Jagat

It is getting difficult for me to post every day as I am being distracted by numerous distractions in my new life here. I am dealing with the strange new circumstance in which I find myself, presuming that there is some meaning in all fortuitous circumstances. I have started making videos in French. The devotional community here in Quebec is very small and very fragmented. Furthermore, I am treated by everyone with great suspicion. Madhuri has a generally poor opinion of most of them, in no small part because their suspicion of me spills over to them. But I am of the opinion that my first responsibility is serving the devotees, which is why I chose today's title. I have been experimenting as my French is not all that great. But still, it seems that it would be better to try this first.  Anyway. I am feeling a bit isolated and in need of bhakta-sanga , otherwise my spiritual life is going to deteriorate. This is of course the test. Many people said to me that Vrindavan is everywhere...

This is from current work on Bhakti Sandarbha, which is really dragging far behind due to my many distractions. So, figuring the best way to give my fuller attention to the work I am sharing it, with Satyanarayana Dasaji's commentary. [It does help to know that there will be readers in real time.] I should add that this is not the final translation. There are several other hands through which this will pass before it reaches print. So bear that in mind. Square brackets are parenthetical explanatory comments that are not in the original text. This is a particularly significant section since it presents a few siddhantas that are rather unique to the Vaishnava point of view, and from one perspective seems a little harsh: God himself does not feel our suffering. The devotees are the agents of his mercy. The  only thing that interferes with such mercy is offenses at the feet of the Vaishnavas. Anuccheda 179 Bhakti Descends Through the Association of a Devotee अथ तस्या एव प्र...

The forest of Vraja at Govardhana. (From http://www.travelingmonk.com/) gāḍhāsaktimatām apīha viṣayeṣv atyanta-nirvedato dṛk-pāte’py asahiṣṇutātiśayināṁ yoge samudyoginām| brahmānanda-rasaika-līna-manasāṁ govinda-pādāmbuja- dvandvāviṣṭa-dhiyāṁ ca mohanam idaṁ vṛndāvanaṁ svair guṇaiḥ || By its own virtues, this Vrindavan enchants the minds even of those who are deeply attached to sense objects, of those who valiantly practice yoga due to being completely disgusted with sense enjoyment and have become intolerant of even the briefest thought of such pleasures, of those whose minds have become totally absorbed in the one undifferentiated taste of Brahman ecstasy, and most of all -- of those whose intelligence is fixed on the lotus feet of Govinda Deva. (1.21/) Commentary When in Braj, you can lie around and do nothing, and bhakti emanates from the ground itself. You absorb bhakti in the air and water. If you are fortunate enough to be able to penetrate the...

  niṣkiñcanān kṛṣṇa-rase nimagnān mahā-nirīhān jana-saṅga-bhītān | vṛndāvanasthān vasanāśanādyair yaḥ sevate’sau vaśayet tad-īśau || One who serves those who live in Vrindavan       who are without possessions,       who are immersed in Krishna rasa,       who are desireless       and fearful of the company of materialists,              giving them food, clothing and other gifts, brings the Master and Mistress of the Dham              under his control.  Commentary In the previous verse , Prabodhananda spoke of serving any resident of the Dham and facilitating residence for anyone at any level of spiritual achievement or even sincerity. Here, the Vaishnava resident of the Dham who is a s ā dhaka is given particular importance. In the previous verse it was simply stated that one would attain rati or bhāva for Krishna, the/lover...

I just want to say that as I slowly start to get deeper into Bhakti Sandarbha (I reached Anuccheda 10 today), I am gaining even more appreciation for Satya Narayan Dasji, not only of his understanding of the Sanskrit text, but his commentaries. These, I feel, are getting better as we go through the Sandarbhas , and I am sure that the Priti Sandarbha will truly be the crown jewel, the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. In the meantime, we follow Jiva Goswami's path through these six books, where we have just now arrived at the abhidheya , bhakti . In a sense you could say that the other four books were just preparations for this. The actual journey really starts with Bhakti Sandarbha . Jiva stated in the very beginning that you should know what to do now that you have gone through the first four books (and in fact, just by going through them, you already have), but now you are going to stop looking so much at the external tattvas and start to consider what is going on ins...

So what do I mean "keeping faith with Kheturi"? The primary significance I take out of the above account is in its implications for initiation. Kheturi, as Chaitanya Vaishnavism's first major council, was an exercise in what is called, in religious-historical terms, the routinization of charisma. In short, it was a major development in the organization of the Chaitanya Vaishnava “church.” It is common for people to characterize this kind of institutionalization as a murder of the religious spirit. It’s what we could call the "St. Paul ruined Jesus" school of thought. Ramakanta Chakravarti, like Hitesranjan Sanyal and many other leftist Bengalis, see Kheturi and the establishment of the Goswami scriptures as a historical disaster because it reaffirmed Brahminical social dominance and its values instead of furthering the emancipation of the lower classes that had been started off by Nityananda Prabhu with his egalitarian ethos. Thus it was the victory...

As often happens, there was a Facebook discussion where the issue of pure Vaishnava association came up. Though I have been known to disagree vehemently with “first deserve then desire” motto that circulates in the Gaudiya Math, I found myself saying, “The purer you chant, the more likely you are to find pure association. Remember, first deserve then desire.” The point, of course, is that you cannot expect to even recognize or appreciate good association if your mind has not been purified and prepared for it by bhajan. Rupa Goswami says desirable association is bhajana-vijña :: a person who is fully knowledgeable about and experienced in the path of bhajan ananya :: is entirely committed to the Divine Couple, i.e, exclusive anya-nindādi śūnya-hṛdam :: has a heart that is entirely free of the tendency to criticize others. If you cannot find someone who fits the bill exactly, try to get as close to this ideal as possible. And of course, one starts by trying to emulate the ...

Maya infiltrates everywhere. As soon as there are signs of bhakti, she comes to do her job. Lābha, pūjā, pratiṣṭhā , what to speak of ordinary sense gratifications, are all important parts of her arsenal. Institutionalization is a particularly effective trick employed by Maya because it allows her to use the whole panoply of allurements, surreptitiously, by stealth as it were, deceptively, by dressing and decorating them in disguise as saintliness, dutifulness and surrender. Ultimately, though institutions and organizations may serve a temporary benefit to (mostly) beginners in spiritual life, at some point they outlive their utility to the individual practitioner. As you progress in spiritual life, you recognize the presence of the guru in the proximate , and not in the remote. The principle is: the more distant the guru, physically and psychically, the less advanced you are. If your guru is only present in books, or on an altar, or on a stage 300 meters away, or on a scree...

Hari-bhakti-sudhodaya is purported to belong to the Narada Purana, but this is spurious. It cannot be found in any edition of that Purana and so was likely a later work that tried to hitch a ride on the NarP. Nothing unusual about that. Ramnarayan Vidyaratna, the editor and translator who under the sponsorship of Maharaja Manindra Chandra Nandy of Cossim Bazaar (1860-1929) brought to light hundreds of previously unpublished works of the Gaudiya sampradaya (the Murshidabad editions), was the first to publish this work. He based it on three manuscripts, two of which came from Agartala in Tripura, the easternmost part of Bengali speaking India. This seems to confirm that the work was probably written in Bengal and its circulation was limited to this part of the subcontinent. It was recently reprinted by the Sanskrit Book Depot in Kolkata, without any change or editing. Madhavananda Dasji of Bhubaneswar made PDF files of the recent reprint available to me, and so I am working on a G...