How can spontaneous devotion be practiced in shanta-rasa?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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Thank you. Hare Krishna.
Question by Janvi Priyamata ji. Is Shanta one of the five relationships in which spontaneous devotional service is performed? Normally, if any form of devotional service has awe and reverence, then that is not considered spontaneous. So how can Shanta be considered spontaneous? Answer, you have to understand that whenever there is any system of taxonomy, taxonomy means classification.
There is a conceptual classification and there is the translation of that conceptual classification into real life. And it’s like we have the map of India and Pakistan or India and Nepal. Now on a map, it looks very neat.
But actually, if you go in real life, it’s not that every country’s border has a clear marking. This is India. This is China.
Some disputed territories may have clear marking. But other places, it may just be this river marks, say this is Canada, this is USA. But then somebody may say, OK, how much of the river is USA? How much of the river is Canada? Is it like 50% of it or 50% of it? We don’t know.
So the point is, we can’t have hair splitting details when we get into applying system of taxonomy. So in Vrindavan also, we have trees. The trees, they at one level could be said to be in Shantarasa because they are not doing any active service.
If we look at the system of classification, that is, or the criteria for classification that is given in Chetan Charita Amrit, in Chetan Mahaprabhu’s instruction to Rupa Goswami and later to Sanatana Goswami, he says that Shantarasa is characterized by two things. Complete detachment from matter and complete attachment to the Lord. But the addition in the next rasa, that is Dasya rasa is that, these two are already there, but along with that, there is the active desire to serve, not just absorb oneself in meditating on the Lord.
But there is a desire to serve. So when the desire to serve is there, then that becomes Dasya rasa. So now interestingly, Vishwanath Chakravarthakur also says that the yogis, when they meditate and they become purified, meditate on the Supreme Lord, they will attain Vaikuntha in Shantarasa.
But if they are attracted to Krishna, sometimes they may even attain Goloka and become trees. So this means that not everyone in Shantarasa is necessarily lacking in spontaneity. There they may have attraction towards Krishna and they may have spontaneous attraction towards Krishna.
But that attraction may not necessarily… So is there ava and reverence? There can be, there need not be. It depends on how one has been attracted to Krishna, what process one has followed, what one’s background is. So the trees… Actually everything in Vrindavan is permeated with the mood of Madhuri.
Because even the trees, they want to give shade to Krishna. Even the grass, the grass wants to be as soft as possible so that Krishna, when he puts his foot, Krishna has a very comfortable experience over there. So everything in Vrindavan is ultimately assisting the pastimes of Radha and Krishna.
So even the trees are permeated with that mood. So at one level we can say they are in Shantarasa. But at another level they are also fully, according to the particular forms that they have, fully assisting in the conjugal pastimes of Radha and Krishna.
They are also permeated with the mood of Madhuri. So yes, so that means some souls in the spiritual world, in the bodies of trees, can be performing spontaneous devotional service in Vrindavan but they are permeated with the mood of Madhuri but their particular flavor is Shanta. So this is why Shantarasa need not necessarily be in awe and reverence alone.
One may be Shanta in the sense of just passively observing and meditating and that may be the way in which Krishna wants certain souls to serve and the souls also want to serve in that way. So in Vrindavan trees are needed, flowers and grass is needed. That is the pastoral setting of Vrindavan.
So who are the souls who are going to do that and what is their rasa going to be? So their rasa at one level we could say is Shanta but it is permeated with Madhuri. And they are not, because they are all assisting in the Madhuri pastimes, Madhuri pastimes of Vrindavan, Chal Madhuras, so they cannot be said to be having awe and reverence too much. They are actually performing spontaneous devotional service.
This is how it is possible to relate with Krishna spontaneously even through Shanta.