The Wrong Road

From Jīva Gosvāmī's Bhakti Sandarbha 238 -

guror apyavaliptasya kāryākāryam ajānataḥ

utpatha pratipannasya parityāgo vidhīyate

Synonyms : guroḥ - Of the Guru; api - even; avaliptasya - of the arrogant; kārya - to be done; akāryam - not to be done; ajānataḥ - not knowing; utpatha - wrong road (deviant); pratipannasya - of the ascertainment; parityāgaḥ - wholly rejected; vidhīyate - compulsory.

"One must wholly reject the Guru who is arrogant, who does not know what is to be done and what is not to be done and who is deviant."

The word ut-patha means 'the wrong road', 'off the track', 'evil ways' or 'deviant'. Having lost the way, either deliberately or out of ignorance. So any Guru who deviated from the six Gosvāmīs and other foundational ācāryas' teachings must be rejected. This is an elaboration on Jīva Gosvāmī's own edict 'vaiṣṇava vidveṣī cet parityajya eva' - "If the Guru is a Vaiṣṇava-hater he must be fully rejected."

But there is more to it than that - with the word utpatha the parameters are widened. If he lost the way he should be wholly rejected, too.....

Mādhurya Kādambinī

The new English edition of Mādhurya Kādambinī should be on sale now, so I withdrew my translated and edited version from my book catalog as promised to Rasarāja Dās on November 9th. (A new catalog was uploaded today to www.madangopal.com). I have read about 150 pages of the book so far. Jagad and Mādhava have certainly done a good job on the editing and lay-out respectively. Unfortunately it is material perfection only, which is largely undone by the (faithless and offensive) mentality of the two. Unfortunately it is the translator's attitude to which the reader of a translation is exposed, not the attitude of the original author. It is always like that. It is the attitude that a devotional book breathes out which will win the hearts, not the perfect language or the perfect lay-out. Besides, Jagad can't help using his irreverent scholarly language, calling Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartīpāda repeatedly just 'Visvanath' as if he is his classmate or so. Also translating the word ' jñāna' as ' gnosis' is a bit too Theosophical I think.

Utthānaikādaśī - end of Niyam-sevā

Niyam Sevā 2005 completed successfully, without lapses - 30 days Rādhākund-vāsa, Dīp-dāna, and no ponghots at all (partly due to being sick, but still...)

November 12 - Utthānaikādaśī -
Everywhere people walk around with long stems of sugarcane. Viśvanāth closes his series of Vidagdha Mādhava-pāṭhs.

November 11 -
Two days before the end of Niyam-seva I finally start to attend the Kunjabhanga kirtans at Śyāmasundara Mandir. Amruds are back in season - yummy! Just before the end of Niyamseva I complete (the gist of) Rādhā-Govinda Nāth's C.C. Antya līlā -.

Studies of Rādhā Govinda Nāth's commentaries on Caitanya Caritāmṛta -

Antya 20.12 - pratipadaṁ pūrnāmṛtāsvādanam - Mahāprabhu got the full relish of even just 2 syllables - ja ja ga ga. Not even the full name Jagannāth!

vidyā-vadhū - vidyā = kṛṣṇabhakti. A bride is tender, always serving, sweet, always smiling, satisfied and always tries to conceal herself, and those to whom queen Bhakti appears, also become like that.

Antya 20.22 - Rādhā-Govinda Nāth: 'Grass feeds cows and thus serves the Lord, but I am lower than that, because I cannot serve in that way."

Antya 20.37 - Mahāprabhu told Sītānāth to bestow prem on Rūpa and Sanātan in Caitanya Bhāgavat, Antya 9 -'amāyāy kṛṣṇa bhakti deho e donhāre'.

As the honeybee is the only creature able to receive honey from the lotus, the bhakta is the only one to receive prem from Kṛṣṇa.

Antya 20.55 - "Other girls cannot serve Kṛṣṇa - they may hurt Him with their bangles!"

Antya 20.57 - When the sun was blocked by the chaste wife, Brahmā Viṣṇu and Śiva promised her that if she would allow the sun to rise her husband would be revived, with a healthy body and no more attachment to the prostitute.

Gopāṣṭamī

November 9, 2005
Gopastami
Rādhārāṇī's annual Caran Darśan. Goṣṭha-līlā kīrtans in Gopīnāth- and Śyāmasundar Mandirs. Rasarāja gives me a copy of the newly printed English Mādhurya Kādambinī, he says there are no immediate plans for further publishing (of new titles) for now.

November 8, 2005
I meet Rasāmṛta, who was thrown out of Gauḍīya Discussions for helping me defend the Gosvāmīs and the Bhāgavata against Jagāi and Mādhāi. He says he did not want to post anymore after and because of such behavior.

Yadunātha tells me that Rohini serves Śyāmakund by cleaning its steps with a pooper-scooper.

November 7, 2005
I dreamt tonight that Bābā had come back...

The 12th day of this bout of cold. In despair I walk to Gauradhām hospital, where I get tabs that cure somewhat. Half of my trip (27 out of 54 days) lost in illness. So sad, as I looked forward to this trip for 6 months (in perfect health).

November 5, 2005
The trip to Vṛndāvana is wholly in vain, materially and spiritually (as far as anything in Vraja is in vain). Parimal Bābu does not have the texts I am looking for - he has four notebooks full of beautiful kathā, but none of it is named. It is from Ānanda Gopāl Gosvāmī's time though (1943), but most of the topics wouldn't fit into our upāsanā, so its unlikely to be his.

Studies of Rādhā Govinda Nāth's commentaries on Caitanya Caritāmṛta -
Antya 19.53 - govinda - "You always protected our senses with Your flavor, touch, sound etc.How can we gopis survive in separation from you? Dāmodar - Remember once those who are bound with ropes of affection to you! mādhava - Even Lakṣmī devī cannot tolerate separation from You! So she always dwells on your chest as a golden stripe. How can we simple girls then tolerate the pain of separation from you? You must protect us! Or: You are not (mā) our husband (dhava), so you cannot do with us whatever you want!"

Antya 19.63-64 Perhaps Mahāprabhu was into vāsaka sajjikā bhāva and wanted to eagerly go out of the kunja to see if Kṛṣṇa was coming.

Antya 20.8 - Mahāprabhu chanted hare kṛṣṇa out loud, as in Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa's tika of Stavamālā - hare kṛṣṇeti mantra pratika grahanam. ṣoḍaśa nāmātmana dva-triṁśad akṣarena mantrena uccair uccāritena sphurita kṛta nṛtya rasanā jihvā yasya saḥ "He made His tongue dance with the 32-syllable, 16-word Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra."

Sanātan Gosvāmī's ṭīkā to HBV 11.247 - vācikasya kīrtanāntargatatvāt mānasikasya ca smaraṇātmakatvāt. Real japa is upaṁśu - vocal japa is counted as kīrtan and mental japa as smaraṇa. But for that one needs a pure and steady mind.

Diwāli's 4 milksweets

Annakut at Amiya Gopal's

Annakut at Govinda Mandir

Diwāli at Raghunāth Dās Gosvāmī's Samādhi.

November 3, 2005
Unexpectedly Parimal Viśvāsa visits me at night. He doesn't know if the manuscripts I look for are with him. He got them from his grandmother. He is himself a śiṣya of Ananta dās Bābā from Govinda Kund.

November 2, 2005
Due to eating some sweets late last night I wake up with a head full of mucus. I have darśan of only the main Annakuts and eat just a small amount of Girirāja's prasād, that are free from dairy products. Giridhārī misses the abhishekh, but the caraṇāmṛta would have increased my mucus anyway. I sleep for 28 hours.

November 1, 2005
Diwāli on the bank of the kund is, like Bahulāṣṭamī, less crowded than in previous years.

Studies Rādhā-Govinda Nāth's commentaries on Caitanya Caritāmṛta 
Antya 18.18 - Prema dances on the waves of joy and sorrow, separation and meeting, vāmya and dākṣiṇya, softness and hardness, the 20 bhāvas like kila kiñcit, sañcārī bhāvas etc. All this is caused by prema.

ek ṭhāi - In Braja, or within Mahāprabhu (does he refer to the Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa milita tanu here??)

Antya 18.79 - ardha bāhya is like waking up from a dream - one is just returning to the 'real' world and is still half dreaming too.

Antya 19.46 - A child cannot make a house - it would be unfit to live in, especially in the long term. Fate also is unable to create lasting and successful love-affairs.

Antya 19.38 - The moon doesn't illuminate the caves' interiors, but Kṛṣṇa's moon-like face shines in the caves of the people's hearts, destroying the darkness of sorrow there.

Antya 18.98 - virodha alaṅkāra is an apparent, but not real contradiction - virodhaḥ sa virodhābhāḥ virodhābhā iti na vastuto virodhaḥ virodha iva bhāsata ityarthaḥ (Alaṅkāra Kaustubha 8.26). Generally friends don't attack friends and no one protects an enemy. But actually there's no contradiction, because Kṛṣṇa's hands attack the gopīs' breasts, and the gopīs protect them with their hands, that is natural.