Jagat

Some days definitely have more substance than others. Several unpublished and published stuff today. One on Corona from last year, where I more or less cemented my position on the great pandemic panic. Then there is a nice excerpt from  Prīti Sandarbha on sthāyi-bhāvas , a subject that has many posts on this blog. Then there is another reflection on karma, again based on the Gurukula abuses. And finally a short reflection on love. I could have split this up, but I just threw it all into one post. Memories from May 23

We shall see what comes of this rather shocking election result in the USA. Some of my friends are very positive about it. They think that Trump knows the true hideous form of militant and imperialistic Islam and will rally the civilized world against it. The war of "civilizations" is finally being embraced wholeheartedly. The Wahhabis and their fellow travelers are out to convert India to Islam, to bring it back under their thrall as their quest for word domination continues and Trump is thus an ally in protecting Hindu India from them. We are devotees. We are indifferent to the worldly powers. We know that God works his ways mysteriously. Who is to deny that evil is everywhere in the world? We believe that God ultimately favors his true devotees, even in the blackest of times. The other day I was giving class on Gopala Champu on the second meaning of the introductory verse and the following expression came up: नराकृति परं ब्रह्म narākṛti paraṁ brahma Rupa and Sa...

The other day in my Gopala Champu class, I said the following: "We can't understand the love of God without knowing love in this world. It has to reflect reality. You won't find love of God through failure of love in this world." This comment did not pass unnoticed and one of the students asked Babaji for clarification. He said he disagreed and the student asked us if we were willing to debate the issue. Since we have been doing Nyāya and Babaji is something of an aficionado, he presented his point of view as a logical syllogism, making that the center of debate rather than my original statement, which made the discussion a little untidy. I was not prepared to answer his argument directly, but many in the audience were disappointed by the radical bifurcation of kāma and prema . At one point Babaji says that desire is not in the soul. Frankly, I think that there is a bit of confusion in the sampradāya due to the Hindu world-view arising from Mayavada and Y...

Whenever we say something like, “Krishna is rasarāja ; Radha is mahābhāva .” We are speaking symbolically. The word pratīka , usually translated as symbol, sign or representation, is discussed in VS 4.1.4. Baladeva Vidyabhushan says in his Govinda-bhāṣya that this is a reference to Vedānta statements that speak of the mind, etc. ( mana-ādi ) as symbols of God. Baladeva says pratīke īśvaro na bhavati . "God is not in the symbol," i.e., he is not limited by it. The sentence goes on, kintu tasyādhiṣṭhānam eveti "but is its ground or basis". He then quotes BhP 11.2.41: khaṁ vāyum agniṁ salilaṁ mahīṁ ca jyotīṁṣi sattvāni diśo drumādīn | sarit-samudrāṁś ca hareḥ śarīraṁ yat kiṁ ca bhūtaṁ praṇamed ananyaḥ || The unalloyed devotee bows down to all existent things – the ether, air, fire, water and earth, the heavenly bodies, living creatures, the directions, the trees, the rivers and oceans, seeing them all as the body of the Lord. (11.2.41) It seems to me t...

I had the opportunity to meet Bhaktivedanta Srauti Maharaja, a French disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami who subsequently took sannyasa from Narayan Maharaj and currently lives in Toulouse. He was recently told by Narayan Maharaj to expand his preaching in the French-speaking world and heard of opportunities in Quebec and so decided to come and have a look. We spent a couple of hours together talking Hari Katha, mostly at the Val-Morin yoga ashram in the Krishna temple. (Where Krishna still forlornly hangs on to his drooping flute in endless separation from Radha. Radha-virahita Krishna nahi mani ...) We shared Sanskrit verses, with him reciting the introduction to the Venu-gita... बर्हापीडं नटवरवपुः कर्णयोः कर्णिकारं विभ्रद्वासः कनककपिशं वैजयन्तीं च मालाम्। रन्ध्रान् वेणोर् अधरसुधया पूरयन् गोपवृन्दै- र्वृन्दारण्यं स्वपदरमणं प्राविशद् गीत-कीर्तिः॥ ...to which he gave a very sweet French translation. So in general we had a very nice, non-political sharing of Hari-katha. As is often the cas...