Jagat

Some make the unequivocal statement that it is never correct for a guru to sleep with his disciples. I would like to state that in reverse. I say: A woman should only sleep with her guru, and a man should only sleep with his guru. All sexual relationships should be mutual guru-disciple relationships. The guru-disciple relationship is the vātsalya relationship par excellence, in that it selflessly seeks the welfare of the other. Vātsalya , like friendship, service, and admiration, is included in madhura . But in the latter, vātsalya  must be mutual, i.e., felt by both parties. Without mutuality, if vātsalya or, worse, vātsalya-ābhāsa (the mere outward appearance of guru sentiment) is predominant, then sexual relations would be inimical to love, or  rasa-virodha , to use the Sanskrit terminology. Rasa-virodha means "distasteful", which is a rather understated translation. That is why we recoil at these guru-disciple sexual relations and why we intuitively ...

mugdhaṁ māṁ nigadantu nīti-nipuṇā bhrāntaṁ muhur vaidikāḥ mandaṁ bāndhava-sañcayā jaḍa-dhiyaṁ muktādarāḥ sodarāḥ | unmattaṁ dhanino viveka-caturāḥ kāmaṁ mahā-dāmbhikaṁ moktuṁ na kṣamate manāg api mano govinda-pāda-spṛhām || Let the sharp moralist accuse me of being illusioned; the experts in Vedic ritual may slander me as misled, friends and relatives may call me lazy and irresponsible, while my brothers, no longer respectful or affectionate, call me a fool. I don't mind. The wealthy mammonites will point me out as mad, and learned philosophers assert that I am much too proud. Still, my mind does not budge an inch from its determination to serve Govinda's lotus feet. ( Pady ā vali 81, M ā dhavasya ) Actually, I don't think it is just "I don't mind." It is a kind of relish. We Hare Krishnas have been thumbing our nose at the Establishment since 1966. And they called us irresponsible and told us to get jobs, or to be good Christians, or philoso...

Whatever you do, whatever you do, whatever you do, don't drop the bindu. This, my friends, I share with you the secret to all sādhana . In Radha-Krishna bhakti-sādhana , the bindu is the moment of divine union between the Divine Couple. It is the compact, condensed moment before the big bang. It is the love that existed in the Divine Couple before the conception of the universe. It is the ānanda from which all things have sprung. That is the bindu . Bhaktas! Find it, and don't drop it!!! It is Radha and Krishna on the bed of lotus petals in the nikuñja . It is Radha and Krishna in oblivion. It is  Their asamprajñāta samādhi , their total forgetfulness of everything but pure being, consciousness and bliss. That is the bindu . Find it and don't drop it! प्रेमा योऽसौ राधिकाकृष्णयुग्मं स्वानन्देन प्लावयित्वा सखीश्च । शश्वद्विश्वं प्लावयन् सुप्रसिद्धः सोऽयं बुद्धिं नः समिद्धां करोतु ॥ premā yo'sau rādhikā-kṛṣṇa-yugmaṁ svānandena plāvayitvā sakhīś ca | ś...

Very few languages in the world still have the dual number, like Sanskrit. This helps account for the large size of Sanskrit's conjugations and declensions, but it has a certain logic that has provoked a bit of thought in me about relationships. It seems that by insisting on a dual number, Sanskrit is giving a great deal of importance to the one-on-one relationship. It is true that one is usually different when by oneself, in the company of one other person, particularly one with whom one has an intimate relationship, or in a crowd. Prema, which is both the sādhana (means) and the sādhya (end) of spiritual life, is to be experienced on all these three levels of relationship. The singular Love of the personal God comes in the "singular." One might think that since there is a duality ( bheda ) between the individual and the Supreme Other, this is a "dual" relationship. This is philosophically true and is the main reason that we have proposed the singula...

I am occasionally asked to speak on bhakti here at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama. Interestingly, Swami Veda has been giving daily classes on the Gita's sthita-prajña-lakṣaṇam (i.e. 2.54-72), using Shankara and Madhusudan Saraswati's commentaries. One open secret here in this tradition is that Swami Rama himself was (or claimed to be) a reincarnation of this Madhusudan. Madhusudan Saraswati was an interesting personality whose scholarship was so multifaceted that there were few areas of traditional knowledge that he had not mastered. According to the information at hand, his forefathers escaped north India in the 12th century after the Muslim conquest and began by settling in Nabadwip. Later they moved to Faridpur in present-day Bangladesh. Madhusudan became renounced early in life and went to Benares to study Mimamsa. Some traditions have it that he first went to Nabadwip to study Navya-nyaya and there imbibed bhakti in the Chaitanyaite tradition. He was born after Chaitanya ...

I had a break yesterday and plunged back into Chandidas. I was reading Biman Bihari Majumdar's edition, which has much to say for it, as he has gone deeply into the Chandidas mystery, sorting out which Chandidas is which. There are so many Chandidasas -- minimum four, probably five or more. Majumdar divides his book into four sections: definitely Chandidas, not so sure, definitely Baru Chandidas and Dina Chandidas, and ones that though ascribed or attributed are definitely not the original Chandidas. Many of the latter are signed Dvija Chandidas, who is definitely post-Chaitanya, though he shows no direct knowledge of or devotion to Chaitanya. The  rāgātmikā-padas  of the Sahajiya Chandidas are left out entirely, since everyone seems to agree that they are post-Chaitanya. Majumdar also thinks Baru Chandidas is at least contemporary with Chaitanya, which I don't agree with. Basically all the students of early Bengali literature pick over each  pada  and...

In November, I got a nice present from Brahmachari Brajvihari Sharan at Golok Dham Ashram in Delhi: An annotated copy of Harivyas Devacharya’s Mahāvāṇī (ca. 1573 CE). Of late, there has been a rather unappetizing scandal surrounding the sex tapes of a popular Bhagavata speaker, which raises doubts again about the appropriateness of discussing or repeating Radha and Krishna’s “confidential”, i.e., erotic, pastimes. It seems that such worries are well-founded when such prurient interest in what appear to be mundane sexuality is dressed up in Vrindavan garb and then marketed for profit to those who have little or no appreciation for Braja rasa in its purest and most transcendental form. Nevertheless, we must, against all criticism, reaffirm our own faith in madhura-rasa, the erotic mood of love, as the king of the “mellows” and in Radha and Krishna, the divine embodiment of that mood, in two moieties as Rasarāj and Mahābhāva. Vrindavan is unique in that it is the ...

sevā vṛndāvana-stha-/ sthira-cara-nikareṣv astu me hanta ke vā devā brahmādayaḥ syus / tata uru-mahitā vallabhā ye vrajendoḥ | ete hy advaita-sac-cid-/ ghana-vapuṣo dūra-dūrātidūra- sphūrjan-māhātmya-vṛndā / bṛhad-upaniṣad-ānandajānanda-kandāḥ || May I always render service to the creatures of Vrindavan, moving or still. Ah! What are great gods like Brahma to me? Those dear to the Moon of Braj are far greater in glory than they! All have non-dual bodies of condensed spiritual being and consciousness and their wonders have burst forth to the far, far corners of the universe! They are the roots of the joy born of the joy of the great Upanishads. ( Vṛndāvana-mahimāmṛta 1.61) The words bṛhad-upaniṣad-ānandajānanda-kandāḥ are probably a reference to Bṛhad-āranyaka Upanishad 3.9.28(7), where Shankara goes into a prolonged discussion of the word ānanda and how it means Brahman. Prabodhananda is here saying that the joy spoken of in the "Brihad Upanishad" is thus Br...

A friend sent me a few comments that were made about me over on Nitai's Chaitanya Symposium . Nitai (Neal Delmonico) is an old friend, with whom I unfortunately do not keep in very close contact. Our approaches to bhakti and spiritual life differ somewhat, particularly where mood is concerned. For some reason, Nitai finds it necessary to find nothing positive in the Vaishnava movement that brought him to "Chaitanya Vaishnavism" and I do not agree with this, as I feel it impacts negatively on our sādhanā when we do that kind of thing. But that is his business. He has a good brain and is well read, so I hope the best for him and his spiritual ambitions. And whether I agree with him or not is irrelevant to the fact that he is one of the foremost scholars of Gaudiya Vaishnavism in the world and deserves respect for that fact alone. Here are some of the things that were said: Nitai : What can I say about Jagat? He at present prefers sahaja-dharma to Vaishnava dharma. His ...