Jagat

I left Birnagar yesterday, a day early, because of worries that on Wednesday there will be a disruptive widespread politically motivated strike. This is an unpleasant feature of life in India. The other day I made a quick visit to see Gadadhar before leaving. On my return to Birnagar, I had a bit of an argument with Harigopal Dasji, since he and Gadadhar don't see eye-to-eye on many issues. As a matter of fact, it is quite clear that Gadadhar is a complete outlier. Nobody, not the Radha Kund guardians of Gaudiya Vaishnava orthodoxy, what to speak of the Gaudiya Math and ISKCON, and not even our own goṣṭhī leave any wiggle room on what is acceptable -- mañjarī bhāva in Golok Vrindavan is the only permissible goal, and kāntā-bhāva ( here and here ) and Gaura-nāgara bhāva are considered apasampradāyas , and no distinction is made between them and the Sahajiyās or Bauls.. Poor Gadadhar Pran is mad for Gaura in Nabadwip lila, the Gaura that was seen by the Nabadwip Nagari...

Understanding the relationship of the pravartaka stage to the sādhaka stage. There is a gulf of difference between these stages, as the higher level is practically unrecognizable as part of the same path to one in the lower stage. As one progresses and gets closer to the subsequent stage, one inevitably thinks that he is coming close to either siddhi or to self-destruction. It is a confusing state until one has completed the transformation. That transformation is easy to misunderstand for numerous reasons, which is why it is often condemned in various ways, usually by using the sahajiyā label as a term of opprobrium. Such propaganda serves the purpose of creating a wall around the next stage. Like most steps prior to making a leap of progress, this can be characterized as the "wall of dharma" like the one the gopis had to cross to reach Krishna in the forest of Vrindavan on the night of the Rāsa-līlā. In the pravartaka stage, the practices of devotional service...

If there were no love in this world, there would be none in the next either. But nobody would be able to doubt the existence of love in this world if they were not busy trying to find love apart from God. Krishna says, "I am the source of all. All things begin with me. Those enlightened persons who know this, worship me with love." (Gita 10.8) The very fact that we can conceive of an "ideal" is the beginning of the ontological argument. In this sense, it is connected to other arguments for the existence of God, like those of first origins or of teleology, i.e., the purposefulness of existence, both of which point to God. So, God as Person is the truest result of understanding, as it is Personhood, capable of the highest love, that stands at the pinnacle of creation. But when I say that love is the result of the discovery of God as a Person, it is because of the connection of the two, i.e., the personhood we encounter in this world, which is given value and sacr...

I just went for a couple of hours to the Montreal Rathayatra "Festival of India" fair. Just thought I'd note a little irony that became clear to me today, after watching the program put on by the Gurukula Youth traveling road show. I was very impressed by the quality of the performance, in particular by the young woman who seemed to lead things. The style of dance and music is Carnatic. I bought a couple of CDs and could not fail to notice that Nitai Das sings in the Anupa Jalota style, like Haridas and a number of other Iskcon bhajan singers. Haridas even sings Hindi translations of Bhaktivinoda songs ! I also picked up another CD by Karnamrita, Dasi , which I like best of the three. But here too, I noticed that there is little that shows a direct Gaudiya influence (songs by Meera, Harivams, Bhagavata verses, etc.) Another thing I was doing was trying to give a way a bunch of Bengali books to the Bengali speakers here, without much success. Finally one devotee kind of re...

For the past year, I have studiously avoided participating in any forums and have practically stopped all correspondence with others, whatever their allegiances. Although most of my efforts have been going into the most mundane of goals--material survival--I have not entirely abandoned my soul. In a websearch, I came across a long discussion that took place on Gaudiya Repercussions not long after my Sahajiya "outing" on the same forum. It was instigated by Nitai and Jijaji, and contains many valuable comments and reactions from the intelligent and learned participants in that forum. Nitai even starts the whole thing off from the same point that this blog does: My statement that Gaudiya Vaishnavism is a bird with two wings: the orthodox and the sahajiya. He says, I think orthodox CV can fly pretty well on its own without any help from its sahajiya kindred. I recognise the very close and complex relationship that exists between CV and SV, but in my view SV has been and r...

Historically, is Sahajiyaism not more dependent on Orthodox Vaishnavism than the other way around? This is a good question and I don't know if I can properly answer it. I believe that universally, up until the present day, the major world religions have always had an extremely ambivalent attitude toward sexuality. There are good reasons for this, which need to be explored. In this, Hinduism is no exception. Despite the existence of a Tantrik subculture, the dominant Hindu ethos has been one geared towards either the K ā ma-ś ā stra of unadorned pleasure-seeking through sexuality, in which Woman is the principal instrument for achieving worldly happiness, or towards a misogynistic attitude in which Woman represents the principal danger to the achievement of spiritual beatitude or mokṣa . These are called, respectively, the pravṛtti and nivṛtti m ā rgas . Bhakti is, in my view, the middle course between these two paths. The Tantrik idea that sexuality can be accommodated to s...