Jagat

So the day has been getting imperceptibly closer and is finally here. My flight is this evening and I have a lot of last minute preparations still to do. My books are still filling their shelves, their future uncertain. Countless photocopied pages lie piled up in boxes, some dating back to undergraduate days, waiting in futility for one kernel of wisdom to be picked up, one significant quote to be cited in a magnum opus, and which now will most likely be forever overlooked. I spent much of the last two days scanning books and articles into PDF format. I wish that I had done much more, but now that will have to wait. At least much of what I will need to consult for the work I know I will have to do in the next few months is available to me for consultation. The following verse comes to mind-- pustaka-sthā tu yā vidyā para-hasta-gataṁ dhanam kārya-kāle samutpanne na sā vidyā na tad dhanam Knowledge that is in books is like money in another's hand. When the time to use it com...

For the past year, I have studiously avoided participating in any forums and have practically stopped all correspondence with others, whatever their allegiances. Although most of my efforts have been going into the most mundane of goals--material survival--I have not entirely abandoned my soul. In a websearch, I came across a long discussion that took place on Gaudiya Repercussions not long after my Sahajiya "outing" on the same forum. It was instigated by Nitai and Jijaji, and contains many valuable comments and reactions from the intelligent and learned participants in that forum. Nitai even starts the whole thing off from the same point that this blog does: My statement that Gaudiya Vaishnavism is a bird with two wings: the orthodox and the sahajiya. He says, I think orthodox CV can fly pretty well on its own without any help from its sahajiya kindred. I recognise the very close and complex relationship that exists between CV and SV, but in my view SV has been and r...