The meeting place is in the dual
The inner path is the way of the singular. The external is that of the plural. Their meeting place is in the dual. Like the lamp on the doorstep that sheds light both inside and out, it reveals both the one and the many. Know this and you know the path of Sahaja. (See Lessons from Sanskrit: Singular, dual and plural. (April 06,
2011)
This is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's Śikṣāṣṭakam. This video is accompanied by an article with the verses and translations. The recording was made in August 2015 but the link was posted on May 11, 2017.
2015
This is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's Śikṣāṣṭakam. This video is accompanied by an article with the verses and translations. The recording was made in August 2015 but the link was posted on May 11, 2017.
2015
In happiness or distress, God remains the constant. |
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2015
According to Madhusudana Saraswati, God himself is the sthāyi-bhāva of love. When certain emotional upsurges heat the heart and allow him to be imprinted there. He is both the vibhāva and the sthāyi. The first of these being the bimba, the latter the pratibimba, or reflection, related in exactly the same way as īśvara to the jīva.
Only God is capable of melting the heart fully. Since He is all things, even the mundane nāyaka and nāyikā are nothing but He, but are incapable of fully melting the heart, since they are He covered by Maya. Maya is God's own potency of self-covering.
2014
The inner path is the way of the singular.
The external is that of the plural.
Their meeting place is in the dual.
Like the lamp on the doorstep,
that sheds light both inside and out,
it reveals both the one and the many.
Know this and you know the path of Sahaja.
2010
एक एव पदार्थस्तु त्रिधा भवति वीक्षितः
कुणपं कामिनी मांसं कामिभिः श्वभिर्योगिभिः
eka eva padārthas tu tridhā bhavati vīkṣitaḥ
kuṇapaṁ kāminī māṁsaṁ kāmibhiḥ śvabhir yogibhiḥ
An object viewed by three different beings appears in three different ways. What a man sees as a desirable woman, a yogi sees as just a body, a dog as meat. (Cāṇakya-nīti 14.16)
[Interestingly, this verse provoked a reaction from several self-styled feminist devotees who saw in it evidence of Hindu cultural patriarchy and innate objectification of women.
The example was perhaps written by men for men, but the principle of subjective perception is universal. The same could have been written by a woman, for women, with the man being the object. "One woman sees the same man as an ATM... etc." We all see every object according to our self-centered objectives. Is it edible? Is it a sexual object? Can I use it in any way? Are women, dogs or men any different?
They will be different in the sense that the desires of women are different from the desires of men. But the fact of desire is the same for both. Because both have material bodies. Furthermore, their desires can be complementary. This means that they can either create a mutual illusion that drags them down, or they can create a mutual sadhana that pulls them up through the synergy of complementarity.]
| Love is the sthāyi-bhāva. Prema is its rasāvasthā. |
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According to Madhusudana Saraswati, God himself is the sthāyi-bhāva of love. When certain emotional upsurges heat the heart and allow him to be imprinted there. He is both the vibhāva and the sthāyi. The first of these being the bimba, the latter the pratibimba, or reflection, related in exactly the same way as īśvara to the jīva.
Only God is capable of melting the heart fully. Since He is all things, even the mundane nāyaka and nāyikā are nothing but He, but are incapable of fully melting the heart, since they are He covered by Maya. Maya is God's own potency of self-covering.
2014
The inner path is the way of the singular.
The external is that of the plural.
Their meeting place is in the dual.
Like the lamp on the doorstep,
that sheds light both inside and out,
it reveals both the one and the many.
Know this and you know the path of Sahaja.
2010
एक एव पदार्थस्तु त्रिधा भवति वीक्षितः
कुणपं कामिनी मांसं कामिभिः श्वभिर्योगिभिः
eka eva padārthas tu tridhā bhavati vīkṣitaḥ
kuṇapaṁ kāminī māṁsaṁ kāmibhiḥ śvabhir yogibhiḥ
An object viewed by three different beings appears in three different ways. What a man sees as a desirable woman, a yogi sees as just a body, a dog as meat. (Cāṇakya-nīti 14.16)
[Interestingly, this verse provoked a reaction from several self-styled feminist devotees who saw in it evidence of Hindu cultural patriarchy and innate objectification of women.
The example was perhaps written by men for men, but the principle of subjective perception is universal. The same could have been written by a woman, for women, with the man being the object. "One woman sees the same man as an ATM... etc." We all see every object according to our self-centered objectives. Is it edible? Is it a sexual object? Can I use it in any way? Are women, dogs or men any different?
They will be different in the sense that the desires of women are different from the desires of men. But the fact of desire is the same for both. Because both have material bodies. Furthermore, their desires can be complementary. This means that they can either create a mutual illusion that drags them down, or they can create a mutual sadhana that pulls them up through the synergy of complementarity.]
"Believing that religion is a botched attempt to explain the world . . . is like seeing ballet as a botched attempt to run for a bus." (Terry Eagleton) |
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