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Diversity in Gaudiya Vaisnavism
27th of May, 2007 - 11:45
A fellow Vaisnava wrote to me, asking about the flavor of Gaudiya Vaisnavism I followed since joining the Gaudiya Kutir. (Not that the Kutir is a movement to join!) He understood, reading my profile and the faq page at the Kutir's website, that there must be a fair deal of plurality among the Gaudiya Vaisnava tradition, and wanted to hear more. Here's what ensued.
The Meaning of the Word Guru
25th of May, 2007 - 22:16
Today I ended up browsing the website of Alan Kazlev, a prolific author who has written some articles of interest concerning guru, guru-hood and related challenges. This blog entry, originally an e-mail to him, concerns a misgiving I had about objections on the meaning of the word "guru". Some of his writings were of substantial interest in reflecting my past experiences with guru-figures — expect to read related reflections in the future.
Madhukari and discovering prema
14th of May, 2007 - 12:00
These are some notes I wrote to a friend concerning madhukari, the practice of collecting almsfood from houses, and especially from the houses of Vrajavasis — which is the way most bhajananandi-mahatmas of the past would sustain their lives.

Doing madhukari, dainya awakens in the heart and the svarupa of the dhama begins to unveil...


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Madhukari and discovering prema
Posted: 14th of May, 2007 - 12:00
These are some notes I wrote to a friend concerning madhukari, the practice of collecting almsfood from houses, and especially from the houses of Vrajavasis — which is the way most bhajananandi-mahatmas of the past would sustain their lives.



Doing madhukari, dainya awakens in the heart and the svarupa of the dhama begins to unveil. As the dhama is a manifestation of the sandhini-sakti, and is rough on the surface for our perceptions alone, so are the dhama-vasis, whether people, animals or vegetation. Perceiving them with humility and regarding them as worshipable as the dhama itself opens the path to the aprakata-dhama, and the aparadha of disregarding or treating the dhama-vasis with contempt cuts the from our eyes the strands that connect the drisyamana-dhama and the aprakata-dhama. This is why the mahatmas of the past were carefree in collecting madhukari. Madhukari from the Vrajavasis' houses is not collected only for filling the belly, it is collected for attaining prema.

With regards to thoughts of the Vrajavasis not being pure, being in need of purification, and so forth. Of course, to mundane eyes they exhibit a host of habits unfit for a sadhaka, and so forth. Compare this to the dirt floating atop Radha-kunda. The dirt would never stop you from admiring and worshiping the kunda, or from drinking the kunda's water — liquid prema! Read the following from Pandit Baba's vyakhya on the first verse of Manah-siksa, where Sripada advises his mind to develop unprecedented rati for the residents of Vraja:

Sripad Raghunatha then prays for having a wonderful attachment to the Vrajavasis, the residents of the Vraja-dhama. Here the word Vrajavasis must be understood to mean those who live in Vraja-dhama in the broadest sense of the word. The scriptures and the saints say that although the dhama is a transcendental place, it assumes a material form out of mercy to the people of the world. In the same way, the residents of the dhama are also assuming a material nature, althoguh they are completely transcendental. Therefore, although some rough edges may be perceived in the behavior of the Vrajavasis, we should consider this to be due to the contaminated state of our minds, senses and intelligence and remain fully devoted to them.

vRndATavI vimala-cid-ghana-sattva-vRndAraka-pravara- vRnda-munIndra-vandyA (Vrindavana-mahimamrita 1.44) — "Those who reside in the forest of Sri Vrindavana have all attained spiritual bodies and they are praised by the demigods and the greatest sages." Therefore Srila Prabodhananda Sarasvati desires to serve all the moving and nonmoving creatures of Vraja with the topmost devotion (VM 1.61):

sevA vRndAvana-stha-sthira-cara-nikareSv astu me hanta ke vA
devA brahmAdayaH syus tata uru-mahitA vallabhA ye vrajendoH /
ete hy advaita sac-cid-ghana-vapuSo dUra-dUrAtidUra-
sphUrjan-mAhAtmya-vRndA bRhad-upaniSad-AnandajAnanda-kandAH //



"May I attain the service of the moving and non-moving creatures of Vrindavana. Aho! They are naturally very dear to Krishna, the moon of Vraja, and they are even more worshipable than the demigods, headed by lord Brahma. The glories of these transcendental, nondifferentiated bodies cannot be understood by tiny human brains, and they are they cause of bliss even to the Upanisads!"

There are a host of verses along these lines, and even more to the point of disregarding the "rough edges" as Pandit Baba has it, in Prabodhananda's work. Bhangabihari Vidyalankara notes in his Manah-siksa-tika:

goSThAlayiSu vrajavAsiSu ahaM sadAcArI sadA bhagavad-bhajanAnusandhanavAn asau punar etad rahitaM kim anena saGgatyeti kumati tyAga pUrvakaM tad Alokana tat prArthanAdinA.

"'I am following all the regulative principles of cleanliness, and I am always eager to perform bhajana; why should I again associate with them (the Vrajavasis), who don't have these characteristics?' Having given up such folly intellect, one should look at them, pray to them, and so forth."

The issue of accepting madhukari is only an issue as long as this faith has not awakened. Equipped with faith as described above, the foodstuffs begged from the houses of the Vrajavasis are givers of prema as much as the water of Radha-kunda and the dust on the alleys of Govardhana is — no matter its shape before our eyes. And again without such faith, adverse effects may be had — just as one may get seriously ill from drinking the kunda's water without faith.

One baba advised me, "When taking madhukari, always meditate on its being cooked by Lalita, Visakha and the other sakhis — then there will be prema while eating." I can tell you from experience that the devotional effects of madhukari are far beyond anything I have ever experienced from any other preparations. And again, drinking the kunda's water while meditating on its prema-svarupa, and so forth — bhai, these are very powerful forms of sadhana, as they have you directly linked with divine substance of astonishing powers.

Yes, one can of course think like this with all foods and get a positive effect! There is, however, a subtle difference there. With the foods begged from the houses of the Vrajavasis, the process is a discovery of unperceived qualities, while with other cookings it is more of a superimposition — just like the difference between drinking water from or bathing directly in Radha-kunda, and invoking sacred waters into a bucket or a container.
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