Appreciating Bhagavatam as rasa shastra
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Hare Krishna Today we are going to be discussing on the topic of appreciating the Srimad Bhagavatam as a Rasa Shastra So I will talk about this topic in four parts First I will talk about the overall theme of the Bhagavatam and its relationship with Rasa Then secondly I will talk about the Rasa tradition which was there in India and how it developed Third I will talk about how Rupa Goswami integrated the Rasa tradition with the Bhakti tradition And fourthly I will talk about how Rupa Goswami and Rupa Goswami have re-envisioned the Bhagavatam as a Rasa literature in terms of the contemporary Rasa theory at that time So firstly Srimad Bhagavatam is akin to a conceptual autobiography of Shri Dev Goswami Normally an autobiography is a narrative of events This happened, this happened, this happened But a conceptual autobiography is a special genre in autobiography where the focus is not on the events that happened in the person's life but it is on the conceptual development of that person So for example what were the person's thinking earlier and how that thinking changed and what were the factors that caused that change That's a conceptual autobiography Now all autobiographies have a conceptual dimension to them Ultimately the story of life involves the story of a person's thinking But a conceptual autobiography is something that doesn't focus on the person as much as it focuses on the thought systems So this we know Shri Dev Goswami was an impersonalist and he became a personalist So in one sense that theme is encapsulated in the first three introductory verses of the Bhagavatam The Bhagavatam begins 1.1.1 with Dhimadi So now the first verse itself is such a concept rich verse that there are scholars in the tradition that is for example Madhusudan Saraswati he wrote a full book on Srimad Bhagavatam 1.1.1 Commenting on just the first verse of the Srimad Bhagavatam So it's a very concept laden verse and the significant thing is Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudeva in the first verse is actually an invocation it is not directly a part of the verse So the first verse is non-sectarian in its definition of the absolute truth It does not mention any specific deity This is that absolute truth to the source of everything and everywhere The source who is the one by whom this false world has been created by whom even those who are virtuous are put into illusion like that he goes on in describing and it concludes with Dhimadi Dhimadi is meditation Now meditation can be personal or impersonal Dhimadi the word is most famously associated with the Gayatri Mantra and usually when the Gayatri Mantra is chanted there is not much of a clear conception of who it is that is being worshipped Although the Gayatri Mantra is not like a Karmakand Mantra where people are concerned only with what material fruits I can get It is more concerned with please illuminate guide me on the path of knowledge please illuminate me with knowledge Some people think that Gayatri refers to Gayatri some people think it refers to Surya different people have different ideas of what it refers to So Dhimadi there the word is not exactly personal although it can be personal if a person with a personal conception does the meditation But Dhimadi the whole first verse is non-specific about the description about who is being invoked So Dhimadi is more like a passive meditation that will be at best enchanted It can be personal meditation or it can be Shantara's meditation How great is that absolute truth As the Bhagavatam moves forward to this third verse Third verse is talking about Pipatha, it is not Dhimadi It is Pipatha, drink Without meditating, drink and relish Rasavaryam Drink and relish Rasika Be a relisher of Rasaka So here the Bhagavatam is moving from moving very explicitly towards a relishable conception of the absolute truth As the Bhagavatam will reveal that that conception is the personal conception And in the Shuddha Bhagavatam out of 335 chapters 90 chapters are the 10th canto And not only that If you look at the second longest canto The 3rd and the 11th cantos are more or less close But even if you see the 11th canto is also about Krishna 35 chapters, either Krishna's actions or Krishna's instructions A major part is Krishna's instructions out of the almost 24 chapters So out of the 335 chapters of the Shuddha Bhagavatam 125, which is more than one third are directly dealing with Krishna And Krishna is Rasaraj And Krishna is the only devata, not just only devata only form of the absolute truth, who is practically referred to in each canto of the Shuddha Bhagavatam So the Bhagavatam is clearly focused on Krishna So the source of Rasa the Bhagavatam indicates is Krishna And the way the Shuddha Goswami develops the Shuddha Bhagavatam Shuddha Goswami actually starts speaking from the 2nd canto The 1st canto is basically setting the scene And the 2nd setting the scene, that means in the 1st canto there is the, this is a whole different subject There is firstly the evolution of the Bhagavatam in terms of Narada means instructing Vyasa That comes in the 4th, 5th, 6th chapters And from the 7th chapter onwards 7th chapter onwards, 15 verses describe how Shuddha Goswami became qualified to teach Shuddha Bhagavatam, and then from that point onwards to the end of the 19th chapter, it is all describing, setting the scene for how Parikshit Maharaj became ready to give the Shuddha Bhagavatam So the 1st canto is essentially setting the scene And the 2nd canto is where the Bhagavatam begins And there are different conceptions of the absolute truth are talked about For example, the universal form Then, it talks about the Bhagavatam talks about envisioning God through matter in 3 ways One is the Virata Rupa in the 2nd canto Then it talks about the Sanukhya in the 3rd canto, in terms of analysis of material elements In the 5th canto, it talks about the cosmology And throughout, the focus is on the development of the conception of God And we see, there are more and more personal conceptions of God from Varaha, who comes in the initial cantos as they move towards Vamana, to Rathnulagar Narasimha, to Ram, and ultimately to Krishna So in this way So The Hindi translation of this lecture is going in a circular way So The Bhagavatam moves towards the 10th canto gradually. Now, Srila Prabhupada names his cantos not so much based on the content of the Bhagavatam He names them, not based on the content of the specific canto of the Bhagavatam He names them based on the 10 subjects of the Bhagavatam So What is talked about in 2.10.1, the 10 subjects of the Bhagavatam Srila Prabhupada correlates that with each canto So, there may not be any direct description of creation in the first canto But that is the first theme of the Srimad Bhagavatam So, Prabhupada names that in the first canto. And Jiyu Goswami explains in the Bhagavatam, that actually all these subjects are talked about in all the cantos.
Not in some cantos there will be more in some cantos there will be less But all of them are talked about. And last two cantos Prabhupada names based on the broad content. General history is the 11th canto And 12th canto is the age of deterioration General history is that Krishna, when he is speaking to Uddhava, he is quoting many historical references.
He is talking about Vimula He is talking about the Audhut Brahmana He is talking about Krishna the Hamsavatar instructing the Kumaras Like that, he tells many angos. So that's general history. And 12th canto is about Kali Yuga So essentially, the Bhagavatam is centered on the 10th and 11th cantos.
Even then on the 10th cantos. And that is where the concept of Rasa in terms of relishing the beauty and the sweetness of the Absolute Truth is most vividly depicted So, I'll come back to this theme of the 10th canto later. Now, let's go to the Rasa tradition See, often although we are personalists we have sometimes a very impersonal conception of Indian history What do you mean by impersonal conception? Not that Indian history is filled with impersonalists.
But that in the past, everyone was a devotee all the time. It was not like that Among all the classical languages. Classical means Greek Latin.
Like that Among all the classical languages that were there between roughly 5th century B.C to 5th century A.D. The maximum atheistic literature are found in Sanskrit Why? Because India was ruled by atheistic doctrines From roughly 5th century B.C when Buddha appeared. Same time Mahavir Jain appeared. Buddhism and Jainism were both atheistic And they were in India Initially, they taught in Prakrit, the local languages.
But as they gained more and more followers, in order to gain respectability, they started writing in Sanskrit also. Nagarjuna was a very prominent Sanskrit scholar. And he was a very prominent Buddhist teacher Shankaracharya took the thought system from Nagarjuna And he showed how that same thought system.
Nagarjuna used to talk about two level reality And Shankaracharya how that was two level reality is there in the Vedas also, in the Upanishads primarily. So the point I am making is that it was not that in India everyone was a devotee The point is that whenever there is a path of Dharma, there is always going to be other ones. There are always going to be people who have different varieties of desires And accordingly they will develop different thought systems So the Rasa tradition was there for a long long time.
But it became very prominent around the 14th, 15th, 16th centuries. About the time when Duryodhana Vishnu manifested So what is the Rasa tradition exactly? The primary book is Bharata Muni's Natya Shastra So Natya Shastra is a book which describes how the Devatas at one time went to Brahmaji. And they asked Brahmaji that we want a form of entertainment that will be both visual, sonic as well as action free And at that time Brahmaji instructed them in Natya Shastra.
And how to perform it is called Dramatarchy Dramatarchy is the systematic study of Dramas So then that concept was developed by various things like Anandvardhan and others. And then there was one Vishnachakra Thakur Vishnacharya. Before that there was another Vishwanth who wrote a commentary on the Natya Shastra Now in Natya Shastra the idea is that there is a Rasika audience Then Rasika means an audience that is refined audience that has some conceptual appreciation Then certain Surula can evoke certain emotions in that audience So the whole point of drama is that is to evoke Rasa in the audience.
So originally as Natya Shastra describes it Rasa was a concept that was primarily meant for Dramas As it is described in Natya Shastra it had nothing to do with Bhakti. It was primarily a concept that in Dramas people how they can evoke certain emotions And that was a hugely developed field and around 14th and 15th century that subject became very very popular that whole idea of drama So everybody who is an intellectual just like today say science may have respectability Say somebody is a scientist then people will respect that person So similarly at that time if anybody was a learner in Natya Shastra If anybody wanted to gain respectability for that message if they could present it through the means of Natya Shastra then they would get a lot of respectability So this was not the case at the time of the previous Vishnu Acharyas For example Ramanuja or Madhava Rasa Shastra was there but it had not become as influential as it had become at the time of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu So Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his followers primarily Guru Swami and Jiva Swami among others also they decided to use the popularity of the Rasa Tradition and present Bhakti in those means So what has Guru Prabhu Swami done in Bhakti Ramcharitmanas He has taken the overall structure that is developed in the Rasa Tradition but he has transposed it from drama which is meant basically for evoking emotions in relationship with non-historical characters The characters in the drama might often be imaginary He has transposed that from drama to real life and in relationship with the Supreme Lord So what does this mean? I will just explain some concepts from the drama and then I will show how Guru Swami has applied it in Bhakti So we hear this term we have Anubhav, Vibhav Avachari Bhav, Sai Bhav We have all this Bhav and we don't get any Bhav We wonder what is all this going on When we hear this term, we get confused So every field as it develops it's natural that it becomes more and more technically specialized and as it becomes more and more technically specialized that technical specialization can be because of many purposes One purpose is that as the field has become more specialized then there has to be more and more precise understanding and communication Just like one doctor talks to another and one doctor talks to the patient The kind of terminology, the kind of concepts we will discuss will be different So these terms Anubhav, Vibhav, Avachari Bhav they are actually technical terms which are developed in Rasa tradition So if you go back to the original Bharatpur Natya Shastra the terms he uses there are very simple So I will use those terms and then I will link with them with these terms So he basically talks that in a drama there are three main things There is Karana, Karya and Savakarya So for example there is a comedy I will take a secular example then I will come to a devotional example So there is a comedy So in the comedy the Karana is the setting So normally if you want to do a comedy you cannot do it in a graveyard In that setting will be inappropriate So there is a particular setting or suppose somebody wants to show romance there you may show forest, you may show rains, you may show beautiful weather maybe some peacocks and peahen dancing together. So all this is the Karya, it is the environment the setting Then there is a Karya The Karya is the action that is there.
So in a comedy a person might make a joke In a romance the hero and the heroine might dance together, whatever So and then Savakarya is the assisting emotions the assisting emotions I will come to Savakarya a little later Now going back to Karya In Karya Karya is the environment In the environment there are two aspects to it There is the inactive setting and there are the active players In the Karya See Karya is what the players do Karya is what is present So in what is present there will be the setting in terms of the background environment and then there will be the place there will be the character as well So For example If there is a comedy Now in some comedies there is a person who looks a little bit like a clown So that person will be there Will be there What? Karya So now this these two things, the environment and the character So the character is called the Anambal and the environment is called as the Uddipal The Alambal and the Uddipal So for example Now there is a clown like character He is the Alambal and when he speaks sometimes like a joke then sometimes in many comedy shows they have a background where people are laughing So that is the Uddipal So So when we hear people laughing, we know I should answer the joke, let me also laugh So there is the Alambal and there is the Uddipal So now I will go back a bit There is Karya, Karana, Samakarti So Karya is what the action is So for example the cracking of a joke The Karana is the person who is going to crack the joke And then whatever setting is there whatever passive setting is there, there is the Alambal and the Uddipal So now coming to Rupa Goswami's terminology Rupa Goswami he uses the existing terminology at that time So Vibhava is the Karya Anubhava is the Karya Sahakari is the Gravicharya So Vibhava has to two parts to it Vibhava has Alambal and Uddipal This is because it is technical Let me make things a little simpler Let's bring it to Krishnalila So for example when Krishna is going to steal Patal So Now if the butter is kept in a public place where anybody can see and anybody can catch then that Karana is not suitable So the butter is kept in a dark place where it is locked and Krishna and his friend have some fun finding some way to break into it and they are all making noise and they are making more noise by that itself So all that is creativity So Krishna and his Gopas they are the Alambal They are the players of the game and they are like Yashodamayi Where is Krishna gone? And she is searching So they are also part of the Alambal Now Krishna goes inside Let's take a more specific example So Yashodamayi and Krishna Krishna is drinking milk from Yashodamayi's breast and then because of the milk boiling over Krishna becomes angry and then he thinks I want to do some mischief he breaks the pot that is there and he goes further to see what else he can do So he goes and sees where the things are stored. Now when he goes over there that is a place which is different from where Yashodamayi is it's a different room and along with him, monkeys also appear over there. So as he breaks the pot he gives it all to the monkeys So all this setting So Krishna is climbing on a Ukhala and then Krishna is beckoning the monkeys and feeding the monkeys.
All this is a part of that which is creating the emotion So when Yashodamayi comes along Yashodamayi comes on tiptoe where is Krishna? She says Krishna and she wants to catch Krishna red-handed. Not red-handed white-handed So she wants to catch him with butter in his hand. He comes sneakily behind and Krishna doesn't see So what happens is the monkeys ahead of him see and when the monkeys see them, they just say Krishna is coming Krishna is in trouble now.
We should not be in trouble we should run away. And they start running away and Krishna understands something is wrong and turns around and sees Yashodamayi That time all the enjoyment that he is getting is transformed to terror He jumps off and starts running away from them So now all these actions which Krishna does So these invoke so there is an interplay of emotion between Krishna and Yashodamayi and these emotions comprise rasa Saraswati explains that there is an eternal level of reality where Krishna's pastimes are happening and that also happens here in this world when it descends Now we as sadhakas want to experience spiritual emotions The part of bhakti, its speciality is that it makes emotions into pathways to the divine If you see the impersonal path it says emotions are the obstacle to the divine. Give up emotions Then you will be able to attain the spiritual level of reality But bhakti says emotions are the path to the divine But what kind of emotions? Not all emotions We have to choose refined emotions Just like I was giving the example of Rasika For example say a Bharatanatyam dance is being performed and say a very skilled female dancer is performing a particular dance where she is Yashodamayi and there is Krishna and there is this chilli butter going on Now if a person has an understanding of Bharatanatyam, has an understanding of Krishna Leela then that person can appreciate how beautifully the pastime is being acted But if a person is not Rasika then all that if there is a male audience, all that the male audience sees are the female and they see the female's body and all that they get over there is lust So the point is that Rasika if Rasa is to be experienced, the audience has to be Rasika So unless the consciousness is cultivated properly, one cannot experience emotions and we are talking about elevated emotions, spiritual emotions So here what Krishna is saying or what Rupa Goswami explains is that we all want to experience spiritual emotions and when we become purified when we attain Krishna at that time we can all experience spiritual emotions but what do we do while we are going towards purification So he says at that time, we can do sadhana bhakti which invokes spiritual awareness So we expose ourselves to as many spiritually evocative stimuli as possible That means we are talking about uddhipan here, uddhipan, if you see Bhaktivinoda Thakur in some songs, he says uddhipan and he talks about how the young man, for example is a uddhipan So for Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, when he would see any river, it would appear to be like so what is happening the river is stimulating spiritual remembrance is stimulating remembrance of Krishna In the world that we live today we have a lot of materialistic uddhipan There are so many stimuli all around us that they stimulate material desires and material emotions very strongly but the whole process of bhakti is to kindle spiritual uddhipan within us So there is, Rupa Goswami talks about raga bhakti and raga atmika bhakti So raga atmika bhakti is the kind of bhakti that is practiced by the elevated devotees Raga is attachment to Krishna That is atmika, it is present in their atma itself So for them, it is a natural emotion But for us we can be raga anuka So anuka means we follow those who are having raga So when the advanced devotees will experience spiritual emotion spontaneously we can experience spiritual emotion through conscious cultivation Rupa Goswami's definition of bhakti is what? Anusheelanam Anusheelanam, Prabhupada translates as cultivation He explains that Anusheelanam is a combination of cheshta and bhava Cheshta is endeavor and bhava is emotion Normally we think that when there is bhava, there is no cheshta required Like people say they talk about falling in love People say I fell in love It's like you fall into a ditch when you fall in love That's an idea So the idea is that their emotion is something which is automatically awakened Now, yes that sort of emotion may be awakened automatically between two people But that emotion is hardly ever sustainable for a long time Yes, there may be love at first sight, but what happens in the relationship will depend on what people do after many sites So the emotion may come spontaneously in some occasions That is okay, but for that emotion to be sustainable there has to be conscious effort Any relationship, if it has to be sustained, there may be initial attraction, there may not be initial attraction, but if the relationship has to be sustained, there has to be conscious effort So now the difference between the relationship we form with others in this world and the relationship we form with Krishna is that the soul has a natural attraction for Krishna And the soul, as the soul becomes purified, the relationship with Krishna will become more and more active and strong But it requires cultivation Manushree ilanam means cheshta and bhava So we try to do those activities which stimulate spiritual emotion in us So for example we study the Srimad Bhagavatam We chant the holy names In all these, Krishna is manifesting as the holy name as the bhagavatam, as the deities When Krishna manifests what is our cheshta to expose ourselves to be stimulated as much as possible And not just expose ourselves Also that exposure has to be with bhava We do not have a lot of bhava right now But whatever bhava we have, whatever emotion we have, we try to invest that in the devotional activities that we are doing And when we do thus, then by that, so there is a little microscopic bhava that will be there But with the bhava, if we do cheshta, that is anushevanam And by that anushevanam, that bhava will grow.
Krishna said So he says in 12.9 that If you cannot spontaneously fix your mind on me, then practice sadhana, that is abhyasa And by that what will happen, he wants you to attain me That is how much it was He would attain desire for me And once we get the desire for Krishna as Rupa Goswami says If you have strong desire for Krishna, you will attain Krishna also So we have whatever little emotion we have we invest that in the practice sadhana bhakti and by that our emotion grows stronger So now with this thought framework What does Rupa Goswami do? Let's see how he looks at Srimad Bhagavatam So, the Srimad Bhagavatam uses the word Rasa Rasa Malayam And words one of the characteristics of words is that their meanings don't stay static throughout history The meanings of words keep changing And because of that for example, we have the Nimamsaka Sutra It begins just like we have the Vedanta Sutra So we have the Nimamsaka Sutra, which begins with Athato Dharmaji So, now let us know what is Dharma But now if we look at the Nimamsaka Sutra of Jainism, we will find that his definition of Dharma is very different from the definition of Dharma that we get in the bhakti tradition His idea of Dharma is primarily those ritualistic activities that take people towards heaven because that is primarily the Karma Nimamsa focused on doing duties by which one will attain heaven So his idea of Dharma is the specific code of conduct which will elevate one to heaven It does not talk about liberation or grace It just talks about beautiful execution of prescribed code of conduct That is his conceptual Dharma So like that, the definition of Rasa that is there at different times will be different So the Bhagavad Gita when it talks about Rasa the word Rasa, most of us we have probably heard about it before we came to Krishna Maharshi Ambras and Karnas Ambras That's all that the idea of Rasa was there But the Bhagavad Gita when it talks about Rasa it is referring primarily to taste Rasa, I have this filled with taste filled with juice, filled with nectar so drink that nectar So the way the Bhagavad Gita does not use any of the terminology of Natya Shastra It talks about the concept of Rasa but does not use, in the Bhagavatam you don't find Anubhav, Abhichari, Bhav, Vibhav or Kare, Karnas and Akari These are two different traditions So the Bhakti tradition of which Bhagavatam is a prominent book and then the Rasa tradition of which Natya Shastra was a defining book Now what Rupa Goswami did was he brought about marriage and how he did that is taking the structure of the Rasa Shastra and the content from the Bhagavatam, the structure from Natya Shastra and content from Bhagavatam and that way he presented the Bhagavatam to his audience that was the people of his times who were very much enamored by the concept of Rasa Shastra So now when I say that Rupa Goswami presented this what exactly do we mean by this see the emotion in the heart when we are attracted to Krishna, when we are attracted to Krishna, any form of God that emotion is an eternal reality that emotion was there, if you look at there is a whole different seminar I have, I talk about how the concept of, the definition of Bhakti which is say given by Ramanujacharya the definition of Bhakti given by Madhvacharya, the definition of Bhakti given by Vallabhacharya the definition of Bhakti given by Nimbakaswamy and then the definition of Bhakti given by Rupa Goswami how these definitions of Bhakti are evolving and how Rupa Goswami is the highest definition of Bhakti for example Ramanujacharya talks about Bhakti is Vimavana Siddhi it is constant deep remembrance of Krishna of the Lord, that is what Bhakti is Madhvacharya says Bhakti is remembrance of the Lord with reverence so like that there are different Acharyas I am just mentioning briefly over here but the point is that Bhakti as the attraction of the heart towards the Lord is an eternal experience that any soul who is attracted to the Lord will have but presenting that experience in terms of Rasa, in terms of Rasa theory was what Rupa Goswami did so just like one of our devotee scholars he wanted to present he was in academic conference he wanted to present the concept of Radha and Krishna so now you go to academic conferences you have to use very just say Radha and Krishna the Lord and his concept what is this? so he says Radha and Krishna embody the primordial masculine cosmological principle and feminine cosmological principle so primordial masculine cosmological principle wow! so now God as the absolute truth exists eternal but this particular terminology used to explain God is something which will vary according to context so like that the experience of the heart's love for Krishna that is eternal experience but presenting it in terms of Rasa theory was what Rupa Goswami did so now we are not going to focus on understanding Rasa theory because that itself is a whole subject and it is not so relevant now because for most of you and for me also just some time ago the whole idea of Rasa was quite vague so today the Rasa theory is not very popular so if we try to present Bhakti according to Rasa theory it's like we are piling unfamiliar among unfamiliar Bhakti itself is not very familiar to people and then you present further so it just doesn't make any sense to people so the whole need for a living tradition the whole need for a living tradition is that the living tradition has to present the eternal message in contemporary terms in contemporary terms so we have Prabhupada's example when he was among the hippies they asked him that what if we ask Prabhupada what is Vaikuntha like so Prabhupada said what did he say it's like an ocean of electricity if somebody goes very Shastraised and said that Vaikuntha is like ocean of electricity nowhere did they say it like that and how is Prabhupada presenting something like this see there is the point of teaching is not just to get it right it is also to get it across to get it right means I will speak everything for example if somebody is Sanskrit scholar and that person gives a class in perfect Sanskrit and nobody in the audience understands Sanskrit you got it all right and you got it all wrong you got it all right in terms of speaking Sanskrit but nobody understood it so what is the point of it so the point is not just to get it right the point is to get it across get it across means we have to make sure that people understand what is being spoken that's why we have Prabhupada so Krishna is saying that so Krishna is saying that that road is not illuminated by sun, moon or fire and Prabhupada has electricity over there now where did electricity come from now some of us may say that oh somewhere in some tradition some Viddhita is there ok even if Viddhita is there it is not there yet in the Bhagavad Gita so what is Prabhupada going over here if we look at the verse its main point is that the word that is spiritual world does not require any external source of luminosity this is 15.6 and Krishna contrasts the spiritual world in 15.12 with the material world so here he is using the same three things the sun, moon and fire these three illuminate this world so the point of this verse is that the spiritual world is self luminous and in that way it is different from the material world which depends on the external source of luminosity when Prabhupada is speaking to his audiences now most much of his audience for them the primary source of luminosity is electricity in an urbanized setting we often use so much in artificial lighting that the primary source of when we say light has gone that means we think not the sun has set we think our power has gone that's what we normally think of so to communicate the point that spiritual world is self luminous it does not require external source of luminosity that what is Prabhupada doing Prabhupada is saying over there that electricity so when there is translation if the translation is to be a commentary or explanation if it is to be a living commentary, a living explanation then it has to be presented in terms that are contemporary intelligible for that if we are not contemporary intelligible that's what actually how did Buddhism and Jainism spread so much in India because at that time the Brahmins were very proud we are hermit and we have the Vedas and it's present in Sanskrit and most people couldn't understand Sanskrit and when Buddhism and Jainism started presenting themselves in the vernacular languages in Pali and Prakrit the Brahmins didn't care those are low class languages, who bothers about it yes, you may say that low class languages, but that is what people are talking in and so the Brahmins were presenting, they were expounding on the Vedas and Sanskrit and nobody was hearing and Buddhists and Jainist thinkers were presenting in vernacular languages and people were hearing and people were transforming so this is an example of language here we see Prabhupada's pragmatism that Prabhupada presented in English because English was for whatever reason the language which the world is using largely so he presented in English, that's how his message had such enormous reach so presenting either in a contemporary language or contemporary thought process so at that time what is Rupa Goswami resourcefulness is that he took the message of Bhakti and he presented it in terms of Rasa Shastra and in that way he made that message appealing for his audience so we don't have to understand the Rasa Shastra in detail but what we need to understand is the principle underlying it is the awakening of refined emotions the awakening, so what Rasa is used over here is that the word Rasa, as Rupa Goswami uses in Bhakti Samhita is that the emotion that is experienced in connection with the Lord when certain stimuli are provided and certain actions are done, so there is Karya, Karna, Savakari so for example now when we do Kirtan when Prabhupada went to the west and there in lower east side now there actually speaking that was such a utterly anti-devotional environment it is difficult to imagine a greater cultural mismatch than what was there between Prabhupada and his followers you know this is for followers Prabhupada the person who was a born Vaishnava, cultured person who was now a Sanyasi, lived a pure life never drank even tea in his life and here there were young people for whom the regulative principle of their life was to break all regulative principles they lived for drugs and they lived for sex and there was in fact LSD which was a drug the one good thing about LSD it is a chemical but these people, they had an idea that this drug will take us to the truth so they had re-christianized LSD as the league of spiritual discovery so those who are taking LSD we have all joined the league of spiritual discovery and we are going to discover spiritual truth so the idea was that if anybody takes LSD then after that if a person starts speaking something oh he is getting revelation from the god of LSD please go down and hear what he has to say so you had to actually somebody go into LSD hallucination and start speaking the whole culture was to respect that person what is he speaking, what dwells of truth are going to fall over his legs so so it was Prabhupada went in that culture and it was a huge cultural mismatch but within that cultural mismatch what was it that linked what was it that linked devotees together what was it that linked Prabhupada and his disciples together that was the call of spiritual love that was the call of spiritual love that was manifested through the omniscience now all of us we have many cultural dissimilarities we are males, we are females, we are Indians we are non-Indians, we are South Indians, we are North Indians all kinds of external cultural differences are there but underlying it is the heart and the heart longs for lasting love and the longing of the heart for lasting love can be fulfilled when the heart comes in contact with the supreme object of lasting love that is Krishna so Srila Prabhupada's Srila Prabhupada's experience Srila Prabhupada's potential was that he by the power of the omniscience by the power of the spiritual love which he injected the omniscience into the hearts of his listeners it cut across all boundaries and it interacted their hearts that is the universality of the message of Bhakti and I just a few months ago I was in Australia so I met Devamukh Maharaj there so he was telling me that there is one devotee who is going to write a biography of Devamukh Maharaj and I was telling him Maharaj you are very wonderful you are a trans-world glance you are African-American you are educated in India preached in Soviet Russia and now you are based in Australia so I was a glorious fan it will be a book of global interest so I asked Maharaj how he started preaching in Australia so Maharaj said that I came to Australia and he said they had a restaurant over there I will just go and sit in the restaurant and whoever comes to the restaurant I will just let them talk and I will hear it what Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did with Sarovar Bhattacharya 7 days they just and after getting them speak for 7 days what happens is that this person hears me this person is open-minded and soft-hearted and then after that he would speak then when he would speak the people would hear so he said that the main thing you understand when people speak is how little they understand so this is not a disrespect to any country's citizens this is the level of people everywhere in life so the point is that he said that actually speaking when we communicate intellectually to people people have so many conceptual barriers and I met some of the Australian devotees there so they have a special way of preaching where they do not go at all in any emotional garb which is a fear entirely as secular people so there was so one Mataji was saying if I had seen someone who would put clay on their head I would never have joined such a cult they are coming from a culture where the idea of tillak is completely incomprehensible utterly incomprehensible he says you are putting clay who are the kind of people? there are some tribal native Australians or red Indians they used to put clay on their head so who wants to join a primitive group like that so then what was it that attracted them? yes intellectually present that is good but ultimately whatever intellectual differences are there whatever cultural differences are there whatever racial gender differences are there beyond it all is the heart that mounts for them and the whole point of Bhakti Rasa is that it evokes the heart and as long as the heart is not evoked till that time the person may get some attraction may have some understanding but as long as the Bhakti Rasa is not evoked as long as the heart is not attracted there will not be any sustainable transformation so what Shri Adi Prabhupada was able to do was that he if we see many of Shri Adi Prabhupada's disciples they might not be at least in the initial stages they might not be very learned in philosophy but Prabhupada can infuse Bhakti Rasa into their hearts by his personal purity by his potency and by his sharing Krishna and the holy name with them and because that Bhakti Rasa was invoked when Guru Das was writing this book Swamiji I was helping in editing that book so he said that what was the situation for us so like Krishna played the flute and give up everything else and go towards Krishna so like that Prabhupada told us do this Prabhupada told us go to Pakistan go to Pakistan we will think 10 times we are going to go to Pakistan you know it will become Yathwana so we were thinking like that Prabhupada told us go to Pakistan it was there it is one thing to go to Pakistan even now devotees will go in secular dress and conceal their identity it is quite a rare thing to go to Pakistan and do Bhakti Harinam Sankirtan in the streets of Pakistan that's what the devotees did we might call that as reckless now and we might not do it now but it is fine the point is that they were able to do that because they were so spiritually captivated so the the potency of Rasa that is experienced in the process of Bhakti is so great that it completely transforms the life of a person now we, have we experienced Rasa at all? if we had not experienced any Rasa at all then we would not be practicing Bhakti I conclude with this point that can we experience Krishna's love at our stage in life our consciousness is gradually awakening right now say a mother is a small baby and the baby is lying on the bed sleeping and suddenly the atmosphere becomes cool and the baby starts shivering and the mother sees that the baby is shivering and the mother takes a rug and rubs it carefully around the baby but the baby, especially the baby is newborn or just a few months it doesn't understand much it may drink milk from the mother's breast but the baby doesn't even understand that there is a mother and there is the milk coming and there is the mother who loves me and is giving me milk this drinks milk from the breast of the mother I am getting milk, that's all so, especially a newborn baby is fully an Anna Mayakosh everything is potential food so, it will take his finger and put it in the mouth, it will take his leg and put it in the mouth whatever objects it will get Parichaya, the introduction is what happens to the baby so, that is Anna Mayakosh now at that stage the consciousness is so primitive that not primitive in a derogatory sense in an underdeveloped sense that the that the baby will not understand at that time that there is my mother and my mother has put this blanket on my body but what the baby will know is that I was feeling uncomfortable earlier and now I am feeling comfortable I was cold and now I am feeling warm so, that warmth from where it is coming the baby doesn't understand but there is the warmth that is experienced so, similarly we are like a stigma spiritual infants and at this stage we cannot, we don't really see Krishna coming, we don't see Krishna present in our heart, we may not have that kind of visual experiences but we can at our level experience relief and shelter in the remembrance of Krishna we all have this experience at some time or the other we may be agitated, either agitated because of some problems and anxieties or agitated because of some too strong desires and then we come to the temple just take darshan of Krishna some nice kirtan is going on and we feel relief we start reciting some verses, studying some scripture we feel relief now, we may not feel the same kind of relief all the time in each of the activities that is really because depending on the mood that we are in the extent of exposure to Krishna that is required to lift us up from a lower mood towards transcendence, may be but the point is all of us have had some experience like that so that experience of relief and shelter and strength that we get in the remembrance of Krishna our experience is like that baby experience of feeling relief when a blanket is put on so it is the experience is real but our consciousness is not developed enough to make sense of the experience that this shelter, this relief this satisfaction that I am experiencing this, where is it coming from? so we understand based on faith based on faith in scripture that at my level this is the way I experience Krishna's love we may not feel Krishna coming and embracing us we may not feel any of the ways in which Krishna expresses love to his devotees in his pastimes but the relief the shelter, the satisfaction, the strength that we experience in remembrance of Krishna in absorption of Krishna that is rasa experience of our level and when Prabhupada says ye na ke na prakara Prabhupada quotes the scriptures somehow or the other remember Krishna what that means is that it is for us to take responsibility how we can best remember Krishna bhakti is not a stereotype some devotees may chant 64 rounds some devotees chant 128 rounds some devotees chant 192 rounds yes, if you want to chant more rounds and if you feel inspired by chanting if you feel enlivened by chanting it is wonderful but different devotees may be enlivened in different ways if we are chanting 64 rounds and what we are doing essentially is counting when is the 64 rounds getting over and we are looking how is this being having 128 rounds means there are 128 things better remember Krishna in some other way it's not that professor of bhakti is not about torturing ourselves the professor of bhakti is about transcending ourselves our present conception of ourselves as the body we want to transcend that and there is a standard process of bhakti which we all follow but beyond that how we can get attracted to Krishna that is our responsibility so what will act as a uddhipan for me will be different from what will act as uddhipan for you and what will act as uddhipan for you will be something different so we can't mandate everything as a one size fits all formula so there is that move for individuality in bhakti and we find out what is the uddhipan for us some devotee may just like singing some vishnu songs and even when they are singing songs it is not that we have a memory of the whole song sometimes even one line of a song might trigger a spiritual might inspire something the important point is how I can connect to my heart with Krishna that is where we are experiencing rasa that is our uddhipan so the way we can apply this for rasa analysis what the Bhagavatam does is Bhagavatam offers us Krishna's costumes the largest part of the Bhagavatam is Krishna's costumes and through those Krishna's costumes they are the paradigm they are the standard examples of raga and the bhaktas and what Amrit Goswami does is he gives examples of those bhaktas to talk about how raga and the bhaktas can be practiced so the characters in the Bhagavatam they become models and he recommends that we use them as models and apply them in our mind to absorb the remembrance of Krishna to absorb ourselves in the company of Krishna now the specific way in which bhakti is to be practiced that will vary according to the circumstances so the way if we look at our Gaudiya tradition the way bhakti sadhana was done till Bhakti Murtha and the way bhakti sadhana was done after Bhakti Murtha is substantially different because the culture changed dramatically the principle of connecting with Krishna is the same but that connection with Krishna will vary according to the circumstances now it's a very rigid conception, for example many of us we hear the classical fast spiritual master through some recordings now recordings were not there earlier so it is still shown, but it's a so that is sambandha, abhidheya and prayojan sambandha, krishna, abhidheya, bhakti prema, prayojan Bhakti Chaitanya Chaitanya says this so in this sambandha and prayojan, the object of which you call the relationship is Krishna that remains unchanging prayojan, the goal of developing love for Krishna remains unchanging but abhidheya the process by which we will connect with Krishna, that is bound to change not change in the sense that we are going to put some other deity instead of Krishna, but change in the sense that the practical means by which we will connect with Krishna will be different. Bhakti sadhana in his books never put any pictures Prabhupada in his books wanted pictures. Why is that? Because the standard of book publishing at the time of Mahatma Gandhi was that religious books did not have pictures but then there is that, what is that popular photography called? These simple pictures which came up, they are sold on the streets all the time that sort of photography became very popular by the time Prabhupada should leave it and all books have pictures, but only a few pictures so the abhidheya, how we connect with Krishna that will vary according to time that will vary according to person to person so the practical application of rasa theory for us is that there is higher emotion that is to be awakened and there are deeper which will awaken that higher emotion and how that will be awakened will vary according to person to person and when we recognize this and see what is it what level of bhakti what activity of bhakti what attracts me to Krishna and as we take emotional responsibility for linking to consciousness of Krishna then by that we show Krishna our oneness and then we can move onwards towards Krishna's time so to summarize I started by talking about the process of bhakti as is talked in the Srimad Bhagavatam the conceptual evolution of Shivdev Goswami conceptual autobiography from dhimani to rasamalayam and then I talked about the rasa tradition I talked about kare karan sahakari, how this was primarily in the field of drama traditionally in India but Rupa Goswami adapted it for the process of bhakti and he presented bhakti in contemporary terms and I talked about how that is the responsibility of living tradition and teaching the tradition how Prabhupada presented bhakti in contemporary terms and then the practical application of this is in terms of deepened for us we find out what is it that stimulates rasa gana, stimulates our emotions in our heart and we kindle that higher emotion in a way that we will be able to be propelled by emotions towards Krishna and not by our own emotions attract away from Krishna Thank you very much.
Are there any more questions?