Friday, February 01, 2008

Personal attacks, God-given intelligence, Rādhā-rasa Sudhānidhi, sad dhiya

I still have a number of interesting notes I made on often not-published comments in my notebook.

December 2007 -PERSONAL ATTACKS are useless. They will not change the issues, moral or philosophical, we discuss, at all. Mistakes made by me years ago do not disqualify me from preaching for the rest of my life.

Advaitadas: 'You know, we did not fall from the spiritual world.'
Critic: "But someone told me that he heard from someone that you looked at a girl in 1971".
Advaitadas: "You know, you need not be a pure devotee to do raganuga bhakti".
Critic: "Yes, but someone told me that he heard from someone that you smoked a cigarette in1969."
Advaitadas: I confess, I did both of these things back then. Now -
1. If I sin, I will be responsible.
2. If I tell others not to sin, and they sin, they are responsible.
3. If I encourage sin, and others follow, I am responsible for that.

GOD GIVEN INTELLIGENCE-
(Reply to non-published anon comment on the misogyny issue: 'Advaitadas, apply your God-given intelligence to the acaryas' commentaries' - 22 December 2007)

AD: "Do Rupa and Sanatan not already have God-given intelligence? Rūpa Goswāmī himself declared hṛdi yasya preranayā... vande caitanya-devasya (BRS 1.1.2) "Caitanya deva inspired me within the heart" and Mahāprabhu told Sanātan Goswāmī (CC Madhya 24) yabe likhibā kṛṣṇa sphurabe tomāy - "When you write Kṛṣṇa will reveal it to you." God also gave us intelligence to create atom bombs, heroin and pedophile websites. You erred (bhrama) when you said you took me to task, not the śāstras. śāstras and their comments, however, contain no error (bhrama pramāda vipralipsa karaṇāpaṭava), so how can we trust you know it better than them? Isn't yours laukika śraddhā instead of śāstrīya śraddhā? God gave us intelligence to understand śāstra via the principle of bhajatāṁ prīti-pūrvakaṁ dadāmi buddhi-yogaṁ taṁ (B.G. 10.10), "If you perform loving bhajan I give you the divine intelligence", not to squeeze a new, self-serving purport from it, or try to reconcile it with TV-talk show-opinions. Furthermore, Jīva Goswāmī says that of śabda (śāstra), anumāna (mental assumption) and pratyakṣa (sense perception) only śabda is reliable."

THAWING
The worst of the winter in Vraja is over. Give me 1,000 winters in Vraja for 1 summer -in the winter there is at least the shelter of blankets and clothes against the cold, but in summer there is no shelter from the heat whatsoever.

RĀDHĀ RASA SUDHĀNIDHI
Rādhā-rasa Sudhānidhi is a masterpiece, rich with sweet rasa and prema, but I always found it a pity that it nowhere mentions Rādhākuṇḍa, only Vṛndāvan. Actually, however, Bengali devotees, Sādhu Bābā included, habitually call all of Vraja ' Vṛndāvan' - so Rādhākund is included there. Rādhā-rasa Sudhānidhi consists of verses of glorification - it does not provide material for contiguous līlā smaraṇam, but all of the verses are extremely fit for guṇa smaraṇa, nāma-smaraṇa and mañjarī sevā smaraṇa. The fact that Prabodhānanda Saraswatīpāda's mañjarī swarūpa is not known is not a problem, because the mañjarī swarūpa of Raghunāth Dās Goswāmī is also disputed, and the authorship anyway doesn't matter that much. It is for our own mañjarī-inspiration that we read these books. Śrīla Ānanda Gopāl Goswāmī said about this that if a mango is sweet, who cares who planted it and where the orchard is.

SAD DHIYA
Those who think that just living in Vraja will bestow prema, no matter how, on the base of Rupa Goswami's yatra svalpo'pi sambandha sad-dhiyam bhāva janmane (BRS, "Even the slightest relationship with the 5 chief items of bhakti, of which living in Vraja is one, bestows bhāva in the sad-dhiya") should know that Jīva Goswāmī and Viśvanāth Cakravartī comment 'sad-dhiyaṁ niraparādha cittānām' - 'sad dhiya means those who are not offensive."

10 comments:

  1. Advaitaji,
    A bit of neighborly wisdom we might appreciate:

    "What someone said a century ago has little bearing to the here and now, which is the reality we have to face and deal with." (from a recent blog by Madhavananda das)

    ...and DEAL with...

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  2. Perhaps it's better to tell me what you mean with that? Do you want to discuss women's rights, Bhaktisiddhanta vs the babajis, or the timeless nature of shastra? Then I can properly respond.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Then I can properly respond."

    Deal with was more of what I was hopping you would go for.

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  4. "Then I can properly respond."

    Deal with was more of what I was hopping you would go for.
    anon, Sunday, February 3, 2008 12:51:00 PM CET


    Anon, you have 48 hours to explain what on earth you are talking about or have your comments deleted.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Anon, you have 48 hours to explain what on earth you are talking about or have your comments deleted."

    Very well. What someone said a century ago has little bearing on the here and now, which is the reality we have to face and deal with. Quoting sastra as you do, i.e., without taking a personal stand on what is quoted, is in fact a disservice to sastra. Sastra requires reciprocation just as the deity or sadhu do. It speaks to you SO that you will react. Sastra wants to dance with you. Why make yourself all stiff? Reading and repeating without giving of yourself is in fact disrespectful. The way to reciprocate with sastra is to make it a living, throbbing presence where and when it offers itself, i.e., always in the here and now. By having a position, even if said position may appear contrary to sastra, one honors sastra.

    Hope the explanation helps.

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  6. "There are many wonderful things about Gaudiya Vaishnavism that ought to be preserved and passed down. I'm just saying that sexism is not one of those things."

    I agree, but I have yet to find any sexist view in any original sloka or pada of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. In some commentaries, yes. In some views of modern Gaudiyas, yes. But I have not yet found any in any sloka or pada or verse, though perhaps they are in verses I have not yet come read.

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  7. What someone said a century ago has little bearing on the here and now, which is the reality we have to face and deal with. Quoting sastra as you do, i.e., without taking a personal stand on what is quoted, is in fact a disservice to sastra. Sastra requires reciprocation just as the deity or sadhu do. It speaks to you SO that you will react. Sastra wants to dance with you. Why make yourself all stiff? Reading and repeating without giving of yourself is in fact disrespectful. The way to reciprocate with sastra is to make it a living, throbbing presence where and when it offers itself, i.e., always in the here and now. By having a position, even if said position may appear contrary to sastra, one honors sastra.

    Anon, I answered your question/challenge several times already - you can use the aid of beef-eating talkshow hosts, that are bound by maya (maya-baddha bahirmukh) to add to or change the siddha-acaryas' verdict, as you wish. The C.C. says that Rishi-vani is free from the 4 human defects. It's up to you to decide if the novelists and talkshow hosts are too. The Bhagavat tells us their mental chariots are cruising all over the (mundane) place - harav abhaktasya kuto mahad-guna? mano-rathenasati dhavato bahih

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  8. I answered your question/challenge several times already

    No you didn't. My question/challenge is for you to show a personal stand on the quotes you INDISCRIMINATELY make use of. Without ever expressing any personal opinion on anything you quote, you nevertheless use the acaryas' opinion to pass judgement, condemn and intimidate others. I refuse to accept such misrepresentation of the acaryas' words. I have no doubt in my mind that they did not mean, by any of the words that you have quoted, to abuse and bully innocent people as you do.

    you can use the aid of beef-eating talkshow hosts, that are bound by maya (maya-baddha bahirmukh) to add to or change the siddha-acaryas' verdict, as you wish.

    Show me anywhere in my posts where I am "using the aid of beef-eating talkshow hosts" and I will then properly reply to such accusation. Otherwise, please retreat such false accusation. Thank you.

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  9. That quote, "What someone said a century ago," does not refer to shastra, merely to a comment made by an acarya about a hundred years ago.

    "Sexism", more "PC-speak".
    And while we're doing "-isms", "beef", "beef-eating", is a euphemism. Cow-eating. Cow-killers.


    > If you make it so that half
    > the human race eventually
    > leaves your religion behind
    > as sexist, it will die out!

    Sanatana dharma does not die out. Krishna does not die out. If religion of some form or another dies out, that's alright.
    "Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender to Me." That's really the core of our religion.

    - Brian

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  10. I answered your question/challenge several times already

    No you didn't. My question/challenge is for you to show a personal stand on the quotes you INDISCRIMINATELY make use of.


    You are a pretty hopeless case, so warped up in mundane concepts. CC says that Rishi Vani is beyond the four human defects, and I am full of these four defects. So I trust the acaryas' verdict implicitly. It would do you good to do the same.

    Without ever expressing any personal opinion on anything you quote, you nevertheless use the acaryas' opinion to pass judgement, condemn and intimidate others.

    If I condemn or judge others on the base of the acaryas' teachings, it is their condemnation, not mine. That is called anugatya. And seceondly, I do not intimidate at all. Where have I done so?

    I refuse to accept such misrepresentation of the acaryas' words.

    In what way did I misinterpret them?

    I have no doubt in my mind that they did not mean, by any of the words that you have quoted, to abuse and bully innocent people as you do.

    You are innocent? How do I know if you are anonymous? Where did I a) abuse and b) bully anyone?

    you can use the aid of beef-eating talkshow hosts, that are bound by maya (maya-baddha bahirmukh) to add to or change the siddha-acaryas' verdict, as you wish.

    Show me anywhere in my posts where I am "using the aid of beef-eating talkshow hosts" and I will then properly reply to such accusation.


    I try to live a spiritual life, but I do know what's happening in the 21st Century western world, and they sound exactly like you. You are not aware of this perhaps.

    Otherwise, please retreat such false accusation. Thank you.

    What shall I say? Sorry mr/mrs X? I dont know if you are male female, deva, human or animal.

    ReplyDelete