Jagat

"I am not able to abandon even Sairindhri (Kubja), O Uddhava! So how can I abandon the residents of Vraja?" In order to reveal this truth, Krishna went to Kubja's home to enjoy with her.

I heard today that Anthony Weiner, whose descent into unfathomable public stupidity two years ago left him hugely disgraced, now apparently wants to make a return and is testing the waters for a New York mayoralty run. This is relatively (totally, actually) irrelevant to me here in Vrindavan, except for the fact that Jill Filipovic wrote an acerbic article in the Guardian in which she makes some excellent points about the hypocrisy of American public life where sexuality is concerned. She inquires into the acquiescence of such men's wives with some well-placed stupefaction. I was musing on these matters back then when it all first came out, but I never completed the blog, which was sitting in the drafts. I guess it sneezed. Now I have posted the rather unsatisfying article on Samarthā rati that was going on at approximately the same time as these speculative musings on Anthony Weiner, I will take it as a sign that I should finish this one. But it really should be considered p...

I have been busy trying to complete the series I started a long time ago on the three kinds of rati. The final article in the series, a full investigation on samarthā rati is still in the works, being based primarily on a summary of the Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi commentaries on the relevant section of the 14th chapter, accompanied by my own insights. As I said in the beginning, the purpose is to try to understand these matters by reference to the world of experience and to see where that takes us. In the last article on samarthā rati , there was in fact very little but the straight information from the śāstras. So we look at these things and they do not register very much at first. In a sampradāya, you listen to your gurus. And you reflect on what they say. That is called manana . And then, when you have come to a solid faith in the conclusions of the śāstra, you engage in nididhyāsana , which is usually meant a constant meditation on that conclusion. [Please read the linked articles o...

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...

It is important to recognize that Rupa Goswami's descriptions of Radha and Krishna's love have relevance for our understanding of human love. For instance, let us examine Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi 14.45-58: nātisāndrā hareḥ prāyaḥ sākṣād darśana-sambhavā sambhogecchā-nidāneyaṁ ratiḥ sādhāraṇī matā yathā śrī-daśame (10.48.9)— sahoṣyatām iha preṣṭha dināni katicin mayā ramasva notsahe tyaktuṁ sangaṁ te’mburuhekṣaṇa Sādhāraṇī rati is defined as follows: Love for Krishna that is not particularly intense and nearly always arises after directly seeing him, and which has sexual desire at its basis, is called “common” affection. For example, Kubja said to Krishna, “Come, my dear, and spend a few days with me. Make love to me, O lotus-eyed one, for I cannot abide the thought of leaving you.” (10.48.9) asāndratvād rater asyāḥ sambhogecchā vibhidyate etasyā hrāsato hrāsas tad-dhetutvād rater api Because the love is not particularly intense, it can be separated from the desir...

As I have been trying to say, I am approaching the question of Krishna consciousness and sexuality from my own life experience. I should therefore confess that my sexual drive has been (I believe) comparatively low in comparison to the majority of the population, particularly in the West. I did not have an especially great struggle as a brahmachari and my motivations in becoming a householder in Iskcon may sound rather strange to most: I saw it as a psychologically purificatory experience. I slipped out of that experience rather easily in the late seventies and did not find it a great jump to taking sannyas in 1979. The straw that broke the camel’s back of my stay in Iskcon was, in fact, the experience of listening to a brahmachari masturbate in the toilet cubicle next to mine in the Hyderabad temple. It was my feeling then that the Iskcon environment was too sensual to assure self-control. The lifestyle of Bhavananda Maharaj seemed to caricature the true renunciate lifestyle, which is...