Jagat

I came across my original recording of "Chanting Sanskrit mantras." So I posted them to my Soundcloud page ( https://soundcloud.com/jagadananda-das-168494194 ).  Chanting Sanskrit verses (recording) . The written document can be found on this blog: Chanting Sanskrit verses (text) . It is old now and it could no doubt have been done better, more professionally. But this is what is out there. This recording was made in about 2000 if I remember correctly, in Ste-Adele at Mahavirya Das 's studio.

Part Two: Sri Advaita Prabhu’s Madhura Upāsanā Part I. Vaishnavas wishing to learn about Gauranga’s original worship in Nabadwip are likely to be astonished at everything that Advaita Acharya’s Śrī Śrī Gaurāṅga-pratyaṅga-varṇanākhya-stava-rāja reveals about it. It is still quite surprising, however, that when Mahaprabhu’s preaching headquarters shifted from Nabadwip to Nilachala and then to Vrindavan after His departure, Advaita’s original mood of Gauranga worship was gradually forgotten. Another perspective on Gaura līlā, which came from Vrindavan, began to dominate. It was during this period that Krishnadāsa Kavirāja wrote Caitanya-caritāmrta on the basis of the siksha he received from Sanatan, Rupa, Raghunath Das, and his diksha guru, Raghunath Bhatta Goswami – all of whom had witnessed Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s astonishing Radha bhāva līlās at Nilachala. We should also mention that it was a full 100 years after Nabadwip’s most spectacular events secretly unfolded that th...

I spent a week in September with my godbrother Gadadhar Pran Das at Gadai Gauranga Kunj, doing a small vrata with him and observing his bhajan pranali, I am sharing this article written by him. It has two parts. At the present time, Gadadhar Pran spends the entire day in the service of Gadadhar and Gauranga, and is working on restoring a painting of his Nadia Yugal. For three days up to Purnima, however, we spent almost the entire day in japa and meditation, chanting three lakhs together in the beautiful environment of the Kunj, overlooking the Ganges, bathing three times in the holy river, doing kirtan and honoring Gadai Gauranga’s delicious prasadam prepared by Rai Kishori Devi. The centerpiece of Gadadhar’s nitya bhajan paddhati these days is the recital of Śrī Śrī Gaurāṅga-pratyaṅga-varṇanākhya-stava-rāja , attributed to Advaita Acharya Prabhu and found in a book from the Srikhanda tradition called Bhakti-candrikā . Gadadhar Pran has gone to a lot of trouble researching ...

I have not talked much about current events in my life on this blog of late. Mahamuni Dasji and Advaitadasji have been giving excellent introductory lectures to Nyaya-sutras and Yoga-sutras respectively. And of course Babaji gave his introduction to Sanskrit. We have a good group of students. Unfortunately Advaita and Mahamuni will only be here teaching for three weeks. Any English speaker in the area who is tempted by a crash course in these two subjects is well advised to attend. Jai Radhe. So we have completed one week of classes at Jiva and are part way through the second week. I am pretty happy with my own classes. We completed the four essential verses of the Sandarbhas, which gave me the opportunity to give an overview of Jiva Goswami's philosophy seen from the end-point rather than working through from the beginning. For me, giving daily classes is challenging. And with people of great learning and enthusiasm in the audience increases the challenge. But it als...

আজকে রাধাকুণ্ডে গিয়েছিলাম। রাধাকুণ্ড মহান্ত শ্রী শ্রী অনন্তদাস পণ্ডিত বাবাজী মহারাজের কাছে গিয়েছিলাম দর্শনের জন্য । উনি আমার সঙ্গে কিছু ক্ষণ কথা বললেন । পুরানো স্মৃতির আবৃত্তি হলো কিছু ।   বাবাজী অসুস্থ হলেও, ৯২ বৎসর বয়সেও এ বৎসরে নিত্য নিয়মিত পাঠ করবেন নিয়ম সেবার সময়. আমাকে রাধাকুণ্ডে থাকতে বলেছেন. আমি যে গোপালচম্পূ পাঠ করব বললাম. উনি খুশী হলেন.   বার বার বলছিলেন, "এসো, থাকো রাধাকুণ্ডে." আমি বললাম গোপালচম্পূ পাঠের কথা. বাবাজী মহাশয, "ভালো ভালো" বললেন.   আমি বলেছিলাম, "এত দিন পরে আপনার দর্শনে এলাম্. আপনার সঙ্গ লাভ করতে হলে আমার পুনর্জন্মের অপেক্ষা."   শেষে আমার মাথায় হাথ বুলিয়ে আমাকে বললেন, "তুমি আমার প্রাণের বন্ধু !" কি সুন্দর কথা, আমি চোখের জল সংবরণ করতে পারলাম না । ভেসেই গেলাম ।   রাধাকুণ্ডের পরিক্রমা করার সময, তিনকুডির প্রভুর আশ্রমের সামনে দিয়ে আমার সেই পুরানো স্মৃতি এলো -- সে নিয়ম সেবা যখন সেখানে তাঁর কাছে থাকলাম এক মাস । ঐ ছোট সরু শিরির দিয়ে আমি নেমে ঠাণ্ডা জলে, শীতের হাওয়ায় শ্রীকুণ্ডে স্নান করতাম ভোর বেলায়।   ...

It also has something to do with brevity. In our day, wisdom has to be Twitter length. Madanmohan Dasji wrote: Well, as for that, I noticed that when I post some verse or other, people only 'like' it if it is posted with an illustration; then I wonder if it was the picture or the writing that was 'liked". Maybe since the introduction of film and TV and ubiquitous screens in every home, we have lost, to some degree, the capacity to visualize in the mind, which is necessary in reading and hearing, and its real pleasure. Mathura Dasji wrote: The visual arts or written/spoken word coupled with sound or music is the most powerful of art forms, and that is why TV, cinema, drama and theatre are so popular. More senses are involved and hence for the majority of people (the masses) these art forms thrive. That also holds for spiritual music such as kirtan, bhajans and other forms of classical Indian music, and is why it is so important to understand aesthetics and t...

Is bhakti a transcendent religion, or is it anchored in time and place? In other words, is it delimited by historical and cultural factors, which by definition would make it material? Recently I said that the purpose of Gaudiya Vaishnava sadhana appears to be "entering" the eternal pastimes of Radha and Krishna, and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And that this required our identifying with the historical, linguistic and cultural circumstances into which their lilas transpired. One of my friends objected that this jeopardized Gaudiya Vaishnavism’s claims to universality and demonstrated a cultural chauvinism -- i.e., ahankara -- that diminished the transcendent glory of this religion. Indeed, for those in the West who on the whole find many defects in the Indian culture, past, present or future, it seems a travesty to be chained to a culture that, in the end, they do not admire all that much. I apologized to my friend that I had been unable to resolve the conundrum. And he...

I have been appreciating Babaji's morning chanting of hymns, which I happily participate in each morning. He has a teacher who has given him a number of striking tunes for these Sanskrit verses, which make my "chanting of Sanskrit mantras" in need of updating. I was also inspired to make a few spontaneous recordings, using those tunes and on my SoundCloud page I have also added a few recordings of Babaji also. Most Gaudiya Vaishnavas tend to chant songs in Bengali or common Sanskrit hymns like Rādhā-kṛpā-kaṭākṣa-stotram , but Babaji has chosen to select notable hymns or passages from the Bhagavatam itself, which is a testament to his devotion to our main shastra. The following verses are Uddhava's famous panegyric glorifying the gopis in 10.47. These verses are unique because there is no other such praise dedicated to any devotee by another devotee found there. After staying in Vrindavan in the association of the cowherd folk, Uddhava is so impressed by ...

( originally posted on Gaudiya Discussions , 2004) Appearance: Bhadra 30, 1305 = Sept. 14, 1898 Disappearance : Ashwin 3, 1364 = Sept. 20, 1957 --o)0(o-- Before taking to the Vaishnava life, Haridas Das was known by the name Harendra Kumar Chakravarty. His birthplace was in the village of Madhugram in the Pheni subdivision of Noakhali district in what is now Bangla Desh. He came from a line of scholarly Brahmins: his father's name was Gagan Chandra Tarkaratna and grandfather was Goloka Chandra Nyayaratna. Haridas Das only had one brother, Manindra Kumar, who left home to take up a life of renunciation while still quite young. Neither brother ever married, but observed the principles of celibacy throughout their lives. Manindra Kumar took initiation from the same spiritual master as his brother and came to Nabadwip where he lived at the Haribol Kutir for fifteen years, taking the name Mukunda Das Babaji. Harendra Kumar was a very clever student and passed all his a...

Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati started a NEW sampradaya. There are two Gaudiya Vaishnava sampradayas, with two different diksha paramparas. The Gaudiya Math diksha parampara STARTS with Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati. Saraswati Thakur rejects the previous diksha parampara which was followed by Bhaktivinoda Thakur. Am I right or wrong? So if you choose to accept Siddhanta Saraswati's line, then fine. But you have to recognize that they are two different paths, similar in many respects, supposedly following the same shiksha tradition. But in the traditional paramparas, the shiksha includes a particular culture of raganuga bhakti that is NOT accepted by the Gaudiya Math. They have their reasons, their interpretations of shastra that are their own. They are not in agreement. But in view of the similar objective and similar antecedents there is a possibility of cooperation, but it is not very likely as long as each considers the other illegitimate. In fact, since everyone is chanting the Hol...

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...