Facebook Memories from April 28

I seem to reflect quite frequently on the difficulties I have in getting my primary task done. Five years ago I was struggling with Bhakti Sandarbha and now I am struggling with Prīti Sandarbha. It seems like a dreadful bore to inflict these kinds of reflections on my readers but at least once in a while something else comes out of it -- a verse translation or something else, a realization of some kind.

I really want to get Prīti Sandarbha finished this summer, but my in depth reading of the Bhāgavatam and editing the commentaries takes up a lot of my time. For the last couple of days I have been working on a small portion of the prakaraṇa that deals with rasābhāsa. I have already written one article (two actually) on the subject and there will hopefully be more. 

Rasābhāsa arises when the perfect ideal conditions for rasa are not met. For Jiva Goswami this is a problem, since in the Bhāgavatam we cannot have any imperfection. I have being using the word "occlusion" to translate the concept -- the rasa is occluded by some inappropriate or incompatible elements. Anyway I will have to explain this later...



5 years ago (2017)

Being forced to work on one task to the exclusion of allowing my brain to free range is the kind of painful discipline that has been absent from my life. It is in all likelihood the reason for my relative lack of accomplishments. My entire being seems to fight the thing that must be done with more energy than could possibly make any sense at all.
 
My work should be the grace of angels. Indeed, in the proper setting, without distractions, I can surround myself with books -- different editions of the books, a Krama Sandarbha here, Babaji's Sandarbha translations, a Gaudiya Vaishnava Abhidhana. I look at each verse, at the commentaries, read ten times before examining Babaji's translation. Then chip and chop away.

But I still allow something else to come into my mind other than this!! The nectar that is promised still eludes me, except in moments of exceptional grace.

śṛṇvanti gāyanti gṛṇanty abhīkṣṇaśaḥ
smaranti nandanti tavehitaṁ janāḥ
ta eva paśyanty acireṇa tāvakaṁ
bhava-pravāhoparamaṁ padāmbujam

Those who continuously hear Your pastimes, sing about them, describe them to others, remember them, or who delight in the recitation of those pastimes by others, soon behold Your lotus feet, which put an end to the flow of material existence. (SB 1.8.36) 
 

6 years ago (2016 Vrindavan)

Sampradayas in Vrindavan

Three sadhus and Radha Vallabh darshan.
This is at the Radha Vallabha temple in Vrindavan.
One of my favorite photos that I have taken.

My bhajan these days is quite different from other times. I get up and start right away on the computer until around 6.30 in the evening. Then I go to Banke Bihari, Radha Vallabh and Radha Damodar for darshan and I also read a chapter of Chaitanya Charitamrita in front of Kaviraj Goswami's samadhi. I hope to follow this regime until the CC is finished. [Of course it didn't happen, but it was great while it lasted.]

I have been quite enjoying my daily tour of these three temples, each belonging to a different Vrindavan sampradaya, each with its own mood and culture, and of course history, which includes interactions with other sampradayas, not always pleasant but often quite fruitful in terms of inspiration and exchange. So that you can say that there is such a thing as "Vrindavan culture", which is composed of communities, or sampradayas, each with its own traditions or parampara, but sharing a broader heritage of common interests and interactions.

As a rule, a particular denomination has to define itself and does so by its doctrines and its rituals. The former can be quite subtle or strident, and the latter are largely a matter of taste and other factors. Communities are about spiritually like-minded people who assemble together in places like temples.

Banke Bihari is the first stop on my tour. I go in through Dussayat and turn left at the Sineha Bihari temple. Here we enter the narrow laneways of Bihari Para. Though there is mostly room for two people to pass, and thankfully not enough for a motorcycle, there is a constant flow of people who are going to or returning from Bihari darshan. This path leads to a side entrance of the temple where there is a Hanuman shrine, but you come in behind the main quadrangle across from the main entrance on the other side.

There is always a crowd of people. The atmosphere really is magic and joyful. People really do stand immobile and just stare at Bihariji for long moments. When my own samadhi broke I found myself weaving through a maze of tightly bound statues of people, looking unblinkingly at Bihariji, who today is not being hidden from sight every few moments. One can drink in his form to one's heart's content, and it seems that hundreds of devotees have gotten a taste for this ambrosia and are here, lapping it up with their eyes.

This is phool bungalow season. The sweet smelling tuberose and jasmine garlands hang from the ceiling like chandeliers. Lights changing colors beam on the white flowers.

The brahmins are dressed in their finest. They are on stage. Performers. Serving like sakhis. Taking gifts from the devotees, returning the prasad, and generally looking Goswami-ish, proud in their privileged closeness to Bihariji. One Gosai comes out with a pitcher of water and splashes the crowd, who raise their hands to the sky and joyfully cry "Banke Bihari Lal ki jay!!"

And here is a new mother dressed in her finest sari carrying her child to be blessed. Here are fathers carrying their children. And sadhus, so many, of so many flavors, of such colorful painted tilaks, and beads and other defining marks. All soaking in the spiritual electricity of Bihariji! Brajwasi, Goswamis, city folk, village folk...

From there I duck through more narrow lanes until I get to Radha Vallabha. Radha Vallabha has a nondescript entrance that rather looks like it was designed to keep people out, with at least three rather nondescript gates before one gets to the inner temple.

Here the crowds are not as great, the atmosphere much different. More familial, more serence. But the act of darshan, drinking in the beauty of the Lord’s form, is the principal act of worship in the prema dharma of Brij deity worship.

At present there is a daily samaj gayan of Hita Chaurasi with the chief Goswami bhajaniya, whose name I do not know. He sings in the old traditional style with subdued manjir and pakhawaj drum, but with harmonium. No mike, so the fans make it difficult to here. Still, there are twenty or thirty people sitting seriously and knowingly responding to the fairly complex tunes.

I sit for fifteen twenty minutes. I am fascinated by the Radha Vallabhis and that is part of why I am writing this essay.

From there I go out through Radha Vallabh ghera and out to Sewa Kunj and Radha Damodar, which is MY sampradaya. Here I sit and read Chaitanya Charitamrita, which is a defining text of my sampradaya.

Then I walk back. The whole thing is about two and a half-hours. I will post some pictures. And over the next couple of days I want to reflect on sampradayas and their different gradations, authenticity and innovation, causes of separation and union, and so on.

Jai Radhe.


7 years ago (2015)

If the conversation has extended to saying things like, "I am way ahead of you, you have a lot of catching up to do," it is quite likely that you are already a good many goose steps into useless jabberwocky.


8 years ago (2014)
deva-rṣi-bhūtāpta-nṛṇāṁ pitṝṇāṁ
na kiṅkaro nāyam ṛṇī ca rājan
sarvātmanā yaḥ śaraṇaṁ śaraṇyaṁ
gato mukundaṁ parihṛtya kartam

Not to gods, not to the Seers,
not to creatures, nor to kin,
no, not to the entire human race,
what to speak of ancestors --
no longer servant or debtor am I!

For with all my being
giving up all other tasks and duties,
I have thrown myself on the shelter
of the One who is the only true shelter,
the Giver of Liberation, Mukunda.



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