The ātman, stripped off the mind, body and senses is a formless conscious being consisting of potentialities of thought, desire and action. All ātmans are identical, with the only difference being their existence as individual ātmans. We have seen that the ātmans have been wedded to individual minds […]
Here are some horrific ideas about women prevalent in modern bhakti sects, but which have no basis in bhakti śāstras and are not a part of traditional Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism. This is not an analysis of these cringe-worthy statements, but a search for the tag ‘women’ on jiva.org and […]
Many people are surprised to learn that Kṛṣṇa is Svayaṁ Bhagavān, the original form of Bhagavān and the source of all avataras including Rāma and Visṇu himself. Sri Jiva Goswami in the Kṛṣṇa Sandarbha does an exhaustive analysis to establish Kṛṣṇa as Svayaṁ Bhagavān. Śrī Babaji has recently translated this book (available at the above link) with insightful commentary.
We now examine the remaining qualifiers of bhāva. As we saw before, bhāva is qualified by rucibhiś citta-māsṛṇya-kṛd and prema-sūryāṁśu-sāmya-bhāk. Sri Jiva Goswami explains the meaning of these words, which is reproduced below. The word ruci = prāpti-abhilāṣa, sva-kartṛka ānukulya-abhilāṣa and sauhārda-abhilāṣa. That is, ruci implies three things: […]
Modern religious preachers who criticize science like to say that scientists ought to be humble about what they can and cannot know. Frequently, examples are given of how scientists have hit a ‘brick wall’ with quantum mechanics, which they don’t really understand, and cannot really explain. So science […]
Renowned British physicist Roger Penrose and the University of Arizona’s Stuart Hameroff have a theory for consciousness. According to them, consciousness is information stored at the quantum level in microtubules. Microtubules are biopolymers in cells that have varied functions. They are enriched in neurons and are critical for […]
There is the notion in some bhakti sects that the material world is a perverted reflection of the spiritual world.
We examine Sri Rupa Goswami’s definition of bhava further.
Given the topic this blog deals with, and the emotional responses that it appears to elicit among the faithful who find the content not palatable, I am formulating some rules for posting comments.
Maharajji answers questions in Śrī Guru Darśanam, p 87 Question: Is ajñāta-sukṛti a real or only a psychological term? Answer: There is no such thing as ajñāta-sukṛti. Bhakti comes by the mercy of Bhagavān and His devotee. And it is not that you make somebody do something by controlling him […]
