Jagat

It is getting difficult for me to post every day as I am being distracted by numerous distractions in my new life here. I am dealing with the strange new circumstance in which I find myself, presuming that there is some meaning in all fortuitous circumstances. I have started making videos in French. The devotional community here in Quebec is very small and very fragmented. Furthermore, I am treated by everyone with great suspicion. Madhuri has a generally poor opinion of most of them, in no small part because their suspicion of me spills over to them. But I am of the opinion that my first responsibility is serving the devotees, which is why I chose today's title. I have been experimenting as my French is not all that great. But still, it seems that it would be better to try this first.  Anyway. I am feeling a bit isolated and in need of bhakta-sanga , otherwise my spiritual life is going to deteriorate. This is of course the test. Many people said to me that Vrindavan is everywhere...

2017 বাস্তব আমার সব সময় এ অনুভব হয় যে আমি যতটা বাংলা ভাষার মধ্যে অনুপ্রবিষ্ট হই, আমি ততটাই মহাপ্রভুর কাছে এসে গিয়েছি. জয় গৌর! 2015 The life of a Luddite living in India. I can live without internet, but if we have the internet, can we have it please? Waiting ten minutes to see an email... 2014 The rains are coming down monsoon fashion here in Rishikesh. I wish some of this would fall on the plains further south. 2014 Pleased to say that today on Guru Purnima, I have just completed the Yoga Tarangini project and handed it to Swami Veda Bharati to be sent for publication. Jai Guru. (115 comments) I just arrived in Vrindavan. They apparently had "suspicion" of rain last night so it is not the promised 36 degrees nightly low, but at least 5 below that. As yet, this commuting back and forth from Vrindavan to RIshikesh is very revealing. And I can tell you, of the two I am definitely a Vrindavan person. There is just a little yogi lurking in there that still cries out ...

Contents of an Indian street cow’s stomach (Gomata Gau Seva Trust, 2016) What is this light above the water in the shape of an umbrella? It is not submerged even when the whole earth is submerged in water. Is it the eternal Brahman, enumerated in hundreds of statements of the Upanishads, that has taken the form of an umbrella to give shelter to those suffering from the threefold miseries? We have become perfect merely by seeing it, O Teacher of the Universe. O Janardana, and you are also glancing at it repeatedly. Although you are the personification of wonder, you look at it as though you also find it wonderful. FB Memories July 11 (2015)    2012 It has taken a long time, but on occasion I am finally hearing -- or imagining that I am hearing -- the voices of the writers of the Sanskrit texts. 2011 For Love to be realized, it must be experienced internally as emotion (bhava) and externally as reciprocation (prema). Thereafter Lord Vishnu replied:   The light in ...

Today's Facebook memories are more copious than most other days. There are reflections on Weber's charisma, thoughts on Vrindavan and Vrindavan Today, Thomas Merton and " The Monastery ." I am a bit surprised that none of this was previously on the blog. I was in Rishikesh when I wrote this as the book was in Swami Veda's library. FB Memories July 9.

  Today's instalment is mostly a couple of quotes from Bhakti Sandarbha  along with Babajji's comments, though I include a quotation from Bhaktivinoda Thakur to begin. 

  I have been having difficulty continuing this posting of memories from Facebook. Some days there is little or nothing. On the other hand, I sometimes want to comment expansively on some point that was discussed long ago but don't find the time. So I do have a number of drafts and other potential articles.  Facebook memories July 6.

2012 We now have two srotas for Dana-keli-kaumudi class every evening at 7.30. This is the third time I have started, but that first verse just keeps on giving. [Did not last.] 2011 This Vrindavan water is so corroding. Things rust so quickly it is like you can see it rusting in front of your eyes. Even stainless steel is speckled brown in a matter of days. Even with wiping. Incredible. 2011 Optimism is NOT magical thinking. [Optimism is equated with faith: the faith that life does have meaning. Magical thinking is the belief that specific results will be forthcoming from some unrelated activity.] 2011 One of those days where little is getting accomplished. 2011 Chandravali, the compliant   ṣoḍaśyās tvam uḍor vimuñca sahasā nāmāpi vāmāśaye tasyā durvinayair muner api manaḥ śāntātmanaḥ kupyati | dhig goṣṭhendra-sute samasta-guṇināṁ maulau vrajābhyarcite pādānte patite’pi naiva kurute bhrū-kṣepam apy atra yā || This is Chandravali: Stop trying to persuade me to be meane...

FB Memories June28

Ruci-pradhāna and vicāra-pradhāna  discussion from Bhakti Sandarbha. This is mostly excerpted from Bhakti Sandarbha 202 and 204-205 , which were posted before, but there are some extra observations here from the comments section. The all-important six criteria for evaluating the purport of a text are also discussed. A few other verses are quoted also. Facebook memories for June 26.

  After concluding the section on śānta-rasa , Śrī Rūpa observes that the “middle” three relations actually form a kind of trio, which he names hṛdyā (See " A tentative overview of rasa psychology .") It doesn’t seem to be being used terminologically, but it is worth grouping them, just like dhāraṇā, dhyāna and samādhi are grouped in YS 3.6 as saṁyama , since they are in fact different aspects of a single procedure of mind-directdness. Rupa doesn’t go into too much detail here or elsewhere to specify the common characteristic of the three, except by the word  hṛdyā .

Facebook memories from June 25:  A fairly heavy day with lots of comments: Many of the items are on the  blog.  The headline  article  is from Longfellow's poem that inspired Bhaktivinoda.  Another post from 2011 about a revised and educated faith that comes after a life of engaging with doubt.

From my daily japa walk in Laval Quebec. Part I The third and last subcategory of the āśrita is the sevā-niṣṭha, or one dedicated fully to his service, taking shelter, I would assume, of his service. c) sevā-niṣṭhāḥ mūlato bhajanāsaktāḥ sevā-niṣṭhā itīritāḥ | candradhvajo harihayo bahulāśvas tathā nṛpāḥ | ikṣvākuḥ śrutadevāś ca puṇḍarīkādayaś ca te || Those who are attached to bhajana from the beginning are called "fixed in service" ( sevā-niṣṭha ) (3.2.29) The examples are of some lesser known figures kings like Candradhvaja, Harihaya, Bahulāśva, Ikṣvāku, Śrutadeva and Puṇḍarīka. The commentaries make no effort to explain these kings' particular character. Bahulāśva and Śrutadeva figure in 10.86 but I haven't analysed them in order to get an idea of this separate category. Here is the exemplary verse: ātmārāmān api gamayati tvad-guṇo gāna-goṣṭhīṁ śūnyodyāne nayati vihagān apy alaṁ bhikṣu-caryām | ity utkarṣaṁ kam api sa-camatkāram ākarṇya citraṁ sevāyāṁ t...

Ramesh Baba inaugurating the improvements at Seva Kunj. See below.

From 2018, this article seems to never have made it to the blog before. I rather like this picture of Barsana, so I posted in full. I was also rather pleased with some observations from 11 years ago. Confident words about love are not always forthcoming. Facebook memories from June 22

From my daily japa walk in Laval QC It is my contention that we should understand the five relational rasas on the basis of human relationships. I was reminded today by a friend of the debate I had a few years ago with Babaji about "love in this world." My contention is that even though we may deny the perfection of the love in this world, if we say that Krishna needs to come into the world not only to teach but to experience love, then love or at least the conditions of love are only possible in the world of death and imperfection. This is indeed a philosophical position that is essential to understanding the avatar doctrine as found in Chaitanya Vaishnavism. It is my further contention that the different relations represent different sādhanas on the way to the completion of the sādhana of prema . Krishna appears to us in our different relationships. A madhyama devotee restricts his relationships to other devotees because the culture of loving relationships must begin with...

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...

Yesterday, after talking to Madhuri, I mentioned the primal scene . I had in fact written something on the subject way back in 2012 and it was still in my drafts. This comes from some thinking about Freud and the thought: "Radha and Krishna are our parents before we were born." In other words, we were born of love, and that this love can be identified with the summum bonum. It is an archetypal way of looking at reality meaningfully. The thoughts in the article were mostly disorganized and in need of more explanation, but I posted it anyway without too much decoration.  Reality is always about broken ideals. Imperfection is the rule, not perfection, no matter what your idea of perfection happens to be. Religion is about adhering to those ideals even imperfectly rather than abandoning them. Love is the highest ideal, but who knows or experiences it? And who believes in it to the exclusion of the other accomplishments in life? And is love possible outside of vidhi , the rules im...

As you may well imagine, coming back into a marriage from the place one left off 14 or 15 years ago is an interesting experience. A lot of things have happened in the intervening time and we all undergo changes, for better or worse. Hopefully in my case it was for the better.  Nevertheless, I am a person who seeks meaning in the accidents of life, and what is going on now is certainly one of those.

An interesting day. Prema Madhuri is still in the hospital after the operation. Today I more or less got a day off. I was in the hospital room when they brought her from the operating theater and stayed with her as she slept through the anesthetic induced discomforts.  I played the same meditation music which brought her BP down from pretty high to normal levels in a couple of hours before the operation. But around 1.30 or 2 at night, the nurse told me visitors were not allowed to stay the night. So I ended up taking a taxi home and got a couple of hours of sleep on a flat surface after a couple of days.  But Prema Madhuri told in the morning that she would not need me today, so I have a day off. I took a walk through one of my municipality's walking paths. It is a pretty nice interesting walk, pretty quiet, but sustaining natural aesthetic experiences for most of it. Ideal for a japa walk. So I want to film it with a japa soundtrack.  For the pleasure of those who are cr...

I am in the hospital waiting for Prema Madhuri's operation to be finished. One week ago, she fell and fractured her hip. She tried to wait it out but the pain was too great and finally we went for the X-ray. We were told almost immediately to get to an emergency room and get it fixed. So finally on Friday we took a taxi to Sacre Coeur hospital in Montreal and after a rather long and uncomfortable wait on an emergency room stretcher, the orthopedic surgeon was able to get to her and operate. I have been with her the whole time, and indeed for the whole week I have been acting as her nurse to the best of my ability. I know that I have said a lot of pious words about love -- many of them are quoted here and over the past few weeks. At some point I came to the conclusion that prema prayojana meant a certain human culture that requires sacrifice that goes beyond the academic. But looking at them all I have to admit that they are theory and not so much practice.  The Hindu scriptures gen...