Jagat

On Saturday there was a tremendous amount of rain, but on Sunday afternoon I managed to get down to Jeanne Mance Park and join the devotees in their annual Festival of India. This year, I had the specific intention of distributing some of those Madhurya Kadambinis that I worked on a couple of years ago. The first thing I did was go to Bhakti Marg Swami and give him a copy. He is always nice to me, always recalling our sankirtan days in Toronto. I asked him if he minded me distributing Madhurya Kadambinis on the Rathayatra grounds and he graciously agreed. He was also very grateful for the gift. What I really enjoyed about the book distribution was talking to devotees about the book--about Vishwanath Chakravarti, his writings, Rupa Goswami and the Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu, etc. About the different stages of devotion. It was a great chance to meet with old devotees and make new friends also. Debnath Bhoumick said that he would like to get books in Bengali, so I think I will see about orde...

Rasaraj Dasji has just reminded us all that hundreds of copies of the Mādhurya-kādambinī we all worked so hard on several years ago are just gathering dust in various people's basements. It is really wonderful, when you think of it. In the Gaudiya Discussions days, an almost magical kind of synergy developed, and this publication was probably its most concrete and permanent fruit. Advaita Dasji did the original translation, and that was then gone over with a fine tooth comb by yours truly. Many wonderful posts and discussions on the Gaudiya Discussions resulted from that work and my reflections on it. Advaita Dasji later renounced all credit for any work that he had done because he did not wish to be associated with anything that had my name on it (sigh!) but later he generously admitted that I had done a good job. Anandaji did a great job on the layout, Rasaraj and Braja provided funds... I think that everyone who participated in this work could and should feel proud of wha...