Dear Diary

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 trying hard to spend as much time in standing position as she can, walking about on crutches and so on, but yesterday's efforts resulted in some fatigue today (Sunday). Saturday a couple of friends we made in Winnipeg came by, and today Madhuri's niece Maude was here with her family, so there was a lot of social interaction over the weekend. Maude had driven down from Quebec City to spend Saturday with her grandmother. It is normally part of Madhuri's regular weekend tasks to drive to Ste-Agathe (100 km) to see her 97-year-old mother and help her with a few practical matters. Now that she is incapacitated, two of her nieces have volunteered to take her place until she is back on her feet. It is nice to see that her family and friends are also coming to see and encourage her. The last year has been very difficult for Madhuri. For both of us. And that means that there are big transformations on the horizon.

And a big part of that is that Destiny has decided that there should be an Act II to our little microcosmic drama. Or perhaps it is a final Act III. What do I know? In any case, we have read our Sartre in this home and we know that "l'enfer, c'est les autres." But hell, seen from the Advaita point of view, is just the road one passes through to get to heaven, and when seen like that, it is not-different from it. Then the actions one takes are also a part of the play, which is the journey itself. And then, you realize that the lila is even more enjoyable than the Undiscriminating Oneness. I liked Bishop Sheen's definition of love as an act of the will. That is what it means, vaidhi bhakti, you will your love in the lila that you are living, in the spirit of a Vrajavasi, whose every object of love is Krishna.

Life in the West is a big jump. I still don't really know what I am doing here in terms of extraneous purpose. There is, as Madhuri acknowledges, a possibility that I go back to India. I have denied that I would leave her again, but if I am honest, I will admit that taking Madhuri to India is the goal I think would be the best outcome of all this, but she is not ready yet. 

And I still have work that I am doing -- though it has again been interrupted by these events that make concentration on Jiva Goswami a little more challenging. I looked at Priti Sandarbha today and actually got a few sentences done when the winds of distraction brought me back here to finish this stream of consciousness hodge-podge.

Here in the West, things have changed in many ways from where it was 15 years ago. No doubt it was always like this, but the contrast feels more acute than ever. And of course, it is a world of difference from the Jiva Institute in Vrindavan in thousands of ways. Perhaps it is because of Madhuri, or perhaps it is on account of the crisscrossed spaghetti mix of highways and six-lane avenues carrying hundreds and thousands of cars in every direction, every person rushing to his select destination of work or pleasure while enveloped in a mask of armor. The speed dial has gone up on everything, efficiency reigns in a way that India, alas! also aspires to.

It is the China syndrome -- the "we can make mindless automatons of our people better than you can" competition. In Vrindavan there are so many people who genuinely have nothing to do. They are not required to produce. Their efficiency lies in how well they do nothing. Can they sit for long periods without having to get up and stretch? Or can they play with dolls all day? Or can they sing while shedding tears, exulting in their fanciful love for God? They are fed, sometimes sumptuously. They exult in their poverty. They compete in their poverty. But this vile Kaliyuga will do its best to make automatons of them too, if only they could figure out their purpose -- tourist attraction is what economic experts are putting their money on right now.  

Nevertheless, back here in Canada there is definitely a lot for me, especially in this sitcom type of situation that I find myself.  Husband comes back after 15 years in India. There is a continuum concentrated on the central problem of married life--the purpose of the union. External connections are more or less moot. Although retirement is going to mean a financial hit for Madhuri, money with regards to basic necessities is not going to be a problem. I am still producing nothing and actually for the present mostly just trying to be friendly and helpful as she goes through this difficult period of the early post-operation. That certainly does lend an effective intermediate purpose that will hopefully move us to new levels of sthāyi-bhāva. 

[What I mean here is that there are seven higher sthāyi-bhāvas which should be seen as developments in love. Certain relationships are only capable of reaching one or the other kinds of sthāyi-bhāva, but their number in the ujjvala-rasa is seven -- prema, sneha, māna, pra.naya, rāga, anurāga, and bhāva. All of these have subdivisions of various kinds. These are not to be confused with the sthāyi-bhāvas based on type of relation, these are the sthāyis of degrees of strength or intensity. The difference here is not that these are just something that will be understood later, after svarūpa siddhi, but that they are experienced here in loving relations in this world. In other words these are to be cultured and attained in the course of worldly relations, to some degree. Let me give an example: 

The definition of prema, as the sthāyi-bhāva on ground level of love is given as follows:

sarvathā dhvaṁsa-rahitaḥ saty api dhvaṁsa-kāraṇe |

yad bhāva-bandhanaṁ yūnoḥ sa premā parikīrtitaḥ ||

Even though there are many reasons for it to come to an end, when the relationship between lovers does not break, then that is called prema. (UN 14.57)

Now this is to be understood in the context of a loving relationship with another human being before one can think of or even have any possibility of conceiving of the loves of Krishna and the Brajavasis without the concrete experience of love. And for the sake of understanding both, Rupa Goswami has given his taxonomies of love. ] 

I have lived mostly in that realm of ideas, rather than that of practical application of the ancient art of love. The solution to the problem of having no affective connection to this world or anyone in it, is to recognize that Krishna is the object of all my loves. He is the attractive one, who is leading my attention and so I must recognize His presence there and forget the disguises and costumes he uses to extract our love. 

My long absorption in otherworldly pursuits, my basically reclusive habits, do not particularly suit me to the exigencies of worldly life. Except that the culture of mental equilibrium has at least reached a level where the stresses of this world are treated with greater indifference, and I can see the meanings of things like sthāyi-bhāvas in practical operation. The growth of love through the act of will.

So here I am in the middle of a new story. Each Act of which seems meaningless until viewed from the position of the subsequent Act or Acts. And slowly, the meaning of the play is revealed.