Tag: Rādhā

Sat-cit-ananda

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 hlādinī-śakti?

hlādinī-śakti [energy, ability, strength, effort, power that brings pleasure, bliss, happiness]

The Upaniśads tell us that the divine, the soul, the self (ātma) existed even before the universe. Cosmic creation took place when that divine substance expanded into matter in order to create all existing things. The vehicle for that expansion—which is still going on everywhere and at every moment—is energy (śakti).

Energy is not soul, but without energy the soul has no being, no life, no relation, no attraction, no longing, no desire, no zeal. In short: no love. Energy is not the divine itself; it is what brings the divine into being through potency of love.                           

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Love and creation

The universe came into being as energy. Physicists and philosophers, theologians and mystics agree. The creator’s energy and the creation are one. Creation takes the form of energy. But what does it mean to create? 

Creation does not mean the simple replacement of nothing by something. Such a creation would be empty and cold, without life, movement or feeling. The universe would be desert before creation, deserted after creation.

This is because the creation of life does not mean the creation of things that live. It means the creation of the energy that causes life to live. A universe full of things without life is no different than a universe with no things at all. 

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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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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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What is sevā? II

sevā [service, servitude, hommage, devotion]

In mundane experience sevā, or service, is a common notion. In its simplest form it is the name of a transaction. If I do something for you in  exchange for som reward, be it material or immaterial, this called a service. 

In material form this reward could be money or perhaps som object of value, or even another service. sevā is often done under material constraints or coercion. We render service under the power of another pressed to do what we otherwise would not do. 

But in immaterial form the reward might be some form of recognition, a moral reward, or some kind of immediate satisfaction that only the recognition of another can give. 

In the Bhakti tradition sevā is practice. It is service to another at thehighest level. It is the greatest gift the greatest giving of oneself, and therefore the greatest form of spiritual relation. Every spiritual relation is sevā, every sevā is spiritual relation.

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What is a mañjarī?

mañjarī [maidservant, bud, flower]

On the transcendental plane called Goloka Vrindāvan, a mañjarī is a female maidservant of Rādhā. Sheis both a servant of Rādhā but also a friend. She is friend through service and a servant through friendship. She does not serve by obligation or personal gain, but by love. The relation or Rādhā and her mañjarīs is of the most intimate kind, only surpassed by the intimacy of conjugal lovers.  

What is an intimate friend? First, an intimate friend is one who has knowledge of her friend, one who shares experiences, who knows the same feelings, the same desires, one who is curious about the same things, who seeks the same things, who loves the same things, who fears the same things. 

But an intimate friend is something more. An intimate friend shares not only interests and goals, tastes and preferences. She shares a world, a reality. An intimate friend is one who as the same answer to these questions: what is real? what is true? what is beautiful? and most of all, what is love?

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Rādhā’s love is not given externally 

I constantly remember the foot-dust of Śrī Rādhikā, whose unlimited power instantly subdues even the Supreme Person (Śrī Kṛṣṇa), Who Himself cannot be easily seen even by the greatest devotees like Lord Brahmā, or Śiva, Śuadeva Muni, Nārarada Muni and Bhīṣma. 

Prabodhānanda Sarasvatī, Rādhā Rasa Sudhānidhi

In Verse 4 of Rādhā Rasa Sudhānidhi, Prabodhānanda Sarasvatī sings praises of Rādhā in two ways. First, he glorifies the dust of her lotus feet. The power of this dust is so great, he says, that even Kṛṣṇa, God himself is under its power. Then, he notes that she is so glorious that other powerful devotees cannot even see her.   

Dust that is powerful enough to subjugate Kṛṣṇa himself? Gods, demigods and mighty kings who cannot see what they wish to see? What can this mean?

The answer lies in the mystery of Rādhā’s power.

Prabodhānanda describes Rādhā’s power as unlimited, capable of instantly subduing Kṛṣṇa, where other great beings cannot even see him. Her power is greater than any ordinary material power. 

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