Tag: Bhakti

A taste for chanting

O Lord! You have given us many names of Yours to chant, investing them with all Your transcendental power, and there are no strict regulations as to when to chant or remember these names. Such is Your mercy, O Lord, but I am so unfortunate that I have not taste for this chanting.

Śrī Śikṣāṣṭakam, Verse 2

The Vedic story of the cosmic birth tells that at its creation the universe takes the form of sound. The purest energy of sound was not created and will never perish. It is an eternal vibration. It precedes the creation and will forever outlast it. The Truth of the universe is this sound vibration. Not because it is a message of truth about what is already there. But because this sonic energy, this Truth, is reality itself. 

According to the Vedic story, the ancient ṛṣis, the enlightened seers and seekers of the Vedic tradition, entered into states of profound meditation, tuned their souls to the vibrations of the cosmos and heard these eternal sounds. 

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What is sambandha?

sambandha [connection, relationship, union, association] 

In Caitanya-Caṛtāmṛta, Caitanya Mahāprabhu explains: ’One’s relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead [sambandha], activities in terms of that relationship [abhidheya], and the ultimate goal of life [prayojana] — these three subjects are explained in every aphorism of the Vedānta-sūtra, for they form the culmination of the entire Vedānta philosophy’ (Ādi-līlā 7.146).

In other words, every word on every page of every book in the spiritual tradition of Bhakti yoga contains these essential elements. The first and most important of these is sambandha (relation). 

Where do these two kinds of relationships meet? 

In mundane language, the word sambandha has ordinary associations. It refers to family relationships, working associations, contracts that form connections to objects, property, and so on. 

But in spiritual experience sambandha refers to the mystery of spiritual relationships.

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Sat-cit-ānanda

Eternity—knowledge—bliss: these are the qualities of the divine in both God and in every realised soul. How do we advance toward this realisation?   

Spiritual practice begins with observation, as both idea and as exercise. It starts with the idea that the foundation of life is spiritual, and that realising this foundation requires observation, self-observation, attention to our interior life, to the life of the mind and the of the soul. This means nurturing techniques and habits for recognising our interior life as it unfolds, then increasing awareness of it.

By asking the simple question ‘who am I? we stand already before the extraordinary realisation that someone is directing a question to someone else. 

The very idea of our self, and even the most simple questions we might want to ask about it, produces the strange realisation that we are two. There is one who asks, and there is another who answers. There is a mind-ego and there is a soul.

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What is śaktī?

śaktī [power, energy, potency] 

There is nothing without energy. 

There is no heat in the fire, no movement of the water, no light, no sound. Nothing.

Without energy, there is no life in nature, no flowers that grow or trees that reach to the sky, no insects that creep, no animals that roam, no human hearts that pump warm blood through the veins.   

Without energy there are no sensations, nothing to smell or taste or touch or see.   

Without energy there is no feeling, no tremors of emotion, no sensations of the heart, no sensations that surprise with their appearance, and astonish through their vanishing. 

And so without energy there is no soul, there is no life, there is no love.

Love is the name of energy in its highest form. It is energy that is equal to God. The desires we experience, the attractions that seize our senses are the expressions of this love, this divine love, this divinity. 

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Caitanya Mahāprabhu gave us mañjari-bhāv

Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi 1 Chapter 4, Verse 16

The Lord wanted to taste the sweet essence of the mellows of love of God

Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmi

Throughout the ages Lord Kṛṣṇa is beloved by all. The word ‘kṛṣṇa’ itself means ‘all attractive’.  Nowhere is this more clear than in the rāsa pastime, in which the countless milkmaids (gopīs) of Vrindāvan are irresistibly drawn to him, the local cow-herd boy . According to the legend their eagerness and jealousy is so great that Kṛṣṇa expands into countless embodiments of himself, one for each gopī, so that the dance can go on, each girl delighted that she alone has the privilege of entertaining Kṛṣṇa.

There seems to be no end to the love for Kṛṣṇa. And why not? He is after all everything: all existence (sat), all knowledge (cit) and all bliss (ananda). In other words, whatever exists stems from him, whatever can be the object of consciousness, stems from him, and whoever knows pleasure knows it from him. 

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I am yours

What does it mean to belong to God?

In one of the final verses (Verse 96) of his passionate and moving Vilāpa Kusumāñjali (Bouquet of Lamentations) Raghunātha Dāsa cries out in ecstasy:

I am Yours, I am Yours! I cannot live without You! O Goddess! 

The ardent cry is directed at Rādhā, the lover of Kṛṣna, and therefore the source of the highest love in the world, the love for God. In the Bhakti tradition of Vaishnavism, the goal of life is service to this divine love, embodied through loving service in everyday life. 

Of all the disciples of the diving loving pair Rādhā-Kṛṣna, Raghunātha Dāsa is known as the deepest and the most passionate. He wants so ardently to serve divine love that his very being merges with the loving energy of Rādhā, the Goddess of love. 

In Bhakti, the path to transcendence is through devotional service, serving others in a way that recognises and honours the divine love in every soul. To love means to love from the heart, from the soul, not from the mind and the ego.

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What is suffering?

Verses 9:26-27

If you offer me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I will accept it.

Whatever you do, eat, offer or give away, and whatever hardship you suffer—offer it to me.

In Chapter 9 of Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa shares with Arjuna ever deeper knowledge about himself and the nature of the universe. Then in verses 26-27 Kṛṣṇa describes how best to please and honour him. 

He says that not only should we offer to Kṛṣṇa the things we cherish in life. We should also offer him what we do in life. We should give not only our possessions but our actions. 

Among the many things we do in our lives is to suffer through difficult experiences. To suffer is not to feel something painful or difficult for one moment. It is to live in an experience of pain or difficulty. Suffering is an action—of perseverance, patience, resolve, courage, maybe obstinacy.

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Perfect love

Verses 10.22-10-30

The closing sequence of Bhagavad-gītā Chapter 10 can seem tedious. 

After Kṛṣṇa declares his affection for Arjuna in the first lines, his disciple again asks for more detailed knowledge about him. God answers him over the final 19 verses of the chapter in the form of no fewer than 58 comparisons of himself to the greatest phenomena of the universe: ‘Of the rich, I am richest’ (10.23), ‘of the mountains, I am tallest’ (10.25), ‘of the rivers, I am longest’ (10.31), and so on. 

But the model used by Kṛṣṇa in these lines never involves just a simple comparison. It is never a simple matter of ‘this’ or ‘that’. Kṛṣṇa’s presentation of himself always takes the form of a progression. It always builds on a quality that can be increased, intensified, or deepened.

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