Jagat

A few different subjects came up on this date. (1) Devotees and learning Indian languages like Bengali and Sanskrit. I have written about this several times, like Love and Language . (2) I engaged in a response to Meena OM, a self-styled guru from Mumbai who is fairly popular " master " on Speakng Tree , where current Hinduism daily shows its blandness and abandonment of its tradition. I was posting there for a while but abandoned it quite some time ago. Anyway, about "becoming an avatar", apparently that is possible. (3) Comments on Bhaktivinoda's statement that party spirit and sectarianism are the two great enemies of progress. (4) Some verses from Govinda-līlāmr̥ta . FB Memories July 19.

I just came across this picture of the Mahaprabhu Janma Sthan temple built by Ganga Govinda Singh in the late 1700's. This then went into the Ganges in (according to my best knowledge) 1859. I had never seen it before. It is much better than the other existing painting, but in this undated and unattributed painting, it appears already to show some signs of aging. Not unusual for Bengal. Babaji and his disciples are having a japa retreat for the next week. I am witnessing it for the first time and more or less participating in it by osmosis. There are, as I understand it, no rules other than the usual daily prayer together and an informal ishtagoshti once a day. The vibration is strong as everyone is maximizing their individual sadhana rather than study or classes for the next week. There are also some other devotees who have come specifically to participate. The whole things is a bit secretive as everyone is told to strictly follow the rule, āpana bhajana kathā na kahi...

Prabodhananda Saraswatipada changes subject here after many verses dominated by visions of the divine abode and its Lord and Lady. Ending with the prayer for his mind and vision to be transformed by the grace of the Dham, he now turns to the  sādhaka  devotees and glorifies them over the next five verses (2.50-55). 

I was astonished recently to find myself debating with many devotees over what seemed to me to be a resistance to mañjarī-bhāva . I felt obliged to ask why these devotees, most of whom were from Iskcon, felt it necessary to argue that it was not necessary to want to be Radha's dasi, but could be whatever they liked, why they did not try to figure out why that was the desired goal of all our acharyas with practically no exception? If you follow a guru, you partake of his mood. And if the guru has a different mood from the one you seek, then why are you with that guru? If you want to be a lawyer, you go to law school, not medical college, is it not? One expects the guru to be of the same mood ( svajātīyāśaya ), otherwise what is the point of a guru? And if you don't know what your guru's mood is, then what do you follow? The line of grace is in getting the special prize that is the heart of the guru. This is why I believe that paramparā is more than just śikṣā ....

I get regular mailings from the Pure Bhakti website of Narayan Maharaj's sangha. The last few days have been full of messages citing Narayan Maharaj's warnings about Ananta Das Baba. Today was the bouquet, as we say in French, as the headlined audio file was "Satsvarupa Goswami confirms Srila Narayan Maharaja saved him and others from Ananta Das Babaji."