Category: Bhakti

Rādhā is the source of beauty

I walk on the beach in the setting sun. The air is soft. The sand under my feet is warm. The rush of the surf quiets, as the calm of the evening falls. I feel happiness, a soft and blissful feeling covers me, touches my material senses and my spiritual body.

What causes this feeling of happiness? What does it mean? Where will it take me? What does it ask of me? 

My first and most natural reflex is to think that I have come to the beach seeking this experience, that I know when and where and how to enjoy it. The sunrise is a fact, the beach is a fact, the heat and the light, and all the beauty I experience are part of this world. It is a world that I can experience at my pleasure, at my convenience, on my terms, according to my needs. 

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Having love and being love

Soul-consciousness means the awareness that we have a soul, that we are soul-beings, and that the soul is divine. 

Since the soul is not material we cannot achieve soul-consciousness through our material senses. We will never find the soul by simply gazing out of our window. It is true that the hints and clues of our material world—beauty and charm, sweetness and attraction—touch our hearts and lift our souls. But the moment of soul-consciousness will come spontaneously, surprisingly, mercifully. 

Soul consciousness comes as a revelation. It is not the creation of new knowledge. It is the discovery of everything we already knew but did not realise. It comes not as a discovery of all the wonders that were unknown to us. It comes as the discovery that everything is familiar, has always already been so close by that we could touch it.  

Soul consciousness arrives not through the familiar experiences of our material experience, but through the mystery and charm of our spiritual life. The soul is playful, light and sweet. It is neither shy nor timid. While the mind is cautious about the dangers of the material world, the soul is open and naive, curious and searching, eager and affirming.

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Love and time

How long will I love you ? As long as stars are above you. And longer, if I can. 

Ellie Goulding

In the quaint 2013 British film, About Time, we meet young Tim from Cornwall, socially awkward and innocent in love. On his 21st birthday his father informs him that, like all males in his family, he possesses the ability to travel back in time. What will he do with this newly discovered gift? He sets out to find love.

Tim quickly discovers that despite his newfound ability, love eludes him. When he does eventually meet and marry an adorable woman, it is not because of, but in spite of, his metaphysical powers. Indeed, after several years of sweet and touching manipulations of time in order to experience the narrow, mundane notion of love he has imagined, he at last resolves to surrender to time, renouncing time travel altogether. He realises that by living every day as though he himself had chosen it among all the possible days available to him, he actually finds peace, and love.  He realises, as we all are realising, each at our own pace, that the meaning of time is not to find the love that we are looking for, but to let love find us.

When does love begin ?  

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Who is Rādhā?

On Radhastami we commemorate and celebrate the appearance of Rādhā. Who is Rādhā?

One answer to this question starts by asking a different question : Where is Rādhā?

It is simple to say that Rādhā is everywhere. After all, she is the goddess of love and chief consort of Kṛṣṇa. But in her most immediate, real, concrete, and living form she is in us.  

Every tingle of emotion in our body, every quickening of the heart, every impulse to care, every flash of passion, every timid stirring of love is the presence of Rādhā in our hearts, in our souls. Every moment of tenderness felt, every trace of hope, every moment of melancholy, gentle sadness, missing or longing, of wanting love—not to have it, but to give it—this is Rādhā in our souls.

On our spiritual journey, if we want to ask, why do I exist? why am I here? why do I have a soul? Then I am asking about Kṛṣṇa, creator and controller of the universe. If I want to ask: why do I feel the way I feel, then we are asking about Rādhā.

If Kṛṣṇa is all beauty than it is Rādhā who is living beauty. If Kṛṣṇa is all knowledge then Rādhā is the experience of the knowledge If Kṛṣṇa is all bliss, then Rādhā is the giver of bliss. If Kṛṣṇa is love, then Rādhā is loving.

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We too have always been in love

Rādhā has always been in love with Mohan. There has never been a time when her entire being was not driven by a love for him. There has never been a world in which this love was not burning. There has never been a reality where divine love was not the living force.

Rādhā’s love for Mohan is not just an important event in the history of events. It is reality itself.

It’s not something that exists in the world; it is the world. It’s not something that fills our heart; it is our heart. It’s not a simple pleasure for the satisfaction of God; it is divine pleasure itself.

Rādhā’s love is time itself. Rādhā’s love is space itself. It is always and everywhere. Rādhā’s love is reality, truth, beauty and goodness There is nothing more real. There is nothing more true. There is nothing more beautiful, nothing more good. Rādhā’s love is desire that is everywhere desired. 

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Guru-mañjarī: a meditation from the nikunja

Our wish is to regard the world from the nikunja, to experience love and life from the position of mañjarī.

This is the highest goal of devotional service. Every action we take, every word we utter, every thought that crosses or minds, every emotion that traverses our hearts has this goal as its North Star. 

But how do we get there?

The appearance of Caitanya Mahaprabhu gives access to a new experience of God. God is no longer a fixed idea of love. God is now the experience of loving. God now takes the form of RādhāMohan, two forms of one and the same divine soul, God as a relation between lover and beloved, God as the constantly changing experience of loving in all its splendour and intensity, all its loneliness and longing. 

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Prema datta Nitai Gaura

Nitai Gaura has given us the gift of divine love 

Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s appearance in 1486 changed the way we think about the relation between God and love. 

In Western Semitic religions we are accustomed to thinking of God’s love as a transcendental substance, accessible to saints and priests, passed on to us only by their mercy. In those traditions, God is equated with love, but reserved for those who love God directly or receive it directly from God.

The love of God is understood as an abstraction, a transcendental goal, reached only by the most purified souls, obtained only after long struggle and sacrifice.  

This is not far from the image of Vaishnavism before the appearance of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. 

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Love and relation

Bhakti-yoga means union with God (yog) sustained through devotional service (bhakti). 

This union is one of miraculous experiences of our practice. For what does it mean to have a relationship with God? The words are easily said, but difficult to measure. To have a relationship with the divine is not to admire it from a distance, to venerate the beauty, the power, the perfection of God. It’s not enough to simply follow the rules and rituals of recognised practice. It’s not enough to obey the commands of a celestial dictator. It’s not an intellectual relation created by reading books or studying verses. 

None of these paths will do because the union of bhakti-yoga is one of love. Bhakti is the practice of devotional service, service to God in and through love. It’s not blind devotion or one-sided adulation. Bhakti-yoga is a true relation with the divine: in its purest expression it takes the form of a divine love affair. Its model is the conjugal love affair of the Rādhā and Mohan. This loving relation is the model not only for the love of God but for the love between all loving, living beings. 

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