Jagat

"So it is clear that the yogis receive their knowledge through non-imaginary, non-fictitious ( a-vikalpita ) samādhi , and use the fiction ( vikalpa ) of āgama and anumāna to convey the true knowledge." [Vachaspati Misra to Yoga-sūtra I.43 (trans. Swami Veda Bharati)] [ I get  the problem here, but it is hard for me to believe that any experience is free of an overlay of memory and certainly when śabda is given as much importance as in Vaishnavism, one expects that "direct experience" will conform with what one has learned, heard or become conditioned to. But even a yogi who is directing his practice and self-conditioning is also working towards an expected experience that is strongly influenced by memory. This is a significant point and requires clarification, Memory is notoriously fallible just like sense perception -- indeed the defectiveness of both is intertwined -- but for Vaishnavas, memory is the locus of the practice, which is distinct from dhyāna altho...

A mughal period miniature illumination of the Bhagavatam, illustrating King Prithu's court. This section continues as commentary on the two paths or ruci and vic āra-m ārgas . In particular, the equivalents of the  vic āra-m ārga (hearing,reflection and deep meditation) are described as they apply on both these paths. These are the subject of the present pair of  anucchedas . The six verses are taken from King  Pṛthu's speech to his subjects in Canto 4, chapter 21. Anuccheda 204 Proper Deliberation on Śāstra Brings About Śraddhā तत्र रुचिप्रधानानां श्रवणादिकम् (भा. १.५.२६)— तत्रान्वहं कृष्णकथाः प्रगायता- मनुग्रहेणाशृणवं मनोहराः। ताः श्रद्धया मेऽनुपदं विशृण्वतः प्रियश्रवस्यङ्ग ममाभवद्रुचिः॥ इत्याद्युक्तप्रकारम्। From his own experience, Nārada describes the devotional activities—particularly hearing—of those who are guided by taste: There by the grace of those [saintly people] who were engaged in singing the tales of Kṛṣṇa, I listened to the enchanting pasti...

This verse gets bandied about a lot. I noticed something in Jiva's commentary that helps clarify the meaning. śruti-smṛti-purāṇādi pañcarātra-vidhiṁ vinā aikāntikī harer bhaktir utpātayaiva kalpate Exclusive devotion to Lord Hari which ignores the regulative principles outlined in the Sruti, Smriti, Puranas and Pancharatra scriptures will simply cause a disturbance. ( Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.2.101) Extended translation : Since the path taken by the great authorities has been canonized in the revealed scriptures, it is a flaw to ignore the edicts found in these texts. Vaishnavas should seek out the scriptures or sections of the scriptures that fit their level of qualification and inclination. If someone out of deliberate faithlessness refuses to accept the scriptural directives, then even if they make a show of exclusive devotion, it will cause a disturbance. If one does not follow these injunctions out of ignorance or laziness, then the same degree of criticism does...

This article was first sent on the short-lived Garuda  list serve run by Rocana Dasa, most probably in 1997. It was available on line on the Wise Wisdoms site for a while, but was taken down. On rereading, I find it still relevant. Reason and scriptural interpretation We are human beings endowed with reason, with which we try to make sense of our experiences in life and learn from them. In Krishna consciousness we have been indoctrinated to mistrust reason and even our direct experience to the benefit of authority-based learning. The argument is, of course, cogent: You cannot invent your own language, and there is no point in reinventing the wheel, and if we wish to see far, it is advisable to stand on the shoulders of giants. But even when standing on the shoulder of a giant, it is with our own eyes that we see and with our own brains that we process the sensory or extrasensory information our eyes give us. Thus, where scripture is concerned, we state the following: C...

A big question that is frequently asked of me is about where I get the authority to say things, i.e., about my sources of knowledge, or pramāṇa . This is what we call epistemology: How do we know what we know? Many devotees are appropriately very attached to the words of śāstra and their gurus. I have myself spent most of my life in a study of the Sanskrit and Bengali texts related to our school of thought out of a great respect for our acharyas, a respect that was instilled in me by Srila Prabhupada himself. As a result, I have long contemplated the value and meaning of these texts, along with my spiritual practices, and come to certain conclusions. In the article linked to above, I simply wrote that I had no pramāṇas for my spiritual path, but this of course is not entirely true. I still need to know that what "I know" is real knowledge. So I do have a position on pramāṇas , which is as follows: Pramāṇa is used in argumentation to verify one's position, to es...

Probing the pramans with Prem Prayojan Prabhu, one of the brightest lights on the Gaudiya Vaishnava horizon.   A short time ago, I met Prema Prayojan Prabhuji in the MVT restaurant. We have met several times before, and he even honored me with an invitation to address his congregation at Ananda Dham in Vrindavan last year. The ostensible purpose for the meeting was to discuss certain aspects of shastra. Prema Prayojan has been following a train of thought about manjari-bhava and was asking some questions about the Mañjarī-svarūpa-nirūpaṇa of Kunja Bihari Dasji, which I translated way back in 1983 and copies of which are still floating about despite the fact that it has never been officially published. Prema Prayojan thinks that Kunja Bihari Dasji, probably based on Haridas Das's translation of the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu , promoted the widespread and (he believes) erroneous interpretation of bhāvollāsā rati as being equivalent to mañjarī-bhāva as well as an independent ...