Jagat

One of my favorite pictures . Ramesh Baba at dawn with his dancing dervishes on 84-kos parikrama. ekaṁ sakhyāpi no lakṣitam urasi lasan-nitya-tādātmya-kāntaṁ tad dṛśyaṁ dūrato’nyad vratati-nava-gṛhe’nyat tu tan-narma-śarma | anyad vṛndāvanāntar-viharad atha paraṁ gokule prāpta-yogaṁ vicchedy anyat tad evaṁ lasati bahu-vidhaṁ rādhikā-kṛṣṇa-rūpam ||2.35|| In one form, unseen even by the sakhis, Radha and Krishna hold each other to their hearts, losing themselves in mutual oneness. In another, they may be seen from far away in a cottage of newly blossoming vines. In another, they enjoy playful joking words. In yet another, they wander the forest of Vrindavan, enjoying its beauty. In one form they meet in Gokula, and in another are separated again. In this way that Supreme Truth in the form of Sri Sri Radha and Krishna manifests itself in many different ways. In a section of the Bhāgavatam that is often cited by Jiva Goswami, Narada famously visited Dwarka and saw its...

With Friends of Vrindavan director Jagannath Poddar, planting a tree in Vrindavan town. Jagannath is a great servant of Vrindavan Dham. He both plants and inspires others to plant tree throughout Vrindavan. With their soft flower-petal hands Sri Radha-Krishna carefully watered the trees and vines from the time of their first sprouting. They nourished them and made them grow and, at the proper time, married each vine to an appropriate tree. When they saw new flowers beginning to blossom, they became delighted and spoke many playful joking words. Let us bow down and offer our respectful obeisances to these trees and vines of Vrindavan forest. ābālyaṁ jala-secanena varaṇenābāla-nirmāṇataḥ svena śrīkara-pallavena mṛduṇā śrī-rādhikā-mādhavau | yān saṁvardhya vihāya navya-kusumādy  ā lokya san-narmabhir modete sulatā-tarūn ahaha tān vṛndāvanīyān numaḥ ||2.11|| Comment Usually, when I sit down to write about the Vṛndāvana-mahimāmṛta , I rummage around in my brain for somethin...

Since I am currently working on Kṛṣṇa-sandarbha and have arrived at Anuccheda 174, which more or less summarizes the revised version of Krishna lila, which later becomes the basis for Jiva Goswami's magnum opus, Gopāla-campū . yan mayā kṛṣṇa-sandarbhe siddhāntāmṛtam ācitam| tad eva rasyate kāvya-kṛti-prajñā-rasajñayā|| so'haṁ kāvyasya lakṣyeṇa mano nirmāmi tādṛśam| tan mahānto yadīkṣeraṁs tadā hemni cito maṇiḥ|| The conclusions compiled by me in the Kṛṣṇa-sandarbha can here be savoured by the palate that is learned in the poetic art. Thus, I set my mind to write it with poetry as my goal. Should the great souls examine this work, it will be as if a jewel has been set in gold. When I did my dissertation on Gopāla-campū , then I foolishly thought that I could truly understand the last of the Six Goswamis, Sri Sri Jiva Prabhu, by going to his final work, but without fully understanding all the rest of what he had done. Understanding the mind of someone from as di...

Manuscript painting from Gita-govinda. Photo from Jayadeva Foundation Trust . (5) Rasa-niṣpatti Now we come to last verse in our series. This is also the last verse that Rupa Goswami quotes from an external source in Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi . The context is the following verse, which is the last "idea" that Sri Rupa presents in his discussion of madhura-rasa . vidagdhānāṁ mitho līlā-vilāsena yathā sukham | na tathā samprayogeṇa syād evaṁ rasikā viduḥ || Clever lovers find that there is more pleasure in all the varieties of their mutual dealings than there is in sexual union per se. This is the conclusion of the knowers of rasa. (15.253) Jayadeva's verse is given as an illustration of this point: pratyūhaḥ pulakāṅkureṇa niviḍāśleṣe nimeṣeṇa ca krīḍākūta-vilokite’dhara-sudhā-pāne kathā-narmabhiḥ ānandādhigamena manmatha-kalā-yuddhe’pi yasminn abhūd udbhūtaḥ sa tayor babhūva suratārambhaḥ priyambhāvukaḥ As the battle of the love arts began, there...

I am writing on my computer for the first time since arriving in India, which is now three days already. And with the long trip getting here, fraught with one misadventure, namely missing the connecting flight from Paris, was that makes six days since I have even thought of blogging. I got to do a lot of reading on the plane and in the waiting rooms—when I wasn’t traipsing up and down the interminable terminals at Charles-de-Gaulle, trying to negotiate Air France and Air Canada for the next step of my changing itinerary. There is a lot to say--six days of accumulated experiences and reading, but for now I will just copy what I wrote on my home computer, copying and pasting onto the blog. Hopefully better connections will be available in Rishikesh and the human-internet interface will be smoother. Sakhī-bhāva What follows here is a summary of Sharan Behari Goswami’s six points of difference between sakhī-bhāva and gopī-bhāva (pages 188-193 of the work already mentioned). I talked...

Here I go again. Stop me if you have heard all this before. I heard through a grapevine that a particular GM sannyasi said that lovemaking between devotees is not one of the 64 angas of devotion, and so could never be considered a valid practice for Gaudiya Vaishnavas. I hold that loving intimacy with another devotee can indeed be considered an important anga of bhakti in the cultivation of madhura rasa. Sadhu-sanga is a bhakti anga, and touching the devotee is an element of sadhu-sanga. But it is not the touching in itself, it is the accompanying feelings of love. Bhakti is of two kinds, that practiced externally and that practiced internally. The former is supposed to lead to the latter. Bhakti means feeling, cultivating feeling. If making physical love did not have the potential to create and aid in the cultivation of such feeling, I would say, OK, you are right, it has no possible role in bhakti yoga. But the very concept of madhura rasa depends on the presumption that it does. Eve...

I just uploaded a new version of  Gīta-govinda  to the Grantha Mandir, with the commentary atttributed to Prabodhananda . Here are a few notes I jotted down while working on it, with no real theme. I can't tell you how, even with my limited sensibility, the  Gīta-govinda  shows its power. Just repeat these pieces of Sanskrit and let the rhythm and power of the words penetrate you. We cannot yet translate these words. We have other words that are true to our experience. But there is a rawness in Jayadeva; even in all the exaggeration there is a truth. vasati vipina-vitāne, tyajati lalita-dhāma  luṭhati dharaṇi-śayane, bahu vilapati tava nāma He dwells in the wide forest, He has given up his pleasant home. He lies restlessly, trying to sleep on the ground And repeats unceasingly your name. Prabodhananda in his commentary says that dhāma has many meanings--the body, home, effulgence, place, birth, influence. When it says that Krishna has given up h...

Someone has asked for a little more clarification on the relationship between manjari bhava and the practices I am talking about. Anyway, I don't see how this ties into manjari bhav sadhana. If both the male and female partners identify as a manjari, then how can they engage in sexual relations with each other while maintaining that inner identity? Two little girls on the brink of Kishorihood who just want to assist their Swamini in meeting with her Priyatam are now having sex with each other? What is up with that? That's why I say that yes, Vaishnava couples can and do have creative intimate lives, but while doing so they can't and do not identify themselves in the same way they identify themselves during their sadhana time. When I say "can't" above it is not meant as "it's impossible", but it means I can't see how it would work. So could you address this issue please Jagat? I have written a number of articles that deal with this topi...