Jagat

Part I of this three part series. [Introduction, Places of Pilgrimage: Tirtha, Kshetra and Dham, Vaishnava criticisms of tīrtha-yātrā, Braj/Vrindavan is a dhāma] Part II of this three part series. [How a Gaudiya Vaishnava performs pilgrimage to the Dham, The eternal glory of residence in the Dham] Part III : Sattva-guṇa and Nirguṇa, Globalization and the Dham, Can a culture truly be translated? How a Gaudiya Vaishnava performs pilgrimage to the Dham As a consequence of this designating of numerous sites as related to famous or obscure events in the life of Krishna, the most important pilgrimage activity for visitors to Vrindavan is the parikrama around Braj, called Chaurasi Kos Braj Parikrama . Rupa Goswami and other Vaishnava saints like Narayan Bhatta established hundreds of such places in the Braj area as reminders of Krishna’s activities. During the parikrama, devotees visit these places and perform various rituals there, principally hearing the stories related to that pl...

This is a cross post from Vrindavan Today , with a few revisions. One of the subjects I have been thinking a great deal about is identity and globalization. My identity in Vrindavan is that of a Vaishnava sādhaka living in the Dham. This identity has to fight against the demands of the ever-increasingly dominant modern, globalized culture. Now there are two kinds of people living in Braj. The first are true blood Brijbasis, some going back many generations. Though there are many of these, the religious elites, the Gosais, are at the top of the hierarchy. But the traditions hold that all these Brijbasis are namasya , because they are most directly serving the Vrindavan lila. Times are changing, but they have been learning the game known as "Braj" for many generations. And many of them are now in the process of learning how to "be Braj in the world." Collectively also, the battle is on for an identity for Vrindavan. Brijbasis are not immune to external influ...

Cross posted from Vrindavan Today . While in Barsana recently, I was standing in the Ladli temple on the outside terrace portion and someone appeared to have fainted. An elderly Brijbasi Gosai, with a bushy white moustache, a colorful turban and yellow silk dhoti, a stick in his hand, was walking toward me. For some reason I was impelled to say something stupid and started to speak, but my Hindi tongue was tied and could not express, "We must all pass by that." At the Brajvasi's insistence I repeated myself again without success and ended up stuttering out the words andham tamah,  "the darkness of ignorance." Which I knew the instant they came out of my mouth that they did not fit at all what I really wanted to say, pointless as it was. The Gusai responded vehemently in a tone of chastisement, but even singing a Brijbhasha song, glorifying Braj Dham as sat-cit-ananda , and how nothing that happens here can ever be andham tamah . I stood there with my h...

Three and a half months in Birnagar has come to a sudden and very abrupt change of Dham. I am feeling the intoxication of Vrindavan. Intoxication is not really permitted in sādhanā , but then again, sādhanā is really about nothing else BUT intoxication. The intoxication of forgetfulness of conventional reality. Which is inevitably accompanied by a fear that one is distancing oneself from the conventional reality of duty and attentiveness to the normative. When Bhakta Das and I were about to get off the train in Mathura -- he goes to Radha Kund, I to Vrindavan -- he said that he felt it would be lonely going to his cottage in Gaura Dham Colony. He has been relishing the kind of respect and sense of community and purpose that he gets at Dwadash Mandir. I also felt something like that on arriving here. There we fulfill a role in the service of our Guru, which makes us automatically seen as special, through our relation, through our connection. Here we are specks of dust, luminous n...