tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31351038.post116907229115520329..comments2024-03-26T13:06:41.178-04:00Comments on Jagat: Ecstasy, Madness, and Chaitanya MahaprabhuJagadananda Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05887720845815026518noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31351038.post-1169763591208670792007-01-25T17:19:00.000-05:002007-01-25T17:19:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Vrajahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06535159097241083544noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31351038.post-1169737181678775932007-01-25T09:59:00.000-05:002007-01-25T09:59:00.000-05:00Dear Shivaji,I pretty much agree with your analysi...Dear Shivaji,<BR/><BR/>I pretty much agree with your analysis of esoteric and exoteric approaches.<BR/><BR/>As to your persistent critique of the cherished goal of Rupa and Raghunath Goswamis--well, first of all, I agree that work is needed in understanding what is going on here. Some kind of rationale has to be found to plum the depths of meaning in their religious experience. After all, Rupa and Raghunath are the principal acharyas of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, so we have to respect their vision. <BR/><BR/>There is no reason to think that what Rupa and Raghunath are talking about (tad-bhaveccha-mayi) is in any way less than the sambhogeccha-mayi mood. If they argue it is superior, we should, I feel, as recipients of their mercy, grant them the benefit of the doubt and try to find out not only the "what" and "how" of manjari bhava, but the "why" and "wherefrom". Perhaps you have an esoteric interpretation of manjari bhava that turns it into "not-manjari-bhava", but that is not truly anything but a rejection of it.Jagadananda Dashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05887720845815026518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31351038.post-1169683021869759572007-01-24T18:57:00.000-05:002007-01-24T18:57:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Vrajahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06535159097241083544noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31351038.post-1169676057456164232007-01-24T17:00:00.000-05:002007-01-24T17:00:00.000-05:00Interesting post, Shiva, and interesting responses...Interesting post, Shiva, and interesting responses. One of the purposes of the article itself was to show that mystic experiences tend to be (1) unique and (2) unsettling. I think that your letter and the two responses to it show a little how that works.<BR/><BR/>What I mean “unsettling” is that since religious experiences do not always conform to prearranged patterns, they tend to create controversy. On the one hand, their usefulness for the "real" world is challenged--which is the popular Western bias. On the other hand, their authenticity is questioned due to non-conformity to established dogmas. One of the interesting (and perhaps debatable) statements in McDaniel’s article was that mystics of different traditions tend to resemble each other more than they resemble the orthodox of their own tradition.<BR/><BR/>In our individualized age, there tends to be a bias towards idiosyncratic experience, one that is uniquely one's own--more or less as Carl Jung proposed (I think this was spoken of in the article as well: Carl Jung felt we should seek out our own "versions" of the archetypes rather than accepting culturally mediated symbols, as being more direct and genuine and therefore more true, and leading to genuine individuation.)<BR/><BR/>So anyone who like you differs in fundamental respects from a tradition as a result of your own powerful experiences, risks alienation from the community you once belonged to. This is fine, you could say, as after all the liberated soul in the Upanishads is sometimes described as a bull walking through a village--without a care for what anyone thinks, in a word. <BR/><BR/>I will not dismiss your experiences because they have been drug-induced. It is not the way you get somewhere so much as the place you end up; drugs may not be the most reliable way of making the journey. For someone with a lot of accumulated vestiges, the hallucinogenic experience can indeed be frightening. But that is in part what we have been saying mystic experience can be, such as in Arjuna's case. The problem really arises when the imperatives (vocation, calling) that is normally associated with such an experience are unheeded and one turns to a dependence on psychedelics as a substitute for genuine evolution. <BR/><BR/>My point here, as I have been saying in this blog, there is something inadequate about a totally idiosyncratic doctrine, as the social dimension of spirituality depends on shared experience. Shared religious experience cannot be purely physical or intellectual complicity, but goes beyond that to a deep level of communication based on common meanings and ultimate concerns. <BR/><BR/>Of course, it is not beyond the individual mystic to create a community around himself, based on his own ability to share the meaningfulness of his experiences, especially through ritual activities of one kind or another. You are very eloquent and intelligent, and I don't put it past you to achieve some success in this direction. After all, there are countless individuals out there, "selling" their wares in the marketplace of religious experience, and they can exist because there are buyers. [I use the terms buyer and seller without any negative connotation.]<BR/><BR/>One Jungian Wiccan named Naomi Goldenberg wrote a book called "The Changing of the Gods" that I found particularly interesting many years ago when I first read it. Hindus, like her, like the idea of multiple, even totally individualized or subjectively realized, forms or concepts of God. Total dogmatic decentralization. She adopts the idea that Wicca is about "facilitation" of individual realization or individuation in the Jungian mode. Facilitation means that it is more about means than the end. So her idea is that Wiccan ritual is really about awakening awareness of the operative archetypes in one's own psyche rather than trying to adjust one's own consciousness to fit a form that is mediated through a particular tradition. Thus, for her, community is based on rituals of this sort, which are nevertheless, I suppose, held together by a kind of theology based on paganism and Jungian neo-Platonism. <BR/><BR/>Though I think Jung's ideas are very useful, on the whole (and I have said this before), I tend to be more of a Gaudiya Vaishnava traditionalist, even as I recognize that no two people could ever have the same God, even if they are both in the same disciplic succession. Of course, Krishna may impose himself on me in the way you say he has imposed himself on you, and lead me into directions that are totally alien to my tradition. Some people will say this has already happened, and that it wasn't Krishna that did it!<BR/><BR/>Anyway, thanks for sharing your story. I wanted to say that I am not sure that your analysis of gradual and sudden conversion is exactly what the various scholars were talking about, but it is certainly valid and kind of fits into what I have been saying about spiritual life being a never-ending dialectic, that does not really have this sudden "enlightenment" moment that lasts forever. Enlightenment moments certainly last as deep samskaras, but they do not mean that the cycle of separation and union does not resume again. At least, not in the Vaishnava conception of things.Jagadananda Dashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05887720845815026518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31351038.post-1169662460363434032007-01-24T13:14:00.000-05:002007-01-24T13:14:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Vrajahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06535159097241083544noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31351038.post-1169632472346810112007-01-24T04:54:00.000-05:002007-01-24T04:54:00.000-05:00With due respect, Shiva dasjiThe length of your ex...With due respect, Shiva dasji<BR/><BR/>The length of your experience and your very graphic descriptions made me conclude that: either you were more elevated than Arjuna or you (as a “peyote user”) had dumped a huge quantity of dopamine into your brain <BR/><BR/>Maybe if we use Meth, also known as ice, P, crystal , which is considered the most destructive drug to hit modern society then maybe we can overshadow your feat by being Krishna Himself, walking along the beach of Waikiki. <BR/><BR/>My problem with some devotees, is that, they are hoping for an experience, any experience to validate the reality of God.<BR/><BR/>The acharyas of GV have laid down the path to Krshna, why don’t we just try to follow their “proposal”?<BR/><BR/>Maybe the reality of God can be found by having a job, cleaning the toilet, paying our taxes, chanting on our japa, eating prasadam, reading His nitya lila and going to bed.<BR/><BR/>Maybe you have opened your third eye to reality, I don’t know, but you did not mention if you ever took initiation.<BR/><BR/>Jaya Sri RadheAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31351038.post-1169613518909744712007-01-23T23:38:00.000-05:002007-01-23T23:38:00.000-05:00Ecstasy may take people away from realities, a la ...Ecstasy may take people away from realities, a la drugs. <BR/><A HREF="http://www.mahabhagavatayb.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow">www.mahabhagavatayb.blogspotcom</A>ybr (alias ybrao a donkey)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13635995478285822763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31351038.post-1169599084649073522007-01-23T19:38:00.000-05:002007-01-23T19:38:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Vrajahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06535159097241083544noreply@blogger.com