Jagat

raṭan vṛndāraṇye'tyaviratam aṭaṁs tatra parito naṭan gāyan premṇā pulakita-vapus tatra viluṭhan | truṭat-sarva-granthīḥ sphurad-atirasopāsti-paṭimā kadāhaṁ dhanyānāṁ mukuṭa-maṇir eṣo'smi bhavitā || Wandering without cease in the land of Vrindavan, loudly calling out in ecstasy, dancing and singing out of love, rolling on the ground, hairs standing on my body in bliss, having cut asunder all the knots of material attachment and having become expert in manifesting the worship of the rasikas, when will I become the crest jewel of the most fortunate? Bhakti is the path of ecstasy. The greatest good fortune is to attain the goal of prema-bhakti. One who has prema purifies himself and the whole world. No one is more fortunate than the person who has attained the loving service of the Divine Couple in the eternal Vrindavan. This is the truth of the Bhagavatam, where Krishna tells Uddhava, vāg gadgadā dravate yasya cittaṁ rudaty abhīkṣṇaṁ hasati kvacic ca v...

Swami Veda quoted this Bhagavata verse last night in Yoga Sutra class while discussing sutra 4.25. vāg gadgadā dravate yasya cittaṁ rudaty abhīkṣṇaṁ hasati kvacic ca | vilajja udgāyati nṛtyate ca mad-bhakti-yukto bhuvanaṁ punāti || One who is united with me in bhakti yoga, whose words are choked with emotion, whose mind has melted, who cries constanty and sometimes laughs, who shamelessly sings alound and dances... such a devotee purifies the entire world. (11.14.24) Swamiji does not usually quote full verses in his classes, though he makes a point of teaching his disciples the Sanskrit terminology used in the Yoga Sutra. Needless to say, it was a pleasure to hear him recite this sweet verse so nicely. And he pointedly said that he was doing so for me. Because "Jagat knows the Bhagavata." The context here was the following sentence from Vyasa's bhashya, yathā pravṛṣi tṛṇāṅkurasyodbhedena tad-bīja-sattānumīyate, tathā mokṣa-mārga-śravaṇena yasya r...

The second seminar was centered on Mahaprabhu's life. The readings were (1) Bhaktivedanta Swami's introduction to the Srimad Bhagavatam, (2) Adi 17 and Madhya 1 of Chaitanya Bhagavata, based on a version I found on the web and revised. (3) Then I found a version of the Jagai Madhai story from CBh translated by Tony Stewart ( Religions of India in Practice , ed. Donald S. Lopez). I also gave an article by Joseph O'Connell in which he traces a particular incident from Chaitanya's life through the different biographies ("Historicity in the Biographies of Chaitanya", JVS 1.2), and finally the first chapter of June McDaniel's The Madness of the Saints . In preparing for the course, I found that June McDaniel's introduction gave some very useful insights into the Chaitanya phenomenon. Her book is not really about Mahaprabhu, as such, but rather about ecstatic religion in Bengal, and though she begins with Mahaprabhu as the paradigmatic ecstatic, she gives...