Jagat

Although Krishna can be worshiped in any one of the five divine rasas of shanta, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya or madhura, our Gaurasundar’s main focus is in madhura rasa. Hence a majority of his followers adopt this mood to worship Krishna. This verse by Rupa Goswami supports this trend: anarpita-carīṁ cirāt karuṇ ayāvatīrṇaḥ kalau samarpayitum unnatojjvala-rasāṁ sva-bhakti-śriyam hariḥ puraṭa-sundara-dyuti-kadamba-sandīpitaḥ sadā hṛdaya-kandare sphuratu vaḥ śacī-nandanaḥ Let’s always behold Sri Sachinandan’s beautiful golden form in the core of our heart. For he advents in Kaliyuga to offer the people his most personal bhakti treasure, the highest form of madhura rasa. (Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta , Adi 1.4) We have already seen that a number of madhura bhakti paths are available in Thakur Bhaktivinoda’s guru parampara. And in the upcoming chapter a few more will be discovered, but for the moment it will be helpful to analyse what we have presented so far. The first four chapter...

In chapters 13, 14, and 15, our guru puja yatra in Goloka Nabadwip rested as we examined the teachings of the leading acaryas in Thakur Bhaktivinoda's guru parampara. Before our yatra continues on, however, let us review what has happened so far to get a clear idea about what is going on. We started in Thakur Bhaktivinoda’s eternal abode, Svānanda-sukhada Kunj, which is located just south of Nityananda's large estate in the Dham's southeastern section. Within Svānanda-sukhada Kunj is a sub-kunja named Anaìga-sukhada. This is where we first offered guru puja to the Thakur's beloved son and disciple, Lalita Prasad Thakur. Then, after we performed Bhaktivinoda Thakur's guru puja, we followed him as he entered Sri Nityananda Prabhu's transcendental abode through the southern gate. From here we could see His marvelous sunstone palace in the distance. Situated around it are the many gardens and palatial residences belonging to Nitai's descendants. They begin fr...

There is no other bhakta like Vamsi; Gaurasundar is his siksha guru, and Vishnupriya Devi is his diksha guru. Just before Gauranga took sannyasa, He taught him Krishna's  rasa-rāja upāsanā  doctrine. These teachings are recorded in  Vaṁśī-śikṣā  by Premadas Mishra, the great grand-disciple of Ramai Thakura. In this chapter Mahaprabhu will tell what Krishna’s rasa-rāja upāsanā is and also explain how we can perform it. Then we will examine some of Vamsivadan's poetry and his rare book entitled Sri Gaurāṅga-līlāmṛta . Vaṁśī-śikṣā invocatory verses abhinna-rasa-rājāya śrī-śacīnandanāya ca gurave bhakta-rūpāya caitanyāya namo namaḥ śṛṅgāra-rasa-saṁmagnaṁ śṛṅgāra-rūpakaṁ param sukhadaṁ śubhadaṁ devaṁ rasarājaṁ namāmy aham I offer my pranam so the son of Sachi, Who is non-different from Rasa-rāja Krishna, and Who takes the form of a bhakta-guru to teach His Rasa-rāja worship. Rasa-rāja Krishna is deeply fascinated by  śṛṅgāra  (conjuga...

Today was the conclusion of the third year of the Jiva Tirtha program. The audience was small as a number of the students had already trickled back to their homes elsewhere in the world before our final end-day ceremony. Swamini Radhika is also a widely known senior scholar, writer, poet and artist. She has been sharing her appreciation of the vernacular bhakti poets and shared her insights each week to a core group of dedicated listeners. Altogether there was a lot of mutual thanking going on. Babaji complimented the students: It is actually amazing that even this many students have been sufficiently inspired to come and spend six months at their own cost to hear the scriptures from Babaji and, in many cases, to learn Sanskrit. Babaji particularly noted how Manu had managed to convince his boss to have a six months leave every year and still be able to come back to his job in the spring. Many of the students offered testimonials to the transformative nature of hearing shastr...

Anaṅga-mañjarī-sampuṭikā  by Ramai Thakur In the last chapter, Ramai Thakur's life story was told by his nephew-disciple Rajaballabha Goswami. In this chapter, Ramai will tell about his Gurudevi Ananga Marjari’s various tattva and rati lila with Shyamasundar. Now, because a sure way to know about Ramai, Jahnava, and Ananga Manjari is to hear from someone closely related to them, Muralī-vilāsa and Anaṅga-mañjarī-sampuṭikā are certainly authentic shastras. A samputika is a treasure chest, as this book is full of the unique treasures of Jahnava Mata's tattvas. We may also note that Bhaktivinoda Thakur made a hand written copy of the Sampuṭikā ’s original manuscript, that Sundarananda Vidyavinoda later made into a book and published, and is the version we are using. Since Bhaktivinoda took the trouble to hand copy this invaluable text, Vaishnavas can now read it. It will, however, be most appreciated by his close followers. The First Wave : Analyzing the Śakti Ramai ...