Jagat

This was a response to something an ex-devotee posted about self-love. As often is the case, something else crossed my path at about the same time, namely this verse by Haridas Shastri. It provoked certain thoughts in me that I felt worth sharing. As prayers go, it seems particularly good to me and I had  even included it in an earlier post . I wrote this comment on Facebook but never posted it on the blog, though I rather like the trend of the meditation.

In Sāṅkhya-Yoga I became intrigued by the concept of Puruṣa = svārtha, Prakṛti = parārtha. i.e. the Spirit Self exists for itself, but Nature or Phenomena exist for another, i.e., the Puruṣa. (See Sāṅkhya-kārikā 17, 56, Yoga-sūtra 3.35 and their commentaries.) The idea is that as conscious beings, we experience and process phenomena entirely as though we ourselves are the center of the universe. This has really nothing to do with selfishness in its ethical sense, though that is an outcome of this perfectly natural state. This is in fact one of Sāṅkhya philosophy's arguments for the existence of the spiritual self as separate and distinct from matter. Any Vaishnava looking at Gītā 7.4-5 will recognize how the idea of the Puruṣottama adds a further dimension to this concept, but it is one that makes a huge difference. bhūmir āpo'nalo vāyuḥ khaṁ mano buddhir eva ca ahaṁkāra itīyaṁ me bhinnā prakṛtir aṣṭadhā apareyam itas tv anyāṁ prakṛtiṁ viddhi me parām jīva-b...

I have been distracted with other things, especially Gopala Tapani, but now I have branched off into the  Vṛndāvana-rasa-tattva-samīkṣā , also by Bhagiratha Jha. I enjoy this stuff tremendously. It seems a great shame that I am not able to make my living at it. Bhagiratha is steeped in the Upanishads and Vedanta, so he is the perfect source of understanding for these foundations of Gopāla-tāpanī . But in the Vṛndāvana-rasa-tattva-samīkṣā , he concentrates more on topics of rasa, citing the customary sources in that area, like Bharata Muni. Nevertheless, he continues to emphasize the Upanishadic basis of things. This book begins at the same place the Prīti-sandarbha does: with the famous Chāndogya passage (7.22ff) that inquires into happiness. The prayojana , or goal of life and all our activities, is to find happiness. Anyone who gives another reason is being disingenuous. The debate lies in where one can find it. In free Western societies, it was decided a few centuries ago...