Jagat

Anaṅga-mañjarī-sampuṭikā  by Ramai Thakur In the last chapter, Ramai Thakur's life story was told by his nephew-disciple Rajaballabha Goswami. In this chapter, Ramai will tell about his Gurudevi Ananga Marjari’s various tattva and rati lila with Shyamasundar. Now, because a sure way to know about Ramai, Jahnava, and Ananga Manjari is to hear from someone closely related to them, Muralī-vilāsa and Anaṅga-mañjarī-sampuṭikā are certainly authentic shastras. A samputika is a treasure chest, as this book is full of the unique treasures of Jahnava Mata's tattvas. We may also note that Bhaktivinoda Thakur made a hand written copy of the Sampuṭikā ’s original manuscript, that Sundarananda Vidyavinoda later made into a book and published, and is the version we are using. Since Bhaktivinoda took the trouble to hand copy this invaluable text, Vaishnavas can now read it. It will, however, be most appreciated by his close followers. The First Wave : Analyzing the Śakti Ramai ...

Gadadhar Pran absorbed in lila-smaran.  I am back in Birnagar after a week at Gadai Gauranga Kunj. Today is Radhashtami and I am slated to give a talk on Radharani at a fairly big gathering in Badkulla village, about 15 kilometers from here. So mostly I want to prepare for that and meditate, etc., for the rest of the day. But I wanted to get this post up, so here I am making a few brief comments about the past week. Most of you have by now seen the continuation of "Another side of Bhaktivinoda Thakur" series that Gadadhar has been writing. He doesn't use the internet or have a computer, so his handwritten manuscript is typed and then edited by me before it goes on line. We finished typing on Wednesday, so for the remaining days of the week we followed his normal schedule together. Gadadhar's program is based on the lunar calendar. From pratipad to pūrṇimā he does a vrata of chanting four lakhs a day. He completes a lakh in about two hours, so that means ...

Previous posts in this series: 1: Guru Nishtha 2: Raganuga Sadhana following Bhaktivinoda Thakur's Manjari Parampara 3: Svarasiki Bhajan 4: Attaining Siddhi 5: Learning about Siddha Krishnadas Baba's Gutika 6: The Gutika's Contents In Chapter 2 Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s authentic mañjarī paramparā was introduced. Beginning from Radha’s younger sister, Ananga Manjari, the sampradāya ācārya , it descends in an unbroken succession of mañjarīs to reach Vilasa Manjari, who is Kamala Manjari (Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s) guru-rūpa-sakhī . When one hankers to take up gopi-ānugatya bhajana , this is how the process can ideally begin: When at the time of receiving initiation we have a guru-mañjarī and a mañjarī-paramparā who will factually be there to guide us in Radha-Krishna’s nikunja-sevā . Because Bhaktivinoda Thakur took dīkṣā  in such a lineage, and furthermore instructs in Hari-nāma-cintāmaṇi that one should receive ekādaśa-bhāva from such a guru, won’t those wishing to fo...