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In Christianity, one cultivates the sense of being a sinner through constant, ever more subtle self-examination. The purpose of this is to see one's own utter incapacity of attaining salvation from the material conditioning and to thus take complete shelter of the Lord.

Ammachi's bhaktas say she became blue like Krishna in Vrindavan. She came to Vineet Narain's place right next door to Jiva on this date 2016. Big event. Big crowd. She did not come alone. My crappy picture.

[This memory seems appropriate in relation to my current ruminations on Paramadwaiti Swami. I recently read through Thomas a Kempis' Imitatio Christi and frankly grew tired of it very quickly. It is very much in the spirit of Catholic Christianity as described below. But the Protestantism of today, especially the prosperity gospel variety and the morbid yet triumphalist Dominion strains are way too far off in the opposite direction.]

April 14, 2017

In Christianity, one cultivates the sense of being a sinner through constant, ever more subtle self-examination. The purpose of this is to see one's own utter incapacity of attaining salvation from the material conditioning and to thus take complete shelter of the Lord.

Humility is this awareness.

If we encourage the person who attempts to express humility by telling him, "you are not a sinner", we are actually not doing him a favor. Because as soon as his ego is flattered, he ceases to take shelter in submission to the Lord. So....

The correct thing to do is say, "Take shelter. You are on the right road. Look at yourself and see how, as a conditioned soul, you have no other recourse than to give yourself up utterly to your ishta devata."

To the path of grace.

The existential problem is that there is no escape from sin. The Jains understood this: To eat you must kill. For you to live, many others must die. How can you escape sin? It is the precondition for life.

So you try to minimize hiṁsā. But for the Jains there is really no solution other than to starve yourself to death. Breathing itself is a problem. Self-annihilation is the only solution.

Sin is the condition of life itself. You cannot put a foot forward without stepping on some entity, without killing some living being. Still we have to step forward. This carries on into subtler and subtler realms.

Don't be afraid of sin. But be humble. Recognize that the only reason you can survive sin is the grace of God. Don't be burdened by guilt. Do the will of God and leave the rest to God.

Love is the will of God. It is God's will that you follow Love. God IS Love. Don't be afraid.

Humility means to do the will of God.


April 14 2016

The other day I visited the Radha Damodar temple and sitting in front of Rupa Goswami's samadhi was a group of Russian devotees doing kirtan. The group was obviously together and very good musically, with a lot of unique sounds on kartals and mridanga, as well as in their crescendos and so on. I could hear the residues of ISKCON kirtans as I remember them from the distant past, but very much refined. The Harinam as it circles the globe taking on the reflections of different musical cultures. Some of the results are better than others.


April 14, 2015

The thousand petalled lotus contains what you want it to. If you want śūnya, go for it. Shiva-Shakti, Radha-Krishna, it is all there, go for it. You negate the negative and you find the positive treasure in the sahasrāra. But what you have there will organize the way you see the universe, even after siddhi, because that version of the absolute will be seen everywhere. And the more effectively your vision of the Absolute Truth is

A. aesthetically pleasing, and

B. orders a meaningful vision of the world,

the more effective it will be in guiding your sādhana.

Both A and B are dependent on symbolic representations. And, whatever is contained in the sahasrāra is really nothing more than symbolic representation, because how else can God fit into your tiny head?

The fundamental sac-cit-ānanda reality of It remains the same; the difference in density (sac-cid-ānanda-ghana) depends on the respective powers of A and B, and that more the former than the latter.

But those following the bhakti school always say that, don't they? If you are a jnani type, B will be more important.

But that just means you try to fill your sahasrāra with nothingness. Or you try to. Which cannot really be done, says Krishna in the Gita. kleśo'dhikataras teṣām avyaktāsakta-cetasāṁ. Krishna says you will get there eventually: same Brahman, different density.

By versions of the Absolute, I mean different ways of conceiving of the Absolute. Whether thought of as symbolic or otherwise.

You can think of it as an absolute reality or as a chosen conception. For others it will remain a chosen conception, though for yourself it will be the highest reality. The hierarchy of conceptions in Rupa Goswami, etc., will help to solidify that understanding in your sadhana, but his arguments might not appeal to someone else. So in that case, you say, "to each his own."

God manifests to each according to their state of knowledge.


April 14, 2011

Since God, unlike the colour blue, is not tangible to the senses, He cannot be experienced by the unrealised. He can only be signified by His name, OM. Only thus can praṇidhāna, His presence, be practised. (Swami Veda on YS I.27)


vraje vane nikuñje ca śraiṣṭhyam atrottarottaram

Krishna is progressively superior in Vraja, Vrindavan and the Nikuñja.


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||81||

Let the expert ethicist call me a fool I do not mind.
The Vedic ritualist may say I am in error,
all my friends and relatives may consider me a black sheep,
while my brothers who love liberation call me stupid,
the pursuers of wealth may point me out as mad,
while 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. (Padyāvalī 81)

This one has come up before: 





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