who may think me wise.
More than that, it is an appeal to those who were affected by my actions to know that I am deeply sorry and that I pray for them. Even so many years later.
However, I am not going to jettison my philosophical principles, based on my belief in the great mercy of Guru, by which I can spend even a second's time in Vrindavan.
That is my own experience and I believe that Vrindavan is a glorious mine of prema diamonds. I have seen their reflections.
But isn't this about the children and the pain they suffered? It is not about you rolling in the dust of Vrindavan and dreamily saying Radhe Shyam, playing at being an advanced sadhu, trolling for disciples .
This is the question: How can the suffering of those who were abused, and yes, even of those who did the abusing, be cured? What is the solution?
The only solution I can see is for me to offer them my treasure.
The solution is love. It is the only possible solution. But in order to love, you must also become Love. The healing of the disease of non-love can only be eradicated by Love. Nothing else.
But to have the power and wisdom to eradicate non-Love, first you must become Love.
That may sound like some kind of newagey gobbledy-gook, but I am dead serious. I am talking about the culture of prema through sadhana. And the healing can only take place through the learning and teaching of real sadhana.
Real sadhana can only be communicated by someone who is a real sadhaka. So you must be a sadhaka. Whether you are a sinner or a victim of sin. And who does not know that these are ultimately one and the same thing? Those are the starting places for everyone.
The abused is the abuser. The abuser is ever abused. And so it goes.
I am not going to belabor what it means to be a sādhaka. Because it is a lifetime of learning to find out what it means. The sādhana of prema is never perfected.
So I am sorry. I know that my apologies mean little. And indeed I want to apologize not just for my own failures, but for every sin and every sinner who ever lived, because until they are forgiven the evil they did will not die, for them or for anyone else.
The only way to counter evil is through prema.
And prema is dependent on mercy.
Disons que la veritable connaissance d’une personne est amour. Ce qui est vrai de toute personne l’est encore plus de Dieu, qui est Tout-Autre, transcendant.
2015: Discussion on atheism.
Henry Duméry “On ne repousse l’Absolu qu'au nom d’un Absolu meilleur.”
"L’athéisme critique plus des caricatures de Dieu que le vrai Dieu."
2014
In Kolkata. You would never know that Narendra Modi even ran in the election here. It is Mamta Banerjee everywhere. This is like a different country. That was one hot train ride. No A/C.
2013. The relation of yoga to rasika bhakti
I just want to say something after long thought on the subject. Yoga takes one as far as kaivalya, which is the perfection of the singular. All other yoga systems, including bhakti, also pass through kaivalya, in the sense that they are the establishment, as far as is possible, of the self in the self. But in the relishing, of bhakti-rasa, this is just a stage, both the work of vidhi-bhakti and yoga are elements of the pravartaka stage or preliminary stage of practice.
This is because in yoga, the culture of love is restricted to the yamas and niyamas and some other general internalizations of Yoga, whereas in bhakti, love is the culmination. In other words, in yoga, love is one of the means, and a subordinate one at that, but in bhakti, love is the one and only all consuming goal.
Nevertheless, the gains of yoga, both as a psychological force (as expounded on in the Yoga-sūtra) and as a psycho-physical force (from the haṭha-yoga practices of the siddhas) should be internalized by everyone, including the bhakti-yogī. They should be as natural as eating or sleeping or breathing.
So in the sādhaka or madhyama stage, in which one starts to cultivate the Dual, the I-Thou relationship, and starts to progress in bhāva and rati, these things should be second nature. Of course they never quite are, one is never held back from proceeding to the second class for not having a full 100% grade in the first, but the better prepared one is, the better the progress. By this I mean preparation in terms of bhakti, through hearing and chanting and transforming the symbolic vocabulary of the psyche, reconfiguring the archetypal universe around the constellation of Radha-Krishna and the sakhis in Vrindavan, but also in these externals.
When a devotee sādhaka has internalized the gains of yoga, they do not occupy more space psychically than they need to and simply become assets or tools for going on to tasting rasa.
Whose mercy? The premī devotee's mercy.
And humility is the key to prema.
And self examination is the key to humility.
And the Holy Name is the lifeblood of this process.
Drink deep of the Holy Name my friends,
but don't sin on the strength of chanting.
Jai Radhe!
2016
And self examination is the key to humility.
And the Holy Name is the lifeblood of this process.
Drink deep of the Holy Name my friends,
but don't sin on the strength of chanting.
Jai Radhe!
2016
[This never happened.]
I have revised and updated my translation of Harināma-cintāmaṇi on the assurance from Gopinath Gaudiya Math Acharya 108 Srila Bodhayan Goswami Maharaj that he will print it for Bhaktivinoda Thakur's appearance day in September. I am looking forward to seeing this edition go to press and giving the devotees who wish to follow Bhaktivinoda Thakur's bhajan pranali the opportunity to study the text in depth. Jai Radhe.
2016. We were posting Vraja-vilāsa-stava on VT, which unfortunately has been lost on the VT site. It seems that some of it was preserved on A108.net. The commentary is Advaita Das's translation of Mahant Ananta Das Pandit's Stavāmṛta Kaṇā Vyākhyā.
.
sāndra-prema-rasaiḥ plutā priyatayā prāgalbhyam āptā tayoḥ
prāṇa-preṣṭha-vayasyayor anudinaṁ līlābhisāraṁ kramaiḥ
vaidagdhyena tathā sakhīṁ prati sadā mānasya śikṣāṁ rasair
yeyaṁ kārayatīha hanta lalitā gṛhnātu sā māṁ gaṇe
May Lalitā, who is flooded with the juices of intense love, who has developed a mood of boldness and confidence out of deep affection, who daily assists her beloved Radha and Krishna, who are dearer to her than life itself, in meeting at their place of rendez-vous, and who with great expertise always teaches her girlfriend Radha the art of loving pique, accept me within her own group. (Vraja Vilāsa, 23)
2015
na premā śravaṇādi-bhaktir api vā yogo’thavā vaiṣṇavo
jñānaṁ vā śubha-karma vā kiyad aho saj-jātir apy asti vā |
hīnārthādhika-sādhake tvayi tathāpy acchedya-mūlā satī
he gopī-jana-vallabha ! vyathayate hā hā mad-āśaiva mām ||
I have no prema.
Nor do I engage in hearing and chanting,
the practices that lead to prema.
I have not the self-discipline befitting a Vaishnava.
Nor do I have wisdom, nor, alas, pious works.
I am not even of good birth.
O Gopijanavallabha!
You are said to bring fulfilment
to those who are most unworthy,
yet the hope for your mercy,
which is pure and holy,
and so deeply rooted within me that I cannot cut it out,
brings me nothing but pain.
It is called āśā-bandha--the contradictory feeling between one's own sense of unworthiness and the hope that still Radha and Krishna will be merciful and give a place at their lotus feet. It is also part of rāga, lobha or what have you. I am unworthy, but I am going to keep at it because come hell or high water, I have to have it. That is all there is to it.
dvaitaṁ mohāya bodhāt prāk prāpte bodhe manīṣayā |
bhakty-arthaṁ kalpitaṁ dvaitam advaitād api sundaram ||42||
pāramārthikam advaitaṁ dvaitaṁ bhajana-hetave |
tādṛśī yadi bhaktiḥ syāt sā tu mukti-śatādhikā ||46||
Duality leads to illusion for those who have not realized the truth. But after realization through knowledge, if one continues to imagine duality for the sake of devotion, that is more beautiful than even non-duality. Non-duality is the transcendent reality, duality is for the sake of bhajan. If one engages in devotion in a state of knowledge, then it is a hundred times greater than liberation.
[Didn't note the source but I suspect it is Madhusudan Saraswati. I took it from a book by Karpatriji called Rādhā-sudhā. See Advaita Bhakti: Madhusudana and Karpatriji.]
2015: Discussion on atheism.
2016. We were posting Vraja-vilāsa-stava on VT, which unfortunately has been lost on the VT site. It seems that some of it was preserved on A108.net. The commentary is Advaita Das's translation of Mahant Ananta Das Pandit's Stavāmṛta Kaṇā Vyākhyā.
.
sāndra-prema-rasaiḥ plutā priyatayā prāgalbhyam āptā tayoḥ
prāṇa-preṣṭha-vayasyayor anudinaṁ līlābhisāraṁ kramaiḥ
vaidagdhyena tathā sakhīṁ prati sadā mānasya śikṣāṁ rasair
yeyaṁ kārayatīha hanta lalitā gṛhnātu sā māṁ gaṇe
May Lalitā, who is flooded with the juices of intense love, who has developed a mood of boldness and confidence out of deep affection, who daily assists her beloved Radha and Krishna, who are dearer to her than life itself, in meeting at their place of rendez-vous, and who with great expertise always teaches her girlfriend Radha the art of loving pique, accept me within her own group. (Vraja Vilāsa, 23)
2015
na premā śravaṇādi-bhaktir api vā yogo’thavā vaiṣṇavo
jñānaṁ vā śubha-karma vā kiyad aho saj-jātir apy asti vā |
hīnārthādhika-sādhake tvayi tathāpy acchedya-mūlā satī
he gopī-jana-vallabha ! vyathayate hā hā mad-āśaiva mām ||
I have no prema.
Nor do I engage in hearing and chanting,
the practices that lead to prema.
I have not the self-discipline befitting a Vaishnava.
Nor do I have wisdom, nor, alas, pious works.
I am not even of good birth.
O Gopijanavallabha!
You are said to bring fulfilment
to those who are most unworthy,
yet the hope for your mercy,
which is pure and holy,
and so deeply rooted within me that I cannot cut it out,
brings me nothing but pain.
It is called āśā-bandha--the contradictory feeling between one's own sense of unworthiness and the hope that still Radha and Krishna will be merciful and give a place at their lotus feet. It is also part of rāga, lobha or what have you. I am unworthy, but I am going to keep at it because come hell or high water, I have to have it. That is all there is to it.
dvaitaṁ mohāya bodhāt prāk prāpte bodhe manīṣayā |
bhakty-arthaṁ kalpitaṁ dvaitam advaitād api sundaram ||42||
pāramārthikam advaitaṁ dvaitaṁ bhajana-hetave |
tādṛśī yadi bhaktiḥ syāt sā tu mukti-śatādhikā ||46||
Duality leads to illusion for those who have not realized the truth. But after realization through knowledge, if one continues to imagine duality for the sake of devotion, that is more beautiful than even non-duality. Non-duality is the transcendent reality, duality is for the sake of bhajan. If one engages in devotion in a state of knowledge, then it is a hundred times greater than liberation.
[Didn't note the source but I suspect it is Madhusudan Saraswati. I took it from a book by Karpatriji called Rādhā-sudhā. See Advaita Bhakti: Madhusudana and Karpatriji.]
2015: Discussion on atheism.
Disons que la veritable connaissance d’une personne est amour. Ce qui est vrai de toute personne l’est encore plus de Dieu, qui est Tout-Autre, transcendant.
2015: Discussion on atheism.
Henry Duméry “On ne repousse l’Absolu qu'au nom d’un Absolu meilleur.”
"L’athéisme critique plus des caricatures de Dieu que le vrai Dieu."
2014
In Kolkata. You would never know that Narendra Modi even ran in the election here. It is Mamta Banerjee everywhere. This is like a different country. That was one hot train ride. No A/C.
2013. The relation of yoga to rasika bhakti
I just want to say something after long thought on the subject. Yoga takes one as far as kaivalya, which is the perfection of the singular. All other yoga systems, including bhakti, also pass through kaivalya, in the sense that they are the establishment, as far as is possible, of the self in the self. But in the relishing, of bhakti-rasa, this is just a stage, both the work of vidhi-bhakti and yoga are elements of the pravartaka stage or preliminary stage of practice.
This is because in yoga, the culture of love is restricted to the yamas and niyamas and some other general internalizations of Yoga, whereas in bhakti, love is the culmination. In other words, in yoga, love is one of the means, and a subordinate one at that, but in bhakti, love is the one and only all consuming goal.
Nevertheless, the gains of yoga, both as a psychological force (as expounded on in the Yoga-sūtra) and as a psycho-physical force (from the haṭha-yoga practices of the siddhas) should be internalized by everyone, including the bhakti-yogī. They should be as natural as eating or sleeping or breathing.
So in the sādhaka or madhyama stage, in which one starts to cultivate the Dual, the I-Thou relationship, and starts to progress in bhāva and rati, these things should be second nature. Of course they never quite are, one is never held back from proceeding to the second class for not having a full 100% grade in the first, but the better prepared one is, the better the progress. By this I mean preparation in terms of bhakti, through hearing and chanting and transforming the symbolic vocabulary of the psyche, reconfiguring the archetypal universe around the constellation of Radha-Krishna and the sakhis in Vrindavan, but also in these externals.
When a devotee sādhaka has internalized the gains of yoga, they do not occupy more space psychically than they need to and simply become assets or tools for going on to tasting rasa.
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