Tag: Mohan

Through dying flames, the moonlight

All glories to the congregational chanting of Ṡri Kṛṣṇa’s holy name, which cleanses the mirror of the heart and mind, which extinguishes the forest fire of material existence, which spreads moonlight on the white lotus of good fortune, which is the life of the bride named transcendental knowledge, which increases the ocean of transcendental bliss, which makes us relish full nectar at every step and which thus showers the whole self? 

Śrī Śikṣāṣṭakam, verse 1 

The first verse of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s Śrī Śikṣāṣṭakam embodies all of Bhakti. In it, thought becomes feeling, then feeling becomes reality itself.

The stirrings of the first verse are a call to the self, to the soul. Our better self, our purer self, awaits us behind the mask of our egoism. Reaching it, reaching ourselves, is possible through sankirtan, the power and pleasure of congregational chanting. 

But to fully enjoy sankirtan, we must first remember how Caitanya Mahāprabhu made it a gift to humanity. 

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The rasika history of the world

Verse 94

In the West we often understand our world in terms of its history. The typical ingredients are politics, power, money and greed. The typical result is suffering. 

From the point of view of the rasika, one who has the wisdom to relish the loving nectar flowing through the Creation, the history of the world is the history of love. 

In his commentary to Rādhā Rasa Sudhāndhi, Verse 94, Ananda das Bābājī, describes an episode from the Gaura Līlā that he calls ‘The festival of Srī Rādhā’s mercy’. It is the story of love, jealousy, loyalty and betrayal. 

The turns of the story might remind us of Greek tragedy or Shakespearean comedy of errors. But this pastime describe in Verse 94 and its commentary, do not end in sorrow and loss, but in a higher form of feeling. 

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