Jagat

In the previous post, Vishwanath Chakravarti stated that the word yoga in Gītā 2.40 refers to svarūpa-siddhā bhakti because only such devotion is transcendental to the guṇas . Jñāna and karma are within the guṇas and therefore do not fulfill the conditions of yoga that the verse itself promises: through yoga one will transcend the guṇas . He looks at the totality of yoga with bhakti as its culmination. Thus there is a sequence or progression in the process leading to that bhakti. Śrīdhara and other commentaries have defined yoga here as bhagavad-arpita-karma , and it is precisely this that Vishwanath finds to be inadequate. This is also the definition given by commentaries on the īśvara-praṇidhāna of the Yoga-sūtras . But bhakti is not subordinate to yoga, it is the fruition of yoga; it is the complete manifestation of yoga. Now we look at Vishwanath's commentary to 2.41 where he continues his argument:

So I was thinking about Vishwanath Chakravarti's commentary to 2.40-41. He makes a bold statement that the word yoga (in buddhir yoge tv imāṁ śr̥ṇu ) means bhakti-yoga , and he continues this argument in the following verse when explaining vyavasāyātmikā buddhi . Now everybody else takes yoga to mean karma-yoga , so is Vishwanath's interpretation strained ( kaṣṭa-kalpanā )? Let's look at it...

On January 25, 2017 I visited Hit Kinkar Sewak Sharanji at his ashram. Unfortunately the accounts of my many visits to Sewak Sharan have been pretty much lost since the Vrindavan Today archive was lost. Though I could probably find them on the wayback machine archive. Maybe later.

A couple of years ago, I started summarizing the three ratis from  Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi   I never completed the series, but the first two articles can still be found here: Samañjasā and Sādhāraṇī . I will now try to complete this project by working on  samarthā rati . This may require more than one article, and I intend to tie it in with some other ideas. I will start off this discussion by simply quoting verbatim my translation of  Mañjarī-svarūpa-nirūpaṇa , completed in 1983. ======== The dominant mood of erotic sacred rapture is also given the name of samarthā rati (“competent affection”). Kṛṣṇa is the greatest lover in the supernatural affaires-de-coeur of the sacred land of Vrindavan and there, the supreme among his lady-loves are the cowherd girls. Here Viśvanātha Cakravartin makes some relevant comments about samarthā rati in his commentary on Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi : This samarthā rati is extremely potent and exists eternally in the gopīs; it does not dep...

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...

From the point of view of the Indian jnani tradition, Madhusudana Saraswati has some interesting things to say on the complementarity of the different spiritual paths in his introduction to Gūḍhārtha-dīpikā , a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita. Madhusudana is an interesting figure. The story goes that he was born in Bengal in 1490 AD (I suspect a bit later) in Faridpur, now in Bangla Desh. He went to meet Chaitanya in Nabadwip, but Mahaprabhu had already left Nabadwip by the time he got there. Madhusudana stayed in Nabadwip for a while, studying Nyāya, the speciality of the place, but remaining deeply devoted to Krishna. From there he went to Benares to further his studies. He became convinced of the Advaita philosophy, but remained a devotee at the same time. This devotional strand shows in his interpretations of the Gita, his commentary on the Bhagavatam, and other works like Bhakti-rasāyana . As Atmaramananda Swami says in his introduction to the Adwaita Ashram edition of Gūḍhār...