Tag: soul

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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What is devotion?

Therefore Bhagavad-gītā should be taken up in a spirit of devotion.

Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda

Bhagavad-gītā takes the form of a dialogue between Arjuna, a noble prince in spiritual need, and Kṛṣṇa. It is the story of Arjuna’s self-discovery as a soul, and therefore our self-discovery as souls as well. In other words, it is an auto-biography of the soul. It’s the story of a soul realising that it is a soul. 

To understand that one is a soul is necessarily a self-discovery. No one can express it to us, no book can explain it to us. Paradoxically, insight into the soul can only be received through the soul. It can only heard through the ‘language’ of the soul, can only be experienced through the ‘senses’ of the soul.

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Doer and viewer

What is consciousness? 

Consciousness means ‘self-awareness’, being aware both that we exist and being aware of what is going on around us, both internally and externally. 

Consciousness is a both a very modern word and a very Western idea. Consciousness is what asks the question ‘who am I?’… and then arrogantly answers it. The answer is usually something like ‘I am someone who knows‘, ‘I am someone wants‘, or ‘I am someone who does‘. 

Our modern, Western consciousness is based on an equally modern, Western idea: the ego.  Consciousness is the ego saying: I perceive, I know, I want, I act, I do. It says: The things I make are the product my own creativity; the experiences I have of the world are the result of my own ability to understand it.  

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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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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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Bhagavad-gītā: What is prema?

Prabhupād’s ‘Introduction’ to his translation and commentary of Bhagavad-gītā, first published in 1972, is a quiet introduction to Bhakti, to the theory and practice of loving devotion. 

Bhagavad-gītā is widely understood both as a masterpiece of Vedic culture and a handbook for Vaishnavism. This has been made clear by countless commentators. But Prabhupād’s ‘Introduction’ and commentary reveals it as much more. In Prabhupād’s reading, Bhagavad-gītā unfolds as an introduction to the eternal truths of Gaudia Vaishanvism, as a pre-history to the life of Caitanya Mahaprabhu who appeared in 1486, and as a key to the understanding of God as prema, as the embodiment of divine loving devotion, in the eternal form of Rādhāmohan.  

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Bhagavad-gītā: An introduction to devotion

Bhagavad-gītā is a conversation between Bhagavān—God in the form of a loving personality—and Arjuna, a noble prince who finds himself in despair. In the course of an exchange that stretches over 18 chapters the seed of friendship in Arjuna’s heart evolves to love for Kṛṣṇa, then beyond, to sweet surrender, a self-less devotion toward God. Despite its title (Song of God), Bhagavad-gītā is not a song about God, but rather about the liberation of the soul through loving devotion.  

A devotee is someone in a mood of devotion to another. Devotion is a special kind of relationship, one we don’t find in our everyday lives. It’s a kind of relationship that is not recognised or valued in modern social relations. In the modern view we would be foolish to look for devotion in public institutions or business practices. And yet if we peel back the false sophistication and pretences of modern life, we will find it there: inspiring, animating, motivating, generating hope, creating trust.   

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The soul must give itself away

True surrender is generosity. We say that to surrender is to be generous with oneself, to give of oneself, to share something intimate with another. But what exactly is being given when we, in our generosity, give of ourselves? What can it mean that we are generous with ourselves, of ourselves, for ourselves, that we give our selves? How can we both give and be given?Who is surrendering and who is surrendered? We are both the giver and the given, we are the giver and the gift. We are the actor and agent of the gift, the object, the thing, the gift that is given. We are divided asunder by the act of generosity.  By giving of our selves we give ourselves and thus our selves away, We give away the self that is the giver, the one who gives. We give the giver. To whom?

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