Jagat

Leaving aside questions of the eternity of the soul, the afterlife and everything else that people take "on faith," the question is, "Why must I serve?" and then, "What [or whom] must I serve?" This is an existential question about the here and now. (Facebook, April 13, 2010)

Prīti Sandarbha discusses the principal rasas in at least two places and we will look at the way dāsya is treated, primarily focusing on Anuccheda 84, which talks about sthāyi-bhāva , and then on Anucchedass 201 to 248 where Sri Jiva goes into more detail with a somewhat different classification. 

This strange new old life is providing a great deal of mental stimulation. Being a part of human society in this part of the world means having established networks, and a car, and the energy to keep them up. For me, I had no problem going to the temple which was a place where I felt at home, even nostalgic for a good period in my life, even if now I am more or less shunned. Where do the shunned go? But it is a goodly distance and so requires a certain effort that is not always easy to muster when more than one person is involved. At any rate it is all moot now that Madhuri is invalid for probably up to three months before there is a return to normal. She is the entirety of my real-life community, as even, by coincidence, I was shut out of Facebook, so even my virtual community seems to have dwindled down the handful of somewhat nebulous creatures who pay any attention to it. Perhaps that is why I am writing a little more candidly, maybe even a little less pretentiously. Madhuri is try...

Some days definitely have more substance than others. Several unpublished and published stuff today. One on Corona from last year, where I more or less cemented my position on the great pandemic panic. Then there is a nice excerpt from  Prīti Sandarbha on sthāyi-bhāvas , a subject that has many posts on this blog. Then there is another reflection on karma, again based on the Gurukula abuses. And finally a short reflection on love. I could have split this up, but I just threw it all into one post. Memories from May 23

The inner path is the way of the singular. The external is that of the plural. Their meeting place is in the dual. Like the lamp on the doorstep that sheds light both inside and out, it reveals both the one and the many. Know this and you know the path of Sahaja.  (See  Lessons from Sanskrit: Singular, dual and plural . (April 06, 2011)  

I may have mentioned before that I am working on Prīti Sandarbha where currently I have been doing the sections on the secondary rasas and the mixing of rasas and rasābhāsa . For that purpose I have been doing a lot of side work like editing the Muktā-phala with its commentaries and also the last section (Part 4 ) of the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu . All this background research will hopefully enrich the Prīti Sandarbha , a lot of it will have to wait for another occasion for its effects to be shown. Understanding rasa is for me the key to understanding bhakti as it is taught in our tradition and I believe the greatest contribution for a psychological approach to the study of religion and religious experience. Haridas Thakur's trial. I will try to share some of this eventually. Here is just one tidbit that I found interesting: Making a display of devotion is rasābhāsa , "a mere semblance of rasa," i,e,, not real rasa. There are three kinds of  rasābhāsa pertaining ...

In an earlier article we discussed briefly how the three divisions of sādhāraṇī, samañjasā and samarthā corresponded to actual human relationships, along the axis of kāma to prema , in accordance with Rupa Goswami’s definitions. Indeed, they do constitute a bit of a mystery where the lila is concerned, since Kubjā is described as having lust for Krishna, a lust that is differentiated from that of the gopis, whose love has become undifferentiated from their sensual desire for him. Therefore it was stated that  sādhāraṇī rati's limit where the higher sthāyi-bhāvas are concerned is prema, the first rung on that ladder. ādyā premāntimāṁ tatrānurāgāntāṁ samañjasā | ratir bhāvāntimāṁ sīmāṁ samarthaiva prapadyate || The first ( sādhāraṇī ) only reaches as far as prema (i.e., the sthāyi-bhāva of that name), while samañjasā goes as far as anurāga . Only samarthā reaches the absolute limits of mahā-bhāva . (UN 14.232) This verse makes it clear that there are limits to what can be ac...

Whiteboard from class on rasa. [Earlier articles on psychological models in the context of Radha Krishna can be found here  and here .] We have been studying Madhusudana's Bhakti-rasāyana and some other texts on rasa and I finally managed to diagram things in a way that seems to me to explain the idea as a kind of psychological model, and which can be used to include all the rasa theorists from Bharata to Rupa Goswami. Actually Madhusudana does not fit this model exactly, even though he provides an important element in the understanding of the interface of rasa and psychology. There are a number of posts that explain aspects of this model, others that are forthcoming and hopefully we will be able to tie them all in together eventually. The overall idea is based on the concept that the personality is formed by impressions that are the result of emotional experiences that leave imprints on the unconscious mind. There are, according to Bharata, eight rasas, with śān...

We are talking about rasa a lot, and an understanding of the terms is important. As one progresses in knowledge and experience, such understanding is likely to undergo refinement. I was just asked to clarify some terms, so here is a short article doing so. āgamenānumānena dhyānābhyāsa-rasena ca | tridhā prakalpayan prajñāṁ labhate yogam uttamam || There are three roads to wisdom: hearing from the wise, sharpening one's reasoning skills, and relishing the taste of repeated practice of meditation. One who cultivates this threefold wisdom attains the ultimate yoga. The jñāna-mārga (the path of philosophical knowledge) has three divisions to its practice: śravaṇam (hearing from a knowledgeable source), mananam (contemplating what one has heard), and nididhyāsanam (intense meditation on the conclusion of one's intellectual processes). There is rasa in the practice of meditation, which is called  śānta-rasa , about which an article is following shortly.  The experience...

Love is the sthāyi-bhāva . Prema is its rasāvasthā . According to Madhusudana Saraswati, God himself is the  sthāyi-bhāva  of love. When certain emotional upsurges heat the heart and allow him to be imprinted there. He is both the vibhāva and the sthāyi -bhāva . The first of these being the bimba , the latter the pratibimba , or reflection, related in exactly the same way as īśvara to the jīva . The same idea expressed in Vaishnava terms would be that it is the reflection of the  svarūpa-śakti. Only God is capable of melting the heart fully. Since He is all things, even the mundane nāyaka and nāyikā are nothing but He, but incapable of fully melting the heart, since they are He covered by Maya. Maya is God's own potency for self-covering. ============= Here is Rupa Goswami's definition of prema : samyaṅ-masṛṇita-svānto mamatvātiśayāṅkitaḥ | bhāvaḥ sa eva sāndrātmā budhaiḥ premā nigadyate || When that very same  bhāva  described in BRS 1....

Chandan Goswami asked on Facebook, after hearing yet another person accuse almost everyone in the Vaishnava world of being a Sahajiya, "Have you found or met accidentally any such person in Gaudiya Sampradaya who you think is a Sahajiya?" In other words, have you met someone who fits your own description and still calls himself a Sahajiya? If there is any such thing as a "Sahajiya," it should be a person who calls himself by that name. If I call you a "Green Duck" that is me calling you something, not you yourself. If I then say "Green Ducks are like this or that" then it is clearly propaganda. Like people calling each other "Communists" or "Nazis" in political discussions. No one has asked the Green Ducks for their opinion. There are no doubt real Communists and Nazis, but before trying to define what one is, it may do well to find one and talk with that person to find out what they do and what they believe. Then your cr...

(2) vibhur api kalayan sadābhivṛddhiṁ gurur api gaurava-caryayā vihīnaḥ muhur upacita-vakrimāpi śuddho jayati muradviṣi rādhikānurāgaḥ Though all-pervading, it increases at every moment; Nothing as serious, yet always lighthearted; Full of twists and turns, yet always straight and pure: Ever glorious is Radha’s love for the enemy of Mura. The second verse of the nāndī shares several common features with the first. First of all, both differ from the usual invocatory prayers in no particular god is being addressed, invoked or supplicated. Here, as in the first verse, where Radha’s anubhāva known as kilakiñcita was seen as the source of blessings, the sthāyi-bhāva of anurāga has been singled out for a declaration of victory. The basic definition of anurāga , which will be discussed in greater detail below, is given in the Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi as follows: sadānubhūtam api yaḥ kuryān nava-navaṁ priyam rāgo bhavan nava-navaḥ so’nurāga itīryate When Rāga becomes ever newer and...