Jagat

I think that today's edition contains the last instalment of my reactions to the Paramadvaiti debacle (2021). This is a final reflection. Other than this there are several memories of Rishikesh, especially the walk through Rajaji Park, which I used to enjoy on a regular basis while there. (FB Memories: May 10)

 FB Jan 4, 2016: Seems somewhat applicable to my current situation. Only replace Yoga Sutra with Prīti Sandarbha.

Arrived in Vrindavan this morning after a grueling bus ride. Five hours waiting in a kind of Corner Gas , Indian style, with parking lot with bus stand, convenience store with tea shop, a venue for the local public to watch television -- American wrestling shows are apparently quite popular -- people walking in and out. Sharing a chillum. A young girl and her small brother in rags, laughing and running around amongs the adults. In short, the neighborhood. Only one or two modern Indian in jeans and teashirts with real luggage and not just clothes wrapped in an old sari or gamcha. Most of the waiting travelers are from some Rajasthani village patiently squatting and talking, like me. It may not be altogether wrong to think that this is the Indian way of life, just clear a space in the detritus, let it be, do the minimum, it is too hot for anything but to sit and contemplate. This 21st century Haridwar corner café has an interesting feature in that it is ...

Over the next two weeks, I will be giving my attention back to  Yoga-taraṅginī commentary to Gorakṣa-śataka  as this project needs to be completed, and all that is left to do is a final redaction of the text and translation, and writing an introduction. So I will try to communicate those portions that I think are important or which affected me as I was doing the work. I must confess that there has been a considerable change in lifestyles between the way I was living in Rishikesh at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama and the way I am right now in Vrindavan. The three months at SRSG were fairly intense. Most of that time I spent in at least verbal silence, although I still used the internet. But even in that I was far more disciplined than I am now, as I kept my personal computer internet free. Besides that, I regularly meditated three hours a day and did hatha-yoga on a regular basis, including many of the disciplines that are described in the book I was working on. Since coming bac...

There was a kirtan for Guru Purnima last night, but I went to my room and conked out early. Had good meditation this morning. Feel more normal after a disruptive few days. Hopefully it will mean improved work ethic. Silence is actually a good thing, but requires a bit of getting used to. One thing is that here in this ashram, people are used to other people doing a mauna-vrata, and they just ignore you. You become practically speaking invisible. Then, as I found out, when you finally do talk, they still ignore you! You realize that most of what you say is not really of any great significance -- to you or to others. Observing my own body is not something I have done very well in this lifetime. Even now, with the yoga, it feels like I haven't explored my own body very well. But with the Yoga Tarangini work, I have been zeroing in on at least the essential original hatha yoga practices, which require a lot of internalization focused on the body itself. That is really what hatha...

I am slowly coming out of silence. I don't really know if I still am or not. The actual vrata was to stay in silence until I finished a particular project, which is still not finished. So it feels a bit like an incomplete vrata and I will probably have to plunge again. It has been and is being a very interesting experience overall. I tried so many times to do a perfect vrata in my life, especially when I was younger. In ISKCON and as a babaji I started to do very strict Chaturmasyas on at least three occasions. Even eating plain kitcherie for weeks in yoga mudra and so on. But it never lasted to the fullest extent. Once, when I was a babaji in Nabadwip, I did a vrata in Agrahayan, the Katyayani vrata. This is in around 1984. I tried to keep it simple. I went at 2 a.m. every night to Porama Tala (Paurnamasi Tala) and meditated for two hours, chanting japa. It was only to be for a month. It was a very interesting experience, because Pora Ma is a very powerful Shakta and Tantric...

Renowned kirtaniya Vaiyasaki Das came to Rishikesh for a few days in November. We hadn't seen each other for many years and he actually did not know me as Jagadananda, but in my former incarnation as Hiranyagarbha. Vaiyasaki had been in Toronto in the early 70's, where he joined a little after me. We later knew each other in Mayapur as he was part of the India BBT party, which he left to spend three years in Bangladesh. I had been writing to him in somewhat excited anticipation of his arrival here, but he did not really know who I was. As he is a world-wide figure, chanting and doing kirtan in every corner of the globe, he is probably used to that kind of thing. If you look at the Facebook pages of him and his wife Kaisori , you will get an idea of their jet-setting ways. He has been invited to Rishikesh several times by the disciples of Swami Rama, since, as the story goes, when Swami Rama heard Vaiyasaki's 1983 recording, "Transcendence," he was quite impressed....

The last couple of weeks I have been plugging away at the Bhagavat-sandarbha and as a result I have been cutting back on almost everything else. I would really like to get it finished before going back to Canada, but the way I usually work, it does not look hopeful. It has taken this long to get 472 pages done and there are still approximately 180 to go. Can I do it in a month? The last 85 pages took about a month. The last few days have been difficult as I have been a bit sick--for the first time, I may mention, since coming here, if you don't count one or two brief encounters with the runs. I even missed my Sanskrit class on Saturday, as well as RRSN and Gita on Sunday at Madhuban. The last two days I have been working in my room rather than the office, basically just doing reformatting, spell-checking, etc., before getting down to the real work. It is starting to heat up pretty good here. It must be getting close to 40 degrees at noon nowadays. Yup, hot season definitely h...

There are actually a lot of positive things to say about this place and my experience here. First of all, from the point of view of material comfort and facility, I am very well served. The surroundings are frankly more pleasing than nearly anything in Vrindavan. The ashram itself is beautiful in terms of architecture and gardening. The Ganges in its clearest and purest state is nearby. The Rajaji Park is nearby and the view of the green hills across the Ganga is something that cannot be found in the plains. The weather has been pretty ideal--neither as hot nor dry as Vrindavan, nor quite as humid as Bengal. My workload is not great. I have two small classes of students and the weekly Gita class. My students like and respect me, and I actually enjoy teaching, for what it is worth. I get a stipend which is generous for what is really a voluntary position, considering that food, board and facilities are provided. My rooms are clean, with a kitchenette and modern bathroom facilities. In t...

I mentioned Ma Seva Bharati the other day. After my RRSN reading yesterday, I ran into her on the promenade by the Ganga. We stopped to talk. She is still ruminating over her month-long bhakti experience with Dhanurdhara Swami and other senior Iskcon old timers. Ma Seva was full of questions about me. "I was amazed," she said, "to learn that the devotees think that Radha and Krishna's love affairs are the highest truth, beyond even Brahman. Do you also believe that?" That is a big question to take in one swallow. I said, "Yes. But you have to start from the point of understanding that the Supreme Truth is personal. You are a person, so why do you think that in the state of perfection you will be less than what you are now? And why would the Supreme Truth be something less than what you are now, in the state of bondage?" "They are so strict," she said. "I think bhakti is only for the healthy. They told me that you have to take a com...

Did my usual Ganga walk on Sunday. Had a bit of a treat. Swami Ramabhadracharya was giving a Bhāgavata-saptāha at Paramarth Niketan. I just found out now by looking at the linked page above that he is blind. Anyway, there is no doubt that he is one of the top draws in the Bhāgavata-saptāha field, and there was a pretty big crowd, including quite a number of sadhus. He is, I think, a Ramanandi, even though his tilak suggests Ramanuja. Thinking about it, his being blind might explain why his movements were a little strange, like a bhāvuka , but somewhat awkward. Also, his tilak also looked a little weird, like when you don't use a mirror... not in this picture, though. Have to be impressed by anyone who gets a PhD when blind. I split my participation in two, first going before bathing, and returning afterward. You have to be impressed by the fact that these Bhāgavata speakers manage to keep an audience's attention for 4-5 hours at a time. The crowd had not diminished in th...

The sky is cloudy today and there is quite a breeze, almost automnal. My most enthusiastic listener was there today with his wife and two small boys. Turns out he has only been in Rishikesh for a couple of months. He is the pujari at an ashram near the river. A couple of other people also joined us today, but his enthusiasm for Hari-katha definitely makes it a little more festive than on other days. I was feeling a little low before I came, and left in much better spirits., Today's verse-- vṛndāvaneśvari tavaiva padāravindaṁ premāmṛtaika-makaranda-rasaugha-pūrṇam | hṛdy arpitaṁ madhupateḥ smara-tāpam ugraṁ nirvāpayat parama-śītalam āśrayāmi ||13|| O Vrindavaneshwari ! I take shelter of your supremely cooling lotus feet, so full of the unlimited essence of the ambrosia of pure love, which when placed on Krishna's chest, extinguish the violent blaze of his desire. Ananta Das talks about separation in the commentary. He makes the point that separation is not just considere...

Picking up a bit of rhythm with the Bhagavat-sandarbha , but I think I will kick off early tonight. I am pretty wiped out after going into town on some errands. I picked up a copy of Gita Rahasya in Hindi, probably not the original translation [*turns out it is, I thought the 1973 was A.D., but it was Samvat, so = 1917], but it looks like a good edition. I ordered a copy of the English version, which I know Munshiram Manoharlal has reprinted recently. Walking through the Main Bazaar after dusk was nice. It reminded me of Nabadwip in the old days. I bought some muri. It made me think of Madhusudan and how we would have muri with milk every night before going to bed. Good old days... My main shrota for RRSN class is really quite enthusiastic. He is regular and comments enthusiastically. Unpretentious. He wears Ramanuja tilak, so he is a Vaishnava in this Mayavada desert. Today we did only verse 8, the one where Prabodhananda prays to become Radha’s broom. Harilal Vyasa gives the al...

Sorry about the lack of content here over the past little while. I have a half-dozen posts in the works, but haven't been able to bring them to the publishable stage. For whatever standard this blog aspires to. Currently I have taken on a further task which may be the proverbial drop that makes the vase overflow. That is a Rādhā-rasa-sudhā-nidhi class at the local Radha-vallabhi temple, which is within cycling distance on the road to Rishikesh. The idea to do this came to me when I first came to Rishikesh and discovered that this ashram was started by the same sadhu who published the edition of RRSN I had just purchased, and who coincidentally also comes from Satya Narayan's home village. Too many coincidences. But recently I decided I had to do this, or I would be forever mired in Yoga-sūtra and Bhagavad-Gītā . Even now, my Saturday and Sunday classes at Madhuban are pretty loosely connected to the Gita--since the words kṛṣṇa-bhāvanāmṛta appear so often in Prabhupada...

Kanwaris on road from Haridwar Yesterday, there was a tempo rikshaw strike in Rishikesh. The month of Shravan is a big month here, as there are literally thousands of pilgrims or Kanwarias, mostly young men dressed in bright orange shorts and t-shirts stamped with OM or a picture of Shiva and om namah shivaya . They are going to do the walk to Neelkanth, 25 kilometers away. It is a different kind of group from the one I described doing the same thing around Shiva-ratri time. They are mostly from the cities, Delhi, Chandigarh, etc. (See Kanwarias flock highways to get an idea of the madness.) Anyway, something happened, I never really figured it out or cared much, but it did stop me from going to Madhuban for my Sunday class. It was a little too bad, really, because the subject was the yā niśā verse from Gita (2.69) and I was a little inspired to talk on Hari-kathā itself. I have been appreciating the words kṛṣṇa-bhāvanāmṛta , which are used to translate "Krishna conscious...