Jagat

Today's memories are dominated by 2016 when I was more engaged in Vrindavan Today research and writing. It is too bad that the VT archives were lost and a ton of good stuff is no longer available, except perhaps on the internet archive. So in 2016 Satyanarayana Dasji took everyone from Jiva to Umrao, which is the village associated with the original Lokanath Goswami and his discovery of the Radha Kanta deities. It is just near Chhata on the way to Barsana. Ranbari, the site of Siddha Krishnadas, whose story is very famous, is just nearby. Most of these photos are available in my Facebook albums. At the same time, Hargovinda Sharma, one of the leading rasacharyas of the 20th century, who along with Hari Baba and Purushottam Goswami and others promoted Gaura Lila musical plays along with Radha Krishna lila, which I think was a very important development, but is a tradition that appears to be getting lost also. (FB Memories July 27)

Sumedh Mudgalkar as Krishna and Mallika Singh as Radha A popular TV serial in Hindi about the loves of Radha and Krishna has now reached its 275th episode. The program has stirred up a bit of controversy (Hindi article)  as some Brijbasis devotees objected to the programs, saying that it misrepresented and vulgarized the Divine Couple. An article was written by one of the staff members of Vrindavan Today (not yet published) also showing disapproval for the program. I thought that we should report any dissenting actions taken by Brijbasis, but if we wished to take an editorial stance it should be done separately. At any rate, the matter was passed on to our editorial board for their opinions. I must admit right away that I haven't watched the serial, but I know devotees and Brijbasis --  including Paramadwaiti Maharaj, whom I saw shortly before leaving Vrindavan -- who have watched and enjoyed it. Shortly afterwards I posted the Hindi story on Facebook and got reactions...

My friend, Paramadwaiti Maharaj’s young sannyasi disciple from Argentina, Padmanabha Swami, recently wrote me a note thanking me for introducing him to Jordan Peterson after I posted a few links on my Facebook page. He then wrote an article , extracting a few points from Peterson’s latest book, Twelve Rules for Life An Antidote to Chaos , that he felt were compatible with Vaishnava teachings. At any rate, Peterson’s full-throated defense of religious belief and his debates with neo-atheists like Sam Harris have attracted the attention of Christian pastors like Paul VanderKlay who use his insights in their own understanding and explanations of religion. I have not written directly about Peterson very much on this blog, as my own journey is taking me away from the kind of academic explanations of religion that were a concern earlier on in this blog, after I had gone through religious studies at McGill University. Nevertheless, that is what first attracted me to Peterson was his...

There is a great deal of difference of flavors even within the madhura-rasa worship of Radha and Krishna. The idea that Radha is a symbol of the jiva and Krishna God, and that a direct erotic relationship with the Deity is being intended, is not a new one. That is in fact the symbolic situation that Mahaprabhu incarnates, but the one that Rupa Goswami stepped beyond. By seeing Mahaprabhu as the combination of Radha and Krishna, by placing Radha and Krishna on an equal footing and conceiving of God as a Dual, and then jiva as a servant of that Dual Supreme, Rupa Goswami was coming up with something original. When trying to understand a text according to the Vedantic hermeneutics, there are six things we take into account, one being apūrvatā , or the original something new. All the other relationships are there and are no doubt very nice and legitimate, but when we talk about Rupa Goswami and want to know what it is he is getting at, the anarpita-carī , then this certainly qualifie...

I was recently added to a group on Facebook called Devotional Poetry , where a few devotees have been sharing their compositions and their love of language (English only, of course). I am not a compulsive poet, nor a regular practitioner of the craft. If I am a poet at all, it is more of an impulsive one, who occasionally is driven by some inspiration or emotional turbulence to express myself. So I haven't written a great deal, and when I do, it admittedly tends to the maudlin because of the excessive charge of immediate, unprocessed feelings. But without the charge of personal feeling, if a poem is only repetition of another's thoughts, or didactic/intellectual alone, then it loses its edge or capacity to produce rasa . In these cases, what we get is bhāva , not rasa . The thing about writing, poetry or any kind of literature or artistic production, according to rasa theory, is that it takes emotions ( bhāva ) out of the realm of the purely personal. Personal experie...

Bhakti Abhaya Ashram posted an article on editing the other day,  How to Edit?  Swamiji,formerly Babhru Das, has a background and training in English education on the college level, have been leading him to ponder this matter, and clearly the linguistic professionalization of Tripurari Maharaj's sangha is a result of his work. Since I do a fair bit of editing, I read it with interest. In my editing work, I have traditionally been pretty timid. That probably has something to do with the field I work in. I work very gingerly where scholars like Swami Veda Bharati and Satya Narayan Dasji are concerned. I prefer to take the approach of a student who is trying to understand, and then simply try to improve the English and improve the clarity. Being somewhat slow on the uptake, wider-ranging advice usually comes rather too late to be any good. But this work is in translation and commentary, scholarly and scripturally based writing, which has a bias to the conservative. It is...

This is from a couple of old posts from Gaudiya Discussions. I made no changes. utpanna-ratayaḥ samyaṅ nairvighnyam anupāgatāḥ kṛṣṇa-sākṣāt-kṛtau yogyāḥ sādhakāḥ parikīrtitāḥ “ These devotees who have attained rati (or bhāva ), yet are still not completely free from obstacles, who are worthy of attaining a direct vision of the Lord, are known as sādhakas . ” ( Bhakti-rasām ṛ ta-sindhu 2.1.276) Bhaktivedanta Swami : “A person who has attained the stage of attraction for Krishna and who is not freed from the material impasse, but who has qualified himself to enter into the kingdom of God, is called sādhaka. Sādhaka means one who is cultivating devotion in Krishna consciousness.” (NOD, 203) Dhanurdhara Swami : “ Sādhaka refers to an advanced devotee, not just to any practitioner. Only one who has ecstatic love can inspire that love to arise in others. Therefore, in this context , Srila Rupa Goswami has defined sādhaka as a devotee on the platform of rati , or one who feel...

Art by Shyam Nadh You try to explain or retain the symbolism of Radha Krishna Lila by Jungian archetype theory which does not make any link between the material world and the transcendental world as BVT's theory does. I agree that it has some explanatory power. However, this view requires a different view of rasa theory from that of the Goswamis. First of all, as I already stated previously, there seems to be a little bit of confusion about the "dustbin of Maya" comment, which is indeed Mayavada. I do not hold that view myself. I am a Vaishnava and I believe strongly that the material world is real, though temporary. Maya means taking temporary phenomena as having ultimate value. They have only reflected value. I am in perfect accord with Bhaktivinoda Thakur here. Nevertheless, we do have a problem, and I don't see how it can be resolved by taking a purely literalist approach. That may be what Bhaktivinoda Thakur did; it is quite possible, but I do not find ...

The meaning of seeing God in the direction of love means that the presence of love confirms the presence of God. What is interesting here is that physical love is not excluded, but is accepted as being at the very basis of love itself, since the expression of romantic love in Radha and Krishna is seen as the ultimate truth. Just as Ashley Montague discovered in the 60's how important the skin and the sense of touch were to the healthy psychological development of the infant, and to the further spiritual sense of well-being in the adult, the sense of touch is also an integral part of love and bhakti . Therefore it is said,  tviṣaḥ phalaṁ tvādṛśa-gātra-sparśaḥ, sudurlabho bhāgavato hi loke. "The fruit of the skin is to touch your body, for great devotees like you are so rare in this world." Radha and Krishna are Love; they are the core of love. Love is formless, anaṅga , but it takes form. The form it takes must be dual, because the very basis of love is interaction...