This is a good website, I was just browsing a little on the web and found this ... its pretty good... definitely a must see for Molly and Karakov here... http://www.bnaiyer.com/vidya/basic-puja-primer.html especially the madhurya bhakti section: Madhurya Bhava: This is the highest expression of Divine love. Here, the devotee takes the lord to be his beloved, with deep love, devotion and surrenders himself. When Gopikas like Radha develops Bhakthi towards Sri Krishna, it is the romantic love and surrender of the self to the lover, without any sensuality but with pure devotion and surrender, called Madhurya Bhava.
There are some fundamentals needed for bhakti: 1. Abhyasa: -Practice of constantly and continuously remembering God with a steady mind. 2. Viveka: Discrimination, the ability to choose between right and wrong. 3. Vimoka: Intense longing for God, rejecting everything that hinders our progress. 4. Sathyam: Truthfulness, to be always observed as a basic rule of spiritual ethics. We have to live a life of truth, think truth alone, speak truth and listen carefully to their own inner voice called conscience. 5. Arjavam: This is straightforwardness or honesty. 6. Kriya: Doing good to all beings, as the devotee will God in all forms. 7. Kalyana: This is wishing well of others with a loving heart, praying to the Lord for the well being of others, for the peace and welfare of the world. 8. Dhaya: Compassion, as God is love, mercy and compassion personified. As we seek to realize Him, we, too, must develop the same qualities. 9. Ahimsa: The practice of non-violence, non-injury to all creatures, by way of action, thought or word. 10. Dhaana: Abundant and spontaneous charity with a pure heart, for relieving the suffering of the distressed is a potent means of growing spiritually. 11. Anavasada: To be cheerful and hopeful is an essential quality of a devotee. One must always have faith and hope.
Out of these however, I think from my personal experience two things are really particularly hard to follow: Discrimination, the ability to choose between right and wrong The practice of non-violence, non-injury to all creatures, by way of action, thought or word. .... The non injury to all creatures could be done by refraining from meat eating etc, but what good will that do if I make myself a stuck up , egotistical moron who thinks he is better than everyone? sigh.
Anyway, the point of this ... let me make clear is that sex is a worldly thing that belongs to the body , not to the soul, it has no place in bhakti. One who is preoccupied with sexuality , is not right candidate for madhurya bhava... and if this is what turns one to Krishna, then one should stop it right now and follow the path in the proper manner under the guidance of an authentic guru.
sigh, you keep missing the point, if you are going into any form of authentic spirituality, according to hindu thought, you should give up the tendency to enjoy this world, you have to give up the thought to exploit it ,and you should surrender yourself to the divine and finally give up this body mentality.
Sex is a spiritual thing that belongs to God. It is the view that your body is not part of God that is incorrect.
By the look of this, you do not seem to have rightful discrimination, one should be able to know what is spiritual and what is not. Anything that improves delusions about the body as yours, it will bind you- so that is material and not spiritual, that is maya. If you are attached to sex then you cannot say sex is spiritual, it is the cause of your bondage and as long as you are in this body , you are attached to sex.
I think that it should be a purly personal decision as far as sex and spirituality go. People always sound so sure when they voice their opinions about this subject, but none of us are enlightened(I dont think) so we have no say. Perhaps the avoidance of sex or pleasure has helped on certain peoples paths, but I'm sure that their are others who were quite sexual (tantric practices and the like) that reached the goal as well. So many paths...totally up to the individual to decide what is spiritual and what is not (in my humble opinion)
yea that too actually, but I guess what we need to do is do what is right and think of everyone and everything as being under God's control , I guess that is complete surrender where you just love God and try to do your best to have ahimsa and let him guide you. For instance, I was doing a lot of research last semester, I didn't have the time to even study for my classes... I had no social life, I was in my own world, forgot friends , forgot everything, I even forgot that I had an exam once...So my GPA got destroyed last semester, then my research professor ran out of funding and said he can't support us anymore... I felt really awful , like I did all that for nothing, but now I wonder if that was for my own good...
I don't know about tantra and all those things but even in those paths you try to be free of Sex. But again , there is always a higher risk in that we can completely fall into it, remember the Osho guy who got pulled into his own doings.
::nods:: I don't know...I suppose that its like in that Krishna Das video I posted in another thread...what Neem Karoli Babaji says, "When you have God, you don't need anything..."....so I suppose...that's what it means to selflessly serve God and others....to give everything to him...then you are not stepped on because you have no desires...and you are too strong to be really effected...so people think they walk on you...but actually it doesn't effect you...I think...I don't know...just thinking...but I do def. think its hard....no one said it would be easy...but we're still trying...so that's got to count for something...
Just a couple of things - Viveka, or discrimination doesn't only refer to the moral discrimination between right and wrong. In fact, that is the 'lower viveka' if I can put it that way. It means much more discrimination as to what is spiritual and what is not. Thus one with viveka can see that the body, mind, ego, feelings etc. are not the Atman. It is the root really of all the other qualities necessary. Without viveka, one is lost. Non-violence is a great ideal, but one which is not absolute. It isn't always enjoined on the disciple to be non-violent. This is shown clearly in the Gita war. In recent history, world war 2 was another example of a situation where non-violence would have led to disaster for the human race. In practical terms, ahimsa is best, but there are situations where it just isn't possible to practice it. Thats right Jedi. For tantra, or left hand tantra of the Varma-Marg to have any chance of being successful would require complete lack of attachment to sex and sexual desire. I don't think there are many people out there who are so detached, and it tends to turn rapidly into self-deception. However, I don't think it's at all a good idea to artificially repress sexual desire either. That is a well known path to fanaticism and eventually to the nut-house. If you want to have sex, then offer it to the Divine like everything else.
Well, if you did read the story of the Lotus Eaters, it looks like the meaning escaped you. There are no enlightened animals, unless we consider the human being as an animal. On this planet, the capacity to become enlightened only exists in humans. And in my opinion, only my opinion I stress, it doesn't even exist in many of them in any realistic sense.
