hare krishna

Thakur: "With sincerity and earnestness one can realize God through all religions. The Vaishnava will realize God, and so will the Saktas, the Vedantists, and the Brahmos. The Mussalmans and Christians will realize Him too. All will certainly realize God if they are earnest and sincere.

"Some people indulge in quarrels, saying, 'One cannot attain anything unless one worships our Krishna', or, 'Nothing can be gained without the worship of Kali, our Divine Mother', or, 'One cannot be saved without accepting the Christian religion.' This is pure dogmatism. The dogmatist says, 'My religion alone is true, and the religions of others are false.' This is a bad attitude. God can be reached by different paths.

"Further, some say that God has form and is not formless. Thus they start quarrelling. A Vaishnava quarrels with a Vedantist.

"One can rightly speak of God only after one has seen Him. He who has seen God knows really and truly that God has form and that He is formless as well. He has many other aspects that cannot be described.

"Once some blind men chanced to come near an animal that someone told them was an elephant. They were asked what the elephant was like. The blind men began to feel its body. One of them said the elephant was like a pillar; he had touched only its leg. Another said it was like a winnowing-fan; he had touched only its ear. In this way the others, having touched its tail or belly, gave their different versions of the elephant. Just so, a man who has seen only one aspect of God limits God to that alone. It is his conviction that God cannot be anything else."

 

Hare Krishna!

I just don't understand why you were all this time in this thread. I've never intended to discuss impersonal philosophies. My intent was to bring in the personal philosophy as it was presented by Srila Prabhupada.
Surrendering to the spiritual master might seem like a dogma, but if u don't do it you'll end up like me fooled by maya listening to impersonalists. lol

I warn anybody who reads this thread that it has been spoiled. It has nothing to do with Krishna really. Read Prabhupada's books and chant -that's all you need. Don't listen to impersonalists like Sri RamaKrishna, Maharishi. Listen to Prabhupada -he's bringing the teachings of Bhagavadgita as they are without changes. U can read one here: http://www.asitis.com.

SVgBeauty: Please, leave this place, these guys have nothing to do with Krishna, they just misuse Krishna in order to propagate this nonsense philosophy of impersonalism. I was so blind. I should've left when they committed offenses against Prabhupada the first time.

In response to Chief Cowpie's post, I've chosen a few quotes from Bhagavadgita, the heart of Vedic scriptures. I t was said by Krsna Himself


Chapter 7, Verse 15.
Those miscreants who are grossly foolish, lowest among mankind, whose knowledge is stolen by illusion, and who partake of the atheistic nature of demons, do not surrender unto Me.


Chapter 8, Verse 7.
Therefore, Arjuna, you should always think of Me in the form of Krsna and at the same time carry out your prescribed duty of fighting. With your activities dedicated to Me and your mind and intelligence fixed on Me, you will attain Me without doubt.



Chapter 15, Verse 19.
Whoever knows Me as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, without doubting, is to be understood as the knower of everything, and He therefore engages himself in full devotional service, O son of Bharata. Chapter 15, Verse 20.
This is the most confidential part of the Vedic scriptures, O sinless one, and it is disclosed now by Me. Whoever understands this will become wise, and his endeavors will know perfection.

Chapter 7, Verse 19.
After many births and deaths, he who is actually in knowledge surrenders unto Me, knowing Me to be the cause of all causes and all that is. Such a great soul is very rare.

Chapter 7, Verse 20.
Those whose minds are distorted by material desires surrender unto demigods and follow the particular rules and regulations of worship according to their own natures.



I wish you will recieve Krishna's mercy in form of devotional service upon the feet of Srila Prabhupada.

So long.

 

Dear Sleeping JIva,

I am surprised by your words, since I for one have made no secret of the fact that I revere a number of Gurus and Saints. To imagine that only one sect or one man has the truth about God or Krishna or Jesus is very dangerous and limiting.
And even if you wanted to strictly follow Prabhupada these days, how can it be done? It isn't possible for 99% of people to do so outside a temple, and since ISKCON is wholly corrupt, this would mean going to live in India.
Or do you rise at 3 A.M. daily to do your 16 rounds of Japa, have deities installed at home to offer all your food to, and so on? Don't give some answer about Ritviks, because in effect, there are none. So one would have the choice to accept a phoney 'guru' who has learned to parott Prabhupada's words, or go it alone. And that is simply too much for most people.
There is no doubt that Srila Prabhupada made mistakes - for one thing in His judgement of His selected sucessors, even if they were meant to be only Ritviks - He chose a bunch of criminally minded swindlers, and I know for definite that at least one of them, Bhagavan Gurudev, was someone with no spiritual realization or presence whatsoever. Simply a puffed up egoist.
Also, I hope the words you posted here from the Gita are not meant as a criticism of Sri Ramakrishna. If so, then I am sorry Jiva, but you are grossly deluded. Thakur's mind distorted by material desire? I think not. I doubt you are aware of it, but Thakur was so pure he couldn't touch any coin or metal object. He lived a housholder life for years, and yet abstained from all sexual contact. He was an intimate lover of Krishna.
This whole personalist VS. impersonalist thing is nonsense. God has all these aspects, the Gita says so. To imagine that just because someone puts on a Dhoti and some Tilak, and adheres on a mental level to a set teaching this puts them on a higher plane than one like Thakur is simply self delusion. It is as Vivekeananda says in the piece I posted here earlier - there is a danger in Bhakti of a descent into a very one sided and even fanatical mentality.
It is as though one knew nothing of Christianity and was exposed only to the teaching of Jehova's Witnesses - one might assume one knew all there was to know about Christianity, and accept their critique of say the Catholic Church, without having any knowledge of it other than what one had been told.
As for Chief Cowpie, he has consistently posted here very high quality items on a wide variety of topics, and I hope he will go on doing so.
Wake up to the fact that Sri Krishna is bigger than one sect, or certainly too big for the work of one man to fully cover and encapsulate. He is unlimited, He can do what He wants. Certainly, Krishna is not bound by anybody's book. Otherwise, how can He be God? Maker of billions of galaxies?
If you want Chief Cowpie, GDKumar and myself to quit posting here,because we all like other Gurus, this thread will die. I am not seeking to attack you personally in any way here - but one has to try to see the contradictions involved.
An example - The other day I was looking over a book of Krishna art by Indra Sharma. There is his painting of Prabhupada, and a few pages later, a quote from Bon Maharaja, a devotee Prabhupada expressly forbade his disciples to have anything to do with, and whom He described as 'a poisonous snake'.
So - Sharma has enriched us all with his great paintings - are we to burn his books because they contain a 'forbidden' quote?
If the others who post here were so bad, then why do they bother posting about Krishna at all? Or are they seeking to express their devotion, and even help others to come to some understanding of Krishna?
No one denies Prabhupada's greatness as a Bhakta. But it is a fact that nobody is infallible. Not even the Pope, who has been declared so by Papal Bull.
I hope that you will consider these points.

Hare Krishna!

 

I have no interest to pursue the argument of "my guru is better than your guru" and simple rest my case in response to your criticisms of Ramakrishna, Vivekanananda and Sister Nivedita that you are wrong and whatever scripture you cite is misapplied. It is painful to my heart to see these pure souls criticized by you.

Sleeping Jiva, for whatever reason, you seem to delight in slandering the name of great souls who have thought for thought dedicated their lives to loving God and all of His creation who happen to be outside of your limited perspective of understanding. At one time in this thread, you went on and on about the evil and vindictive nature of Prabhupada's godbrothers and godsisters. And now you have moved on to blaspheming other traditions and understandings.

Your praise for Prabhupada wins you no favors from Krishna if its at the expense of offending His many devotees.

I would suggest you try to see how people are serving and loving God and each other and not how they are not. The universe and all of life will take on a whole new perspective.

 

Amen to that Chief!
There is something very sad about those who can only support their own position by malicious attacks on others. But let's give Jiva the benefit of the doubt here. He is young, and lacks knowledge of these other great spiritual figures, of whom there are many. I had hoped that on this thread we'd got over these attacks on other Gurus and so on. Evidently, I was wrong.....

 

Hare Krishna!

At the risk of calling down a condemnation on His saintly head, I thought I'd post this short extract from the book 'Yogi Sri Krishnaprem' here. I hope it is relevant - I feel that it is.

“As a man gradually purifies his nature so his faith will shine more clearly, free from the misunderstandings of the mind. A sectarian believes in all sorts of silly things. It is not his faith that is at fault ( I am talking of real faith, mind you) but his poorly developed mind which misinterprets the data given by his faith. We must purify our minds till they can grasp the object of our faith without covering it up with all sorts of silly superstitions. But if we abandon faith we shall be lost, for faith is just the evidence for a higher level of knowledge. It is a thread let down from that higher level and if we turn our back on it we shall just wander contentedly about on the level at which we are. That is what most so-called rationalists do. We must use faith as they do: as a thread in saving men from shipwreck: they fire a rocket across carrying a light thread. That having been grasped it is used to pull over a stout cord, a stout hawser which will carry men across.

As for Gurus as “ incarnate Gods” as your friend ridicules it, well, why not? All men are incarnate Gods for one thing – only they know it not; for another, if I can see the God in some one man either because he has seen It in himself or because through him a Light has shone for me, why should anyone else get annoyed? Presumably because he has not seen God anywhere himself, is it not?”



From letter to D.K.Roy, 29th January, 1936.

 

Thank you Black Bill. I also thought this would help out.

The Pentatheon (paCcatattva in Sanskrit, meaning the fivefold Avatara), is the five Deities of the Hindu pantheon for the current age (known as kali). According to the collection of Sanskrit works known as the PurANnas (ancient chronologies) there are avatAras (incarnations of the Deity in human form) for each of the four ages (satya, tretA, dvApara and kali), which repeat in an endless cosmic cycle that lasts for the duration of the Universe. According to the sixteenth century work zrI caitanya caritAmRtam by Krsnadasa Kaviraja and various other source works in Sanskrit and Bengali, Shri Chaitanya is the avatAra for the current age (which began about 5000 years ago) that was predicted in the PurANnas. He descended upon the earth with His entourage at the end of the fifteen century A.D. The four principle personalities among that entourage, along with Chaitanya, make up the Pentatheon. They are Shri Nityananda, who is an avatAra of Balarama, Shri Advaita, who is an avatAra of Mahavishnu, Shri Gadadhara, who is an avatAra of Radha, and Shri Shrivasa, who is an avatAra of Narada Muni.
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The Pentatheon from left: Shri Advaitcarya, Shri Nityananda, Shri Chaitanya, Shri Gadadhara, Shri Shrivasa Pandit
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Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu never personally made disciples. That was delegated to his inner circle, who were all from caste brahmana families of distinguished houses in Bengal and South India. Today there are dIkSA lines descending from Shri Nityananda, Shri Advaita, Shri Gadadhara and from Shri Gopala Bhatta Goswami, all associates and contemporaries of Shri Chaitanya. The various mantras passed down through these lines are comprised of seeds (bIja) and gayatrIs for the guru, all five of the paCcatattva, Shri Radharani and Shri Govinda, the eight principle sakhIs, and the eight principle maJjarIs. The sakhIs and maJjarIs are cowherd girls (gopIs), the former being direct assistants and the latter being indirect assistants in the divine amorous play between Radharani and Govinda.

The spiritual movement started by Shri Chaitanya is universal in scope, as it is designed for people from all walks of life, irrespective of sex, caste, creed or spiritual order of life. It is as much for those in household life as it is for ascetics and monastics. It is not, as some may think, an anti-intellectual creed, and scholars from the tradition are steeped in all of the ancient classics such as the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Aranyakas, the Brahmanas, the Puranas, the Ramayana and Mahabharata epics, the Tantras, and the Bhagavad Gita, as well as in the ancient philosophical disciplines of Nyaya, Vedanta and Mimamsa. Although it was not the beginning of bhakti (devotional) traditions in India, which were already well underway in the 16th century, it did bring some new slants on already existing doctrines and theology. Rupa Goswami was delegated by Chaitanya to develop the theological framework, and his nephew Jiva was delegated to develop the philosophical underpinnings of the tradition. Together they wrote many books on their respective subject matter.

Although the movement has been propagated by a distinct sect of Hindu brahmanas in India, it is really not a sectarian organization, and it recognizes the validity of all faiths, whether Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Shinto, Navajo, etc. Its core essence is bhakti (devotion to a chosen deity), which is common to the religions of all cultures world wide.

Home Page
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From "Saints of Bengal" by O. B. L. Kapoor

Chapter XXV entitled "Sri Tinkadi Goswami"



Sri Tinkadi Goswami (Sri Kisori-Kisorananda Baba) was born in 1906 in Manoharapur, a village in district Medinipur of West Bengal. His father was Sri Harimohana Gosvami and mother Srimati Suradhuni Devi. The family had a large number of ancestral disciples. The number of Harimohana Gosvami’s own disciples also was not small. The income from donations made by disciples was plentiful. Therefore Tinkadi Gosvami was brought up in luxury. He did not have much interest in studies. So his father stopped his education and began to introduce him to his disciples so that he might adopt gurugiri (the profession of guru) as his profession. He also married him to a girl named Sitalasundari, from whom he had a son. Sri Tinkadi Gosvami lived luxuriously. He wore spotlessly white clothes made of the finest linen and smoked hukka. The long tube of the hukka with a silver mouth-piece was always attached to his mouth. The smoke of the sweet-scented tobacco, specially got from Visnupur, was seen curling round him. He went to the homes of the disciples on palanquin. The hukka and a Brahman cook went with him. The cook followed the palanquin on foot. There was, however, a spark of bhakti in his heart, which often disturbed him and made him think of the futility of worldly life. The spark was smoldering slowly. It developed into flames, when his father died only a year after his marriage. A wave of vairAgya shook his entire frame. He said to himself, “I must no more waste my life in the trivialities of life. I must wake up and work for a higher destiny. I must renounce the world and go to Vrndavana. No doubt, after the death of my father, the responsibility of running the family has fallen upon me. Perhaps I should wait till my son grows up. But who knows, I may not live till then. Death may sweep down upon me any moment and foil all my plans. No, I cannot wait for better times. If, sitting on the shore, I begin to think that I shall bathe, when the waves subside, I shall never be able to bathe, because the waves will never subside. I must jump into the sea right now.” So one day he sneaked out of home without letting anyone know. He went straight to Govardhana and fell at the feet of Siddha Manohara Dasa Baba of Govindakunda. He expressed his resolve to live in Vrndavana and do bhajana under his guidance. Manohara Dasa Baba said, “Gosain! The time has not come for you to live in Vrndavana. You must wait till the time comes. Go back and attend to the affairs of the family.”

 

“But I have not come to go back,” said Tinkadi Gosvami. “I have no money for going back.”

“You need not bother about that. Your people have already sent a money order for your return passage to one of your relatives in Vrndavana. You go and take the money from him.” Tinkadi Gosvami had to obey. He returned home after seeing the temples and other holy places in Vraja. Soon after he returned home his wife died. He was at that time 28 years old. His relations began to insist that he should marry again. To avoid them he left on a long pilgrimage. He visited all the holy places from Badrinarayana in the North to Kanyakumari in the South. In every temple to which he went, he prayed to the deity to grant him siddha-bhakti and fulfill his desire to live in Vrndavana. After his pilgrimage, instead of returning home, he again went to Manohara Dasa Baba in Govardhana and asked permission to live in Vrndavana. Baba again said, “Gosain! Even now the time has not come for your living in Vrndavana. Go home and marry. You still have much karma to do. When the time comes, Radharani will herself draw you to Vrndavana. You need not worry.” He returned home and married Sarasvati Devi, the daughter of Asutosa Hada of a village near Manoharapur. He had two daughters with her. But this did not make any difference to his vairAgya. It went on increasing. He hardly lived at home. He travelled from village to village preaching harinAma. In every village he arranged akhaNDa (non-stop) harinAma kIrtana either at the house of one of his disciples, or at some other place. But he did not live with his disciples. He built a thatched cottage at some distance from the village. He lived in that cottage and did bhajana from 3 o’clock in the morning till late at night. Only in the evening did he come out of the cottage, when he listened to Srimad Bhagavatam or some other bhakti-zAstra read to him by someone and participated in the kIrtana in which he also danced at times. While dancing he sometimes shouted so loudly in bhAva that it seemed the shout would rend the sky. At this time there was no considerable change in his outward appearance. Instead of fine linen he wore clothes made of coarse cloth and his constant companion was harinAma and the bag of beads for counting harinAma instead of the hukka. Tinkadi Gosvami then moved to Navadvipa. In Navadvipa there lived Phalahari Baba, who had his Azrama on Manipur Ghata. He donated the Azrama to Tinkadi Gosvami and went to Vrndavana to pass the rest of his life there in bhajana. Tinkadi Gosvami began to live with family in that Azrama.

A Gosvami of Telipada in Navadvipa had the Sri Vigrahas Radha-Madhava, Whom he worshipped. After his death one day the Sri Vigrahas said to his wife in a dream, “Give us away to Tinkadi Gosvami.” The lady went and told Tinkadi about the dream. Tears began to flow from the eyes of Tinkadi Gosvami to hear what she said and horripilation appeared all over his body. He said. “Ma! I am not eligible for the service of Sr Radha-Madhava. But since They have expressed the desire to receive my service, I shall certainly bring and serve Them as best I can.” He brought and reinstalled Them in his Azrama and renamed Them Radha-Vallabha. Tinkadi Gosvami was now so much absorbed in bhajana that it was not possible for him to live at home with family. His home began to appear to him like a dark well without water and relations like trees devoid of fruits and full of thorns. He began to pass most of his time under trees on the bank of Ganga. Soon his reputation as a saint spread all around Navadvipa and people began to come to him for darzana. It became impossible for him to do bhajana in loneliness anywhere in Navadvipa. He, therefore, began to do bhajana in Balavana, a forest at some distance from Navadvipa. At that time he again became restless for Vrndavana. It began to appear to him that he had a call from Radharani,which he could not resist. Therefore he rushed to Govardhana and fell at the feet of Manohara Dasa Baba. He said to him with folded hands and tears in his eyes, “Maharaja! Kindly do not turn me away this time. Give me veza (bhek) and shelter under your feet.”

This time Baba gave him permission to live in Vrndavana but said, “Gosain! How can I give you veza. You belong to the family of AcAryas, with whose help and blessings people cross the ocean of Maya. You do not need veza.” Tinkadi Gosvami then tried to take veza from some other saint. But no one gave him veza, because he was an AcArya. Therefore, one day he took veza of a renunciant Babaji by putting on an old kaupina of Baba Manohara Dasa and taking a vow never to return home. He did not need initiation, because he was already initiated by his father. After taking veza Tinkadi Gosvami began to do bhajana with great austerity. He wore the kaupina and uttariya (a sheet of cloth to cover the upper part of body) made of gunny. He did not live long at one place. He sometimes lived in Premasarovara, sometimes in Varshana, Pavana-sorovara, Kamyavana, Adibadri, Resauli, Camelivana, Tapovana, Panighata, Akruraghata. or Durvasakunda. Everyday he got up at 1:00 AM, took bath and sat down for bhajana. Sometimes if he could not get up until 2:00 AM some spiritual power woke him up. Twice he felt as if Mahaprabhu Himself had awakened him.



Once a Vrajavasi lady came to Baba with her eight year old son, named Mathura Dasa and said, “Baba, I deliver this child to you. Kindly accept him. He will render all kinds of service to you.” Baba accepted him. He asked him to go and bathe in Radhakunda. When he had bathed he gave him mantras. The boy did not know the importance of a Guru. He regarded Baba as his Baba (grandfather) and loved and served him accordingly. Baba also loved him, because he was a Vraja-vAsi. His presence reminded him of Krishna and his lIlA. He gave him to eat all the good things which people offered him. He was so free with him that he often told him the most secret things of his heart. Once Tinkadi Gosvami was circumambulating Radhakunda with Mathura Dasa, he proceeded towards the bhajana-kutir of Gopala Bhatta Gosvami, and he said to Mathura Dasa, “Mathura,look, I tell you one thing. In Caitanya Caritamrta what Kaviraja Gosvami has written about Sri Radhakunda is false.” “What has Kaviraja Gosvami written Baba?” asked Mathura Dasa. “He has written: sei kunde jei eka bara kare snAna tAre rAdhA-sama prema kRSNa kare dAna (anyone,who bathes in Radhakunda but once, is blessed by Krsna with prema like that of Radha.) I have bathed in the kunda so many times. But neither has Krsna given me prema nor darzana. I shall now go to Bengal and preach that no one should go to Radhakunda and no one should believe Krishna, Because what Kaviraja has written about them is false.”

“Do not do that Baba, because that will hit us Vrajavasis, who depend on the donations made by the pilgrims.”

“Then why don’t you pray to Radha-Krsna for me? You are a Vrajavasi. They will grant your prayer.”

“Very well Baba. I shall pray.”

At that time the Manipuri ladies were doing Arati of Giriraja at the spot where Radhakunda and Syamakunda meet. As Baba was proceeding in that direction, he stopped suddenly and said, “Oh! How beautiful! Mathura look, Radha-Krishna sitting on an altar, bedecked with jewels! The sakhIs performing arati! Oh! How beautiful the kunda filled with milk and how beautiful it’s jeweled ghATas! Mathura, hold me or I shall fall.” Mathura said, “Oh Baba! They are the Manipuri ladies, doing Arati of Giriraja. Where are Radha-Krishna?” But as soon as he held Baba, he saw the kunda filled with milk, though he did not see Radha-Krishna. Mathura told Baba about this when he came to. Baba said, “You will see . You will see when the time comes. You do not yet have the eyes to see Rasaraja Krismna and Mahabhavavati Radha.” But how is it, one may ask, that Baba got the eyes to see immediately after he had threatened to preach against Krishna? The fact is that this son of Nanda is also too simple. He is scared even when a devotee gives Him a false threat and is compelled to do what he wants.

It is obvious from the above that Tinkadi Gosvami Had attained prema. It was through the eyes of prema that he could have the darzana of Radha-Krsna with the sakhIs. But prema is dynamic. It is never satisfied with itself. The more prema, the more the feeling that one is devoid of prema. Therefore the more the prema, the more the yearning for it. Baba had only had a glimpse of Radha-Krishna. After Their darzana Their separation became unbearable. He wept day and night on account of Their separation. He lost sleep and hunger and life became burdensome to him. One day when he was sitting in meditation with his eyes closed, his inside and outside seemed to have suddenly brightened with the glow of a transcendental light. As he opened his eyes, he saw that Radharani stood before smiling and shedding round her the light of a thousand moons. She said to him, "You have realized the end you had desired. But you have a lot of work to do. You will come to Me and be always with Me when the time comes." She said this and disappeared (Tinkadi Gosvami had himself disclosed this to Sri Priyacarana Dasa Baba of Govardhana). As soon as She disappeared Tinkadi Gosvami became unconscious. On regaining consciousness he felt his heart and soul and every inch of his body was filled with nectar, which was overflowing through his eyes in the form of tears. After this throughout his life he remained in a state of bhava, which was unearthly and unprecedented. Once the father of Mathura Das had gone to Bengal, Mathura was with Baba and his mother was alone at home. At about nine in the morning, when Baba was meditating, he suddenly cried, "Oh! Ma has fallen!" Mathura became anxious about his mother. He gave him a jolt and asked, "What has happened Baba?" Baba was at that time seeing some lIlA in smarana. His smarana stopped. He felt very bad. But he only said, "Oh! Nothing, nothing." In the evening he called Mathura and said, "Why did you jolt me this morning, when I was having lIlZ-darzana?" Mathura said, "How could I know what you were doing? You said that Ma had fallen. I got anxious about her. So I jolted you."

"Never do that again."

"But why did you say that mother had fallen?"

"I did not mean your mother"

"Then whose mother?"

"You do not know. I saw that Nandalala was going with his friends to pasture cows. Yasoda Ma asked Rohini Ma to give Him some hot milk. Rohini Ma went to bring milk. The boys were restive. They asked her to hurry. In haste, while she was bringing the milk, she fell down. The boys cried, "Oh! Ma has fallen." I also said. "Ma has fallen."

For some time another Vrajavasi, named Ayodhya Dasa had also been living with Baba, and serving him. He had wholly dedicated his life to the service of Baba and served him with all his heart and soul. By serving him day and night, sincerely and selflessly, he had so identified himself with him that he could read his mind. He could know without his telling him what kind of service he needed at a particular time and started making preparations for the same even before he said anything. He also brought mAdhukari for him. Suddenly he died of cholera. Baba became anxious about his condition after death. He wished that sincere, selfless and dedicated soul as he was, he found his rightful place in the spiritual world. One night, when he was thus worrying about him, he had a nap. In the nap he heard Radharani saying "Why do you worry about him? He has come to Me even before you." No wonder, because Radha-Krishna are pleased more by the service rendered to Their devotee than by service rendered to Them. Several other devotees came from Bengal after renouncing the world and began to live with Baba and serve him after taking dIkSA from him. He started going with them from village to village to preach harinAma. In every village he arranged bhAgavata-saptAha (A week-long reading of Srimad Bhagavatam) and sankIrtana. His disciples got up at three o'clock in the morning and did bhajana. They also attended the bhAgavata-saptAha and participated in kIrtana, while Baba sat throughout the day under some tree in a lonely place and did japa and smarana. After the bhAgavata-saptAha he arranged a feast with the help of the Vrajavasis. The Vrajavasis brought provisions for the feast from their homes. The Vrajavasis and the people, who came to attend the pATha [reading of scripture] and kIrtana all participated in the feast, while Baba and his disciples ate mAdhukari. The number of Tinkadi Gosvami's householder and renunciant disciples went on increasing. The renunciant disciples wanted to live with him. Therefore he built Azramas for them in Radhakunda, Tapovana, Govardhana and Vrndavana. The Azsrama in Vrndavana was built near Kesighata and was named Murarimohana Kunja after the name of the Deities installed in it. Once, when Tinkadi Gosvami was living in Tapovana, several rich persons came to him for darzana. The dacoits came to know about this. They thought that the rich men had given him lots of money. Therefore they came to him at twelve o'clock in the night. He remained undisturbed. He gave them Asanas to sit upon and asked them to eat something. The dacoits were hungry. They agreed to eat. Tinkadi Gosvami asked a disciple to cook for them. While he was cooking Tinkadi Gosvami was chanting aloud harinAma. His loving behavior and harinAma made the dacoits forget the purpose for which they had come. After they had eaten the food cooked for them, they offered one hundred rupees to Tinkadi Gosvami and said, "Baba! We are not good men. The purpose for which we came was also not good. But your company has brought about an unprecedented change in us. You can now live here and do bhajana under our protection. No harm will ever come to you."

Tinkadi Gosvami saw his Ista in every living being. His heart was full of love and respect for all. He could not think of violence against anyone. Therefore even the violent creatures who came in contact with him became non-violent. Several times, when he did bhajana in some forest, lions and tigers appeared before him, but they went away without doing any harm to him. Once during winter he lived in the forest called Rantankunda with some disciples. One day while he was sitting in meditation and his body was covered with a shawl, a disciple saw that a poisonous snake had entered the shawl and was staying there. Only its tail was out of the shawl. Tinkadi Gosvami was absorbed in lIlA-smarana. He was not at all aware of the snake. The disciple was deeply worried to see this. But he did not raise a cry or do anything else to turn it away. After some time the snake crawled away, without doing any harm to Tinkadi Gosvami.

Once some disciples of Tinkadi Gosvami took him to Nilacala. Mathura Dasa went with him. In Nilacala he always thought of Vrndavana. On seeing Cataka Parvata he felt that he saw Govardhana. On seeing the sea he thought he saw the Yamuna and said to Mathura Dasa,"Look Mathura, how Yamuna is in spate." One day some devotees offered him cheese to eat. But he did not eat. When Mathura asked him to eat, he said, "Mathura, I have no appetite. Only a short while ago I took roti in Radhakunda." Mathura said, "Baba! You are lying. You are here in Nilacala. How could you go to Radhakunda to eat roti?"

"No, you ask your mother. She was circumambulating Radhakunda. I saw her near Lalitakunda. She was wearing a green sari and carrying milk in a small pot. I said, "Ma! I am hungry. Give me roti." She said, "Come to my home after I have done parikrama." I went to her home. She gave me a roti and some vegetables. If you think I am lying, you can write her a letter and inquire." Mathura wrote to his mother. She confirmed all that Tinkadi Gosvami had said. The fact is even if he lived in Nilacala or Navadvipa physically, in his subtle body he lived always in Radhakunda.

Once when Tinkadi Gosvami was living in Vrndavana he again expressed his desire to go to Nilacala. His attendents wrote to his disciple Sushila Bhaumika of Navadvipa and Dilipa Kumara Mitra of Calcutta, asking them to arrange for his visit to Nilacala. After two or three days he dropped the idea of going to Nilacala at the insistence of the devotees of Vrndavana and sent telegrams to the aforementioned disciples asking them not to arrange for his visit to Nilacala. At the same time he started bhAgavata-saptAha in the Radha-Murarimohana Kunja in Vrndavana. Unfortunately the telegrams did not reach Navadvipa and Calcutta in time. Sushila Bhaumika and Dilipa Kumara booked four seats in the plane for going from Delhi to Bhuvanesvara and reached Vrndavana on the third day of the bhAgavata-saptAha. Tinkadi Gosvami did not want to go to Nilacala during the bhAgavata-saptAha, but circumstances compelled him to go. From Bhuvanesvara he went to Nilacala and stayed in Thakura Haridasa Matha. For three months during his stay in the Math, pATha, kIrtana, and bharidaras (feasts) continued to enliven the environment. After three months devotees came from Navadvipa to take him to Navadvipa and he had to go. The devotees brought him to Navadvipa, but as usual he lived in Navadvipa only in body. His soul was in Vrndavana. He was always absorbed in Vrndavana-lIlA that day and night made no difference to him. For him the day was night and night was day. Once, when absorbed in lIlA he kept on sitting till 12 o'clock at night. A devotee said, "Baba! It is now 12 o'clock. Kindly lie down and sleep." He replied, "Do I ever sleep during the day?"

Perhaps it was not possible for Tinkadi Gosvami now to live out of Vrndavana and he wanted to go there never to return. So one day, when his disciple Vrndavana Dasa was going from Navadvipa to Vrndavana, he said to him, "You go. I shall soon follow."

Since Tinkadi Gosvami desired to go to Vrndavana, Murarimohana, the Deity in his Azrama in Vrndavana also became restless for his company. Tinkadi Gosvami received a letter from Kisori Das Baba of Kesighata Thaura, in Vrndavana. He wrote, "Baba! I saw in a dream this morning a black boy saying to me ‘You people sent Gosain away from here in the midst of bhAgavata-saptAha. Now go and bring him here at once.’ I said to the boy, ‘Who are you?’ He replied, ‘I am Murarimohana.’ Therefore, Baba you come here at once."

The letter was read to Baba. On hearing the letter he became silent. His eyes closed. Two days later, on Phalgun Krsna Navami of the year 1984, he suddenly shouted, "Jai Nityananda Rama! Jai Nityananda Rama!” and left the body to go and meet Murarimohana in Vrndavana. At that time Mathura Dasa was in Radhakunda. The next morning at 5:00 AM he saw Tinkadi Goswami in a dream. He said to him, "Mathura! Look, I have come to Radhakunda. Let us go bathe." Mathura told his mother about the dream. She said, "Probably Baba has left the body and come to Vrndavana in his siddha-deha." The next day Mathura dasa received a telegram which confirmed what she had said.

 

Sri Tinkadi Goswami




(1906-1984)

 

i think hare krishna is really cool. its really interesting and i think i only really heard about it when i got into george harrison.

 

Hare Krishna!


Thanks Chief Cowpie for the story of Sri Tinkadi Goswami.

Hello to Becknudfck. Glad to hear of your interest in Krishna.

 

It is the horrible body-idea that breeds all the selfishness in the world, just this one delusion that we are wholly the body we own, and that we must by all possible means try our very best to preserve and please it. If you know that you are positively other than your body, you have then none to fight with or struggle against; you are dead to all ideals of selfishness. So the Bhakta declares that we have to hold ourselves as if we were altogether dead to all the things of the world; and that is indeed self-surrender. Let things come as they may. This is the meaning of “Thy will be done”; not going about fighting and struggling and thinking all the while that God wills all our weaknesses and worldly ambitions.



The peace of the Bhakta’s calm resignation is a peace that passeth all understanding and is of incomparable value.



When the devotee has reached this point he is no more impelled to ask whether God can be demonstrated or not, whether He is omnipotent and omniscient or not. To him He is only the God of Love; He is the highest ideal of love, and that is sufficient for all his purposes; He, as Love, is self-evident; it requires no proof to demonstrate the existence of the Beloved to the lover. The magistrate-Gods of other forms of religion may require a good deal of proof to prove them, but the Bhakta does not and cannot think of such Gods at all. To him, God exists entirely as Love.

The perfected Bhakta no more goes to see God in temples and churches; he knows no place where he will not find Him. He finds Him in the temple as well as out of the temple; he finds Him in the Saint’s saintliness as well as in the wicked man’s wickedness, because he has Him already seated in glory in his own heart, as the one Almighty, inextinguishable Light of Love, which is ever shining and eternally present.

I know one who the world used to call mad, and this was his answer: “ My friends, the whole world is a lunatic asylum; some are mad after worldly love, some after name, some after fame, some after money, some after salvation and going to Heaven. In this big lunatic asylum I am also mad, I am mad after God. You are mad; so am I. I think my madness is after all the best”. The true Bhakta’s love is this burning madness, before which everything else vanishes for him. The whole universe is to him full of love and love alone; that is how it seems to the lover. So when man has this love in him, he becomes eternally blessed, eternally happy; this blessed madness of Divine Love alone can cure for ever the disease of the world that is in us.



Swami Vivekananda.

 

Women Saints in Gaudiya Vaishnavism (part 2)
by Jagadanada Das - http://www.granthamandira.org/ III. Women saints in the modern era

The primary source of information for women saints of the modern period is O.B.L. Kapoor's Hindi Braj ke bhakta(46) Altogether, there are only twelve woman saints described in Braj ke bhakta, of which only five can be considered Gaudiyas. Though these women are respected for their saintliness, only one (Sadhu Ma) is a leader in the sense of being an initiating guru. It is no coincidence that she was born into one of the great Gaudiya initiating families, that of Advaita Acharya. Otherwise, they were all also born in well-to-do families. Of the three who were Bengali, all were Brahmins.

All twelve women whose biographies appear in Kapoor's book are renunciates, showing perhaps more the bias of what that author expected a "saint” to be like, and thus are not necessarily representative of true saintliness. Taken as a whole, the women of Braj ke bhakta show, as might be expected, a decided tendency to the vatsalya or parental type of devotion. One outstanding exception to this is, of course, that of Srimati Devi, whose taste leaned to the sakhya or "the friendly mood," as will be described below.

1. Pishima Goswamini

Chandrashashi Mukhopadhyay, later known as Pishima Goswamini, is the only woman mentioned in Haridas Das's Gaudiya Vaishnava Jivani.(47) Her story centers around the Gaur-Nitai deities who are found today in Vrindavan in Banakhandi near Loy Bazaar. These deities at one time helonged to Chaitanya’s childhood companion Murari Gupta, whose name is carved on the base of one of the statues. They were apparently lost at one time and later rediscovered in Siuri in Birbhum district in northwestern Bengal. A wandering Orissan monk, Balaram Das Babaji, while passing through Siuri had a dream in which he was instructed to take over the service of the deities. Not long thereafter, the daughter of a wealthy landowner in Nadia district, Chandrashashi, at the time only twenty years old, came to Siuri for business reasons. She became attracted to the deities and attended services regularly in the temple while there. One night she had a dream in which Gaur-Nitai came to her in the form of young boys and said that they were very hungry and wanted her to feed them khir. Because she had not been initiated, Balaram Das was not prepared to give food prepared by her to the deities, so she took initiation from him so that she could comply with Gaur-Nitai's request

A few days later, when she was about to leave Siuri for home, she had another dream in which Gaur-Nitai begged her not to leave, for otherwise who would give them such good things to eat. Like children, they tugged on her skirts and even tore off a piece of her cloth. Chandrashashi awoke with a start and saw that her cloth was indeed torn. She went to Balaram Das who found the missing bit of cloth in the hands of the deity of Gaur. From that day on, she abandoned any intention of ing home to her village and decided to stay on in the service of Gaur-Nitai.

Not long thereafter, however, speculations about the nature of her relation with the monk Balaram Das started in the town. Balaram Das and Chandrashashi decided, again on the basis of instructions given to them in a dream, to take Gaur-Nitai with them to live in Vrindavan. They placed the deities on a boat and made the 1600 km. trip along the Ganges and Jamuna to Braj. Chandrashashi, known in Braj as Pishima ("aunt") managed to build a new temple in Barathandi for the deities who became known locally as Pishima's Gaur-Nitai.

One of the interesting legends concerning Pishima Goswamini is the following. One day, while preparing a meal for Gaur-Nitai, whom she treated as her own children, her menses started, rendering her ritually impure for service to the deities. This interruption gready distressed her. When she nodded off to sleep, Gaur-Nitai came to her and told her that just as an ordinary mother does not interrupt her service to her own children while menstruating, neither should she. Furthermore, they assured her, she would be liberated from this discomfort from that day on. She bathed and made the food offering to the deities and never again experienced the female cycle.

Pishima Goswamini led a strict life according to the Vaishnava regulations, bathing in the Jumna three times a day, chanting on her rosary daily, etc., but her real focus was on archana deity worship. She was engaged in a quasi-constant conversation with Gaur-Nitai, who also appeared occasionally to other people to demand various types of service, etc. Later, when she was old and no longer personally bathed the deities or rendered other types of service, she still was able to know whether things were going in the desired manner by this personal communication. In a typical account, when on one cold winter morning Pishima's successor, Gopishwar Goswami, bathed Gaur-Nitai with cold water, she divined the blunder when she saw that the deities had running noses. To Gopishwar Goswami's amazement, she ran a handkerchief over their noses to show him the proof that they had caught colds due to his carelessness.

Haridas Das recounts that Gopishwar Goswami personally told him that when Pishima Goswamini first asked him to take over the service of Gaur Nitai, he complained that he felt no pleasure in serving such small deities as he did not have the same type of parental affection as she, but was rather moved by the sentiment of friendship. He said that Pishima then went to the deities, pulled on their chins and they changed size to take on their present form.(48)

2. Ma Yashoda (d. 1944)(49)

Ma Yashoda is known more through her relationship with her disciple, Krishna Prem, than for her own achievements. Sri Krishna Prem, or Ronald Nixon (b.1898), was a British pilot in the First World War who felt that he had been miraculously saved in the course of a mission in Germany. After the war, Nixon undertook a spiritual search that led him to India. A degree holder from Cambridge, he taught English at Lucknow University while staying in the home of the Vice-chancellor, Jnanendranath Chakravarty, a leader of the Theosophist movement. Manika Devi, the wife of the Vice-chancellor, was also a highly educated woman and had maternal feelings for Nixon, calling him Gopal, as many Bengali mothers call their sons. As Nixon recounted to the Bengali singer and bhakta Dilip Ray, Mrs. Chakravarty was heavily involved in her husband's rather busy Western-style social life. As he himself took an increasing interest in Buddhism and Hinduism, studying Sanskrit and Pali, Nixon observed that even within her superficially mundane life, she exuded a spiritual peace. He noticed that she disappeared from the scene during parties and ed rejuvenated. Curious, he followed her on one such occasion and saw her absorbed in a deep meditation. Upon being questioned, she explained to him that she and her husband had developed an interest in Vaishnavism and had been initiated by Balakrishna Goswami of the Radharaman family in Vrindavan. Impressed, Nixon then asked to be initiated by her. Eventually he asked to take sannyas from her, and in order to be able to do so, she herself went to Vrindavan and there took sannyas so that she could give him this initiation too. The name Yasoda Ma was given to her on this occasion, while Krishna Prem was the sannyas name given to Nixon.

Abandoning academic life, the two of them went to Mirtola, near Almora in the Himalayan foothills, where they founded an ashram which they called "Uttara Vrindavan." They installed a Radha-Krishna murtis. She taught local children to read and write and opened a dispensary, while Krishna Prem wrote several books and attracted a number of Englishmen as well as Indians to become his disciples.

In her childhood, while living at Ghazipur, Yasoda Ma had had several formative experiences with holy men. As a girl of twelve or thirteen, she was chosen as a representative of the goddess at a Kumari-puja in which Swami Vivekananda himself offered flowers to her feet On another occasion she had heard that a local yogi, Pawhari Baba was giving a free cloth and kamandalu to all monks who came to his cave. Curious about how he could fit the large amounts of cloth, etc., that would be required to make this gift, she disguised herself as a boy and stood in line as the goods were handed out. When it came her turn, she jumped into the small space of his grotto and saw that it was empty. Through this act, she showed a great deal of daring; her discovery produced in her a lifelong belief in miracles.

Yashoda Ma had a deep emotional attachment to her deities in the parental mood and had a number of extraordinary experiences with her Gopal deity that she recounted to Dilip Ray.

3. Siddheshvari Devi, Sadhu Ma (d. 1944)(50)

The daughter of Govinda Chandra Goswami in Pabna district of Bangla Desh, she was a descendant of Chaitanya's associate Advaita Acharya. Born during the annual Durga Puja festival, her father considered her to be an incarnation of Yogamaya. From her childhood, she showed a devotional propensity and studied the scriptures under her father who also initiated her. She took sannyas after the death of her father (wearing saffron cloth like Prabodhananda Saraswati). Although still a young girl, she wandered throughout India visiting all the major places of pilgrimage, depending on God alone for her protection. She met the famous Shakta Bama Khepa at Tarapith, who told her to spend some time at Belur and then to go to Vrindavan. It is said that Bama Khepa also recognized her as an incarnation of Yogamaya.

When she finally came and settled in Vrindavan, she eventually built a large ashram dedicated to Radha Kunjakishori near the Ranganathji temple gardens. She had hundreds of Punjabi and Bengali disciples, including many who were prominent and wealthy citizens, and eventually built other temples and ashrams in Belur, Govardhan, Bhubaneswar, Chakratirtha (Puri), etc.

In the tradition of the Advaita family, she strictly followed the Hari-bhakti-vilAsa, even instituting regular performances of fire sacrifices in all her temples except in Braj where she supposedly had a vision of Radha who prohibited such rituals as unnecessary. She loved rasa-lila performances, but is said to have fainted once on hearing Mahaprabhu's sannyas being sung. Like many of the other powerful women devotees of Braj, she placed a lot of emphasis on service to the devotees who all called her mother. She had dealings with some of Braj’s stranger characters like Gwariya Baba.

4. Srimati Devi (51)

Interesting in view of the accepted wisdom that women saints in Indian religions are comfortable in their sexual identity in contrast with men who often, and particularly in Radha-Krishna worship, seek a female identification,(52) is the story of Srimati Devi. O.B.L. Kapoor recounts her legend in connection with Krishnananda Swami, a Punjabi disciple of the Nityananda family descendant Pran Gopal Goswami (d. 1955). Though initiated in the Gaudiya tradition by a staunch promoter of the manjari mood of devotion, Krishnananda worshiped Krishna in the friendly mood (sakhya). Though his guru wanted him to take disciples and preach devotion to Krishna, Krishnananda Swami was reluctant to do so because he wished to avoid the association of women. For years he had kept the vow that he would never look upon the face of a woman and this continued to keep this vow until he came in contact with the eleven-year old girl named Srimati Devi.

Srimati Devi lived in the village of Nagla Lakshmanpur within the Braj area. Widowed at the age of eleven, she devoted herself fully to the worship of her Krishna deity. She herself had a tendency to the friendly mood of devotion and had hear of Krishnananda Swami and had become attached to the idea of becoming his disciple. Eventually, at the insistence of some of her relatives, Krishnananda Swami wrote the maha mantra on a piece of paper and some instructions in how to worship Krishna.

Srimati Devi still wished to see her guru and vowed that until she saw him, she would not go outside in the light of day. She would rise at four in the morning and bathe, then sit indoors, chanting the holy names until sunset She kept this up for three years, but still she was not given the opportunity to see her guru. Finally, she stopped all food and drink and had thus been fasting for nine days when Krishnananda had a vision in which Balaram told him that he could break his vow for her sake.

After making this breakthrough and receiving personal contact with her guru, Srimati Devi quickly attained perfection in the friendly mood. She began to dress like a boy; her behavior, her language, etc., all took on the characteristics of a cowherd boyfriend of Krishna and people even began to call her bhaiya ("brother"). She became progressively absorbed in a total consciousness of Krishna's presence.

Her health was poor and she did not live much longer after this. One day, when her guru came to visit her, he took her head in his lap and she said, "Buddy, let's go. Look, Balaram and Krishna are calling their friends to come.” Krishnananda Swami replied, overcome with emotion, "Go ahead, buddy. I’ll be right along." Having received this permission from her guru, she entered the eternal world of Braj.

.”

 

5. Girija Devi (53)



Girija Devi was the wife of a rich landowner in Jamira in the state of Bihar, and was thus habituated to a life of great luxury. She started to lose her interest in family life, however, when her oldest son died at the age of eighteen, followed shortly thereafter by the death of her second son. In her grief she became indifferent to food and drink. Her husband asked his family guru for advice, and the guru began to read Bhagavata Purana to her with to calm her. The result of these readings was that she began to develop an interest in devotion to Krishna and then a desire to move to Braj. Despite the family tradition that kept strict purdah on its women, her husband eventually gave her permission to go.



In Vrindavan Girija Devi rented a room in the Radharamana Ghera and quickly began to experience visions of the deity, Radharaman. Radharani would appear to her to complain about imperfections in the service that would have been impossible for an outsider to know about. On occasion, Radharaman spoke to her by possessing one of the temple priests and speaking through him.



Girija Devi smoked tobacco from a hookah and maintained other habits from her days in Bihar, as a result of which she was not always looked upon with faith, but eventually such inexplicable events caused the sevayats of Radharaman to revere her. Even so, Nilamani Goswami, her landlord, once decided to evict her in order to rent out the house at a higher rent. On that very day he made this decision, but before he could carry out his plan, on ing to his own home, he found that neither he nor any of his companions was able to open the locked door, even though he had the key. Another neighbor, a woman devotee, suggested to him that he had perhaps offended Girija Devi and that if she gave permission he would be able to open the door. Nilamani went to her and asked her to open the door. Much to her own astonishment, she was able to unlock the padlock and the door opened. They attributed the mysterious event to the workings of Radharaman himself.



After the death of her husband, Girija Devi spent the remainder of her days in Jamira, maintaining her devotional practices while running the family estate through agents.



Conclusions



June McDaniel notes in a recent study of Bengali religion that during her fieldwork it was virtually impossible for her to find a Vaishnava holy woman. (54) This suggests that a certain disdain of women continues to exist in orthodox Vaishnava circles today, despite the achievements of a few exceptional women at various points in Gaudiya Vaishnava history. The fear of sahajiyaism may have something to do with this. The ascetic community endeavors to maintain its purity by following the principles of sexual segregation standardized by Chaitanya as far as possible. Vaishnavas who allow women of any age or marital status to stay in their ashrams at night are called kunja-vasis and have the lowest status. Those who speak to women in daytime are called thora-vasis, while those who refuse to have anything at all to do with women are known as vana-vasis. These latter Vaishnavas are given the highest status in the renunciate community. Kunja-vasis are routinely suspected of sahajiya practice. The problems faced by Pishima Goswamini in the early part of her relationship with Balaram Das are typical of those that face any women who wish to practice a life of asceticism. Outside the realm of the ascetics, in the entirely different world of the goswamis and householder Vaishnavas, the wives of the Prabhusantans have always been strong leaders amongst the women of their communities, occasionally stepping in, like Jahnava, to exercise greater influence.



It should be stated that here, as elsewhere, history is generally written by men about men. How many thousands of women in every religious tradition have led quiet lives of simple sanctity and asceticism, and been passed over by the few historians who have written about these matters only by virtue of their sex? Nevertheless, despite the limited numbers of examples that we have been able to find of women whose accomplishments as gurus, saints and devotees have penetrated into the consciousness of the males around them, their examples should be sufficient to continue to inspire devotee women. Besides these, there is ample basis in the Gaudiya Vaishnava symbols, theology and spiritual ideals to give room for women to assert themselves, if the inner call should come.




NOTES



46. 5 volumes, Mathura: Sri Krishnajanmasthan Seva Samsthan, 1981-2. This book has now been translated and published in English.



47. pp. 163-171. Haridas Das credits Haridas Goswami's Nitai-Gaura-vigraha-lila-kahini for most of the data used in his account. O.B.L. Kapoor (op. cit., Vol. 1, 193-212) has based his story primarily on that of Haridas Das.



48. Gaudiya Vaishnava Jivani, 169.






49. The main source for the information given here is Yogi Sri Knshna Prem, by Dilip Kumar Ray (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1968). Also, O.B.L. Kapoor, (op. cit., Vol. 2, 124-169.



50. Braj ke bhakta, Vol. 4, 133-140.



51. Braj ke bhakta, Vol. 3, 132-3.



52. Cf. A. K. Ramanujan, "On Women Saints" in (ed.) J.S. Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff, The Divine Consort (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984 [1982]), 316.



53. Braj ke bhakta, 210-221.



54. The Madness of the Saints (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 192. In a footnote to this comment, she writes, “The general response of Vaishnava practitioners was a look of amazement, followed by, ‘A holy woman (sadhika)? Why would you want to speak to one of them? Look at all the holy men who are here. They are much better to speak with.' None could or would suggest specific women to interview

 

Hare Krishna!


Great stuff Chief. I've recently read the account of Her experiences given by Yashoda Ma to Dillip Kumar Roy as described in the item. They are, as it says, remarkable, as are Her words. She was a very high level and pure devotee.
I think also that the concluding remarks about history as a creation of men in which women are marginalized is true of most spiritual traditions. Although Christianity has its share of women Saints, they too relegated women to an inferior or at least subordinated role.
Something of a paradox there given that the Gopis are the highest devotees!
But I don't think it matters - its not the bodily identity but the Atman, the Self within that is important in this yoga.

 

And so if the Atman is the all in all, then if we are sincere in our devotional life, we will not be bigoted in our treatment of women... or women biased in their treatment of men (which has not often been the case).

 

Hare Krishna!

I think thats right Chief. We should try to treat all with equality, regardless of gender. Krishna says He is equal to all.

 

This is a letter from Yashoda Ma to Govinda, a disciple.



Dear Govinda,

I was very happy to receive your letter after an age……

To serve others is to serve Krishna. We get enmeshed in the toils of maya only because we constantly forget that He presides in every single body. That is why we loose sight of Him and live under the yoke of maya to be born again and again and stay engrossed in what we call our world peopled by our dear ones. If we could only learn to see all this as His lila (play) and envision and serve the one Krishna who ensouls all His creatures, then He would not be able to stay away, veiled from us, because then the veil (of illusion) would be abolished for ever and the whole world would be viewed, pervaded by Him. So far as I am concerned it is unthinkable for me to let Him stay away beyond my horizon. Whatever I see or hear or feel in this world of ours lives by His breath – He, my Gopal, is the life of all that is: it is by that one Krishna who plays at hide and seek with us in countless forms and fathomless lilts. It is only because we equate our bodies with the last reality that we grow to dote on our private worlds of illusion, to wit, where our kith and kin figure. That is why we have to go through no end of pain and frustration – because we hug the blindness of moha, make-believe. Your mother is right: we are all one, sparks of the same vast fire.

I send you my deep love and blessing…………………….



Yashoda Ma. 1944.

 

I myself think the paintings and pictures of Krishna and Vishnu are beautiful. I like the chanting myself. I haven't really applied myself to Krishna because of my laziness. I have had visions of him one night he showed me that I was one with the universe as he pulled me up into space. I was dispersed among the stars it was cool.