If I had to pick the most misunderstood topic in the Caitanya tradition today, it would have to be jīva-tattva. The ontology of the jīva as taught in the Sandarbhas is fundamental to the bhakti tradition but few know and understand it clearly. The same types of questions […]
A skeptical reader asked where Śrī Jīva Goswami explicitly states that experience, which is a type of perception, requires a mind-body complex. That this is so is a rather commonplace feature of Vedantic thought, although the reader seemed to think that this is somehow a feature of the […]
Q: I saw on social media that some quote text 5 of Anuccheda 4 of Bhagavat-sandarbha about how the jiva ‘regains its natural position’, proving that the jīva falls down from the spiritual world. Can you kindly explain what that text says? A: Sure. First, a rule to […]
This is my final article on the series of refutations of the newest theory of inherent bhakti-vāda- the idea that bhakti is inherent in the jīva. As I have discussed in this article, the new theory has gone far beyond inherent bhakti-vāda, to include all kinds of novel […]
Claim [from the inherent bhakti-vādis]- Although the literal translation of eka-rūpa is “one form,” some devotees opine that eka-rūpa [in the term “eka-rūpa-svarūpa-bhāktvam”, which is an inherent quality of the ātmā] refers to “uniform,” which they then take to mean that there isn’t any difference among jīvas, because […]
The inherent bhakti-vādis claim that the guṇāṣṭaka or group of eight qualities cannot exist in the ātmā without a form, and given that these qualities are in the ātmā’s svarūpa, the form or siddha-deha is proven to be inherent in the ātmā. The mistaken idea of the siddha […]
The inherent bhakti-vādis claim that Vedānta-sūtra 4.4.1 shows the inherence of the siddha deha inside the ātmā. Śrī Babaji has refuted this incorrect idea in his book, Jīva tattva. I reproduce his refutation below.
The inherent bhakti-vādis claim that the primary meaning of the word ‘tādātmya’ is ‘relationship of something with itself’. They then proceed to argue that the ātmā’s relation with the siddha deha is one of ‘tādātmya’ where tādātmya is defined in the previous sentence. That is, the ātmā is […]
I continue my refutation of the concept that bhakti is inherent and also bestowed on the ātmā. One of the qualities of the ātmā mentioned in the Paramātmā Sandarbha is ānanda which Śrī Jīva Goswami has glossed as duḥkha-pratiyogi. The inherent bhakti-vādis, being apparently unaware of the technical […]
I continue examining the arguments of the inherent bhakti-vādis, who claim that “bhakti is inherent in the ātmā”. While this theory was invented some time in the last two centuries, it has now taken the form that “bhakti is both bestowed on the ātmā and already inherent in […]
I continue to examine the arguments offered by inherent bhakti-vādis to support the claim that bhakti is inherent but dormant inside the ātmā. In this article, I examine the claim that the word ‘śeṣatva’, which according to Śrī Jīva Goswami, is an inherent characteristic of the ātmā, implies […]
In a previous article, I refuted the claim that the dāsa bhūto harer eva implies inherent bhakti in the ātmā. Here I examine citations that are claimed to support inherent bhakti. The first one is from Śrī Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja. I provide the verse and the cited translation below. […]