Jagat

I have been reading a book by Swami Karpatriji, Rādhā-sudhā  (Vṛndāvana: Rādhākṛṣṇa Dhānukā Prakāśana Saṁsthāna, 2004), which I picked up last time I was in Vrindavan. I have to admit that I am more than a little impressed by Karpatriji's erudition, as well as by Madhusudana Saraswati, with whom he seems to have had a spiritual connection. Madhusudan Saraswati is known mainly for a book called Advaita-siddhi , in which he counters the arguments of Vyasa Tirtha of the Madhva school, a part of the longstanding debate between the two views of the theistic and the monistic traditions of Indian religious thought. But as shown in the previous post, both in legends about him and in his own words, a distinct devotional streak can be observed in Madhusudan. His commentary on the Bhagavad-gita and another on the Bhagavatam are not the only books he wrote that have some interest for the devotionally minded. According to Anant Shastri Phadke, he wrote the following works: Bhakti-bhāṣya-nirū...

I am skipping around the RRSN typing out the commentaries to the most popular or famous verses. No real sequence. I am simultaneously listening to Gopi Gita lectures by Kirit Bhaiji, a young speaker from the Vallabhi sampradaya. He is pretty good--a professional Bhagavata speaker. What do some people hate professional Bhagavata speakers so much? I am feeling the rasa. Though at the beginning he sings songs to Ganesh, etc., as part of the introduction, on the whole he is pretty good, with lots of Vallabhi siddhanta. quoting also Sridhar Swami, Rupa Goswami, Madhusudan Saraswati, and using modern examples. Anyway, I have great admiration for these Bhagavata saptaha people. They have a pretty gruelling schedule--reciting the verses all morning along with various rituals, and then usually a four-hour or even longer discourse in the afternoon. I saw one such performance at the Vrindavan Ashram a few months ago. A few busloads of devotees had been bussed in from Madhya Pradesh somewhere ...

Autumn moon. Beautiful sharada chandra ; it seems to fill the whole sky, deep amber color, a few wispy clouds, lighting up the mountains. There was no one at Rādhā-rasa-sudhā-nidhi class today, so since Harilal Vyasa concludes his tika to verse 2 with it, I just read a commentary on a Bhagavata verse from the Bhramara-gita, api ca kripana-pakshe uttama-shloka-shabdah . "No woman alive anywhere in the three worlds can resist your charms--even Lakshmi Devi herself worships the dust of your feet, so who are we [to hope for your mercy]? And yet, you are glorified as being merciful to the least of creatures, so live up to the meaning of your name." It is really has the same basic idea as another verse that I tried to quote the other day and could not remember. That night, when I opened Ananta Das's RRSN, it fell open on a page with that very verse on it. Actually I had posted it on my blog some time ago. na premā śravaṇādi-bhaktir api vā yogo’thavā vaiṣṇavo jnānaṁ vā ś...

I wanted to write a blog about the classes and lectures I listened to in Vrindavan, but I never got around to it. I did mention Prema Das's very enjoyable Chaitanya Charitamrita lectures at Radha Raman Nivas, but did not give a summary of the morning Bhagavata classes that I attended at the Krishna Balaram temple. I thought I would check the general temperature of Hari Katha at that noble institution and probably went to about eight or ten classes altogether, nearly every day someone different. I heard Radha Raman Swami twice, as he spoke in English one day and Hindi the next. About those Iskcon lectures, I will only make one comment, and that is that I cannot recall having heard the name of Radha a single time, nor Vrindavan, nor the word prema. The only exception to this dearth of rasa was perhaps one young brahmachari who read a couple of songs by Jnana Das about Krishna's rupa. It must be said, though, that as someone who likes to speak Harikatha, I cannot help salivat...