Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī wrote:
SĀKṢĀT-KṚTIṀ BATA YAYOR NA MAHATTAMO'PI
KARTUṀ MANASY API MANĀK PRABHUTĀM UPAITI
ICCHANNAYAṀ NAYANAYOḤ PATHI TAU BHAVANTAU
JANTUR VIJITYA NIJAGĀRA BHIYAṀ HRIYAṀ CA
ATHAVĀ MAMA KIṀ NU DŪṢAṆAṀ
BATA VṚNDĀVANA CAKRAVARTINAU
YUVAYOR GUṆA MĀDHURĪ NAVĀ
JANTUM UNMĀDAYATĪHA KAṀ NA VĀ
"O Śrī Rādhā-Mādhava! How amazing! Although even the greatest souls were not able to get Your majestic audience even for a moment, this fallen living being desires it and has now swallowed all shame and fear, by desiring You, to cross the path of his eyes!"
"But still, O King and Queen of Vṛndāvana, what is my fault in this (in desiring your darshan)?
Who will not be intoxicated by the everfresh sweetness of Your divine qualities?"
(Utkalikā Vallari 34-35)
Advaita Ji's tika:
These two verses are philosophically very important. Of course these verses should not be taken literally, in the sense, that one can actually be fallen and live in the holy places. Not deliberately at least, some accident may happen.
Second point is here, Rūpa Goswami says - sākātkrtim bata yayor na mahattamo’pi — “even the mahatmas – the great souls, are not able to get your sat satshatkar” - satshatkar means your vison, your personal meeting.
Kartum manasy api manāk prabhutām upaiti – “not even mentally”. But this fallen soul desires it, swallowing his fear and his shame – this is typical raganuga bhakti.
First of all, you see that the greatest souls, like Bhishma, Narada, Druva, Prahlad, all of them are the Mahajanas - and none of them had adhikara for raganuga bhakti. You can see that in the opening verses of Radha Rasa Sudhānidhi, there are many verses like that. A whole list of great Mahajanas are mentioned - and none of them got raganuga-bhakti. Not even Lakshmi devi herself got it, and She was not allowed to enter the rasa-lila in Braja.
Is Lakshmi-devi not pure enough?
Because this is not the point, it’s not the point, that you have to be some senior devotee with a lot of purity and a lot of knowledge, this and that - and then automatically you get raganuga bhakti, like some karma calculations. No - it has nothing to do with that at all. It can be a very small-time devotee in the society, without any position, without any prestigious position in the vaishnava society, and he may get this raganuga bhakti. Whereas great senior devotees, great scholars or great sannyasis - they may not get it. Because it has nothing to do with it (seniority, purity, knowledge). It is not connected - it is not linked with personal purity at all. So this is a very important point.
The second shloka is also very beautiful and very important.
"Even I am fallen soul - who will not be intoxicated by the ever-fresh sweetness of Your qualities?" this is of course first of all a statement of humility.
Secondly, it’s also a glorification, because the reality is, that not many people do get intoxicated by the ever-fresh sweetness of Radha-Krishna's qualities - unfortunately.
Because the one leads to the other. If one has that eagerness to meet Radha-Krishna, then he will also be intoxicated by the ever-fresh sweetness of their qualities. Where there is a thirst - there is a relish.
Even in Holland they say - "if you are hungry, even raw beans taste sweetly." This is a universal wisdom and counts for raganuga bhakti as well. If you are hungry, even the simplest meal like plain rice, or plain subji would be like a feast. But if you are already full, and somebody serves you a delicious feast, you feel like vomiting. Because you are already completely full. And this is the point, if there is satisfaction - complacency - peace of mind, then there is no place of raganuga bhakti. There has to be eagerness, there has to be some drive, some passion [raga], some greed [lobha] – raganuga means - following (your) passion. Raga means passion and anuga means following. So following passion, that means there has to be some drive, some force has to be in you. Not that you are forced, you need to have thirst / hunger.
The same thing is with Radha-Krishna themselves. It’s only that yogamaya arranges their constant separation and their constant obstacles: Radharani’s husband, Krishna’s friends, parents, parents in law and for Radharani even Her rivals - rival gopis etc. All these obstacles were made to create the maximum excitement. When we say the word tension in the material concept, then we think, that this is something very miserable. Nobody likes to have tension, everybody likes to have peace. But in the spiritual world, at least in the bhakti marg – it’s just the opposite, (because in jnana marg - shanti is okay: “om shanti” this is jnana marg). But in bhakti marg - we reject shanti, we hate shanti, because shanti means there is no raga.
Shanta rasa is considered the lowest. In most shastras like the puranas - shanta is considered the highest. But for us in bhakti marg, especially in raganuga marg - it’s the lowest. We don’t want peace – “peace is piss”, that’s a fact. If you find peace – it’s finished. Raganuga-bhakti is dead. It’s just like when you play mrdangam, and there is a hole in the drum. Then there is no sound. There is no acoustic. Similarly, there has to be tension, there has to be some obstacles, there has to be some challenges, thirst, otherwise it will not work. So these are very very very important shlokas - these two verses from Utkalikā Vallari (34-35).
ADVAITA DAS 2013
*editors note:
just to clarify some misconception
about raganuga-bhakti:
To START with raganuga bhakti has nothing to do with purity. The sadhana itself depends on purity. Bhakti does not have purity as prerequisite, but naturally, if a sadhak is attached to sin it will be harder.
kṛṣṇa-tad-bhakta-kāruṇya-mātra-lābhaika-hetukā |
puṣṭi-mārgatayā kaiścid iyaṁ rāgānugocyate ||309||
The mercy of Kṛṣṇa and His devotees is the only
cause of attaining rāgānuga-bhakti. Some call this type of devotion puṣṭi-mārga.
[Bhakti rasamrita sindhu 1.2.309]
Not as some Vaishnava circles claim, that one has to be free from anarthas - and then only one can start with raganuga bhakti. That raganuga-bhakti is the following process after vaidhi-bhakti — this is wrong and nowhere in shastras.
The opposite is the case, Bhakti Rasāmṛta Sindhu says — that there TWO DIFFERENT TYPES of SADHANA. One is vaidhi and one is raganuga-bhakti. They are parallel, and not that vaidhi leads to raganuga after a certain amount of purification.
BRS ||1.2.5||
vaidhī rāgānugā ceti sā dvidhā sādhanābhidhā
"There are two types of sādhana-bhakti: vaidhi and rāgānuga."
Note, in this verse Rūpa Goswami defines raganuga-bhakti as a SADHANA, it's a practice to start from the beginning, same as it is with vaidhi-bhakti.
Both the vidhi-devotee and the rāga-devotee may therefore begin, simultaneously, with the path of devotion, from the stage of before anartha nivṛtti, cessation of unwanted habits, progressing through the stages that have been described by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī in his Bhakti Rasāmṛta Sindhu 1.4.15-16 (ādau śraddhā tathā sādhu saṅgo'tha bhajana kriyā). The difference between them lies not in personal purity, but in their mood. In other words, rāgānuga bhakti runs parallel with vaidhi bhakti, and not only sequentially.
Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī writes in Bhakti Rasāmṛta Sindhu (1.2.291):
rāgātmikaika niṣṭhā ye vrajavāsī janādayaḥ teṣāṁ bhāvāptaye lubdho bhaved atrādhikāravān
"Those who are anxious ('greedy') to attain the mood of the eternal, exclusively fixed-up Rāgātmika Vrajavāsīs, are eligible to enter into Rāgānugā Bhakti."
The start of vaidhi and raganuga-bhakti:
tatra vaidhī— yatra rāgānavāptatvāt pravṛttir upajāyate | śāsanenaiva śāstrasya sā vaidhī bhaktir ucyate ||6|| "Where the actions of bhakti arise, not from the attainment of rāga, but by the teachings of scriptures, it is called vaidhi bhakti." Qualification for raganuga-bhakti is not the purity, but only the taste/lobha: || 1.2.291 || tatra adhikārī—
rāgātmikāika-niṣṭhā ye vraja-vāsi-janādayaḥ |
teṣāṁ bhāvāptaye lubdho bhaved atrādhikāravān ||291||
The qualification for rāgānuga-bhakti: "That person who is greedy for attaining a bhāva similar to that of the inhabitants of Vraja—who are fixed solely in rāgātmikabhakti—is qualified for rāgānuga-bhakti."
|| 1.2.292 ||
tat-tad-bhāvādi-mādhurye śrute dhīr yad apekṣate |
nātra śāstraṁ na yuktiṁ ca tal-lobhotpatti-lakṣaṇaṁ ||292||
The appearance of that greed is indicated when the intelligence does not depend on rules of scripture and logic, after realizing to some degree the sweetness of their (inhabitants of Vraja) love through the process of hearing from the scriptures.
And Vishvanatha Cakravarti says in his Raga Varta Candrika, that raganuga-bhakti starts before anartha-nivritti.
atha rāgānugā-bhakti majjanasyānartha nivṛtti niṣṭhā-rucy-āsakty-antaraṁ prema-bhūmikārūḍhasya sākṣāt svābhīṣṭa-prāpti-prakāraḥ pradarśyate.
"Now it will be described how the rāgānugīya bhaktas gradually advances through the stages of anartha nivṛtti (cessation of bad habits), niṣṭhā (fixation), ruci (taste), and āsakti (attachment to the beloved deity) up to the stage of prema (love of God) and the direct attainment of their beloved deity."
[Raga Vartma Candrika verse 7]
Another misconception:
Some Vaishnava groups say, Raganuga-bhakti mean spontaneous —this is death wrong.
As showed before - there are two different sadhanas — vaidhi and raganuga-bhakti sadhana. The qualification for raganuga-bhakti TO START is only lobha. When one practice raganuga-bhakti there are [almost] same rules and angas as for vaidhi-bhakti: like surrender to guru, follow his instructions, taking diksa, chanting, reading shastras, follow ekadashi, worshiping the deity, worshiping Tulasi, keeping cleanliness/sadacra etc.
śravaṇotkīrtanādīni vaidha-bhakty-uditāni tu|
yāny aṅgāni ca tāny atra vijñeyāni manīṣibhiḥ ||296||
The discriminating practitioners should accept the aṅgas which were mentioned in vaidhi-bhakti such as hearing and chanting as the aṅgas of rāgānuga-bhakti.
[BRS 1.2.296]
If your bhakti is spontaneous dependents on your purity, to which degree you are free from anarthas. Because vaidhi-bhakti and raganuga-bhakti are two different sadhanas, both sadhanas start from shrada, and go up to anartha nivritti, nista ruci, asaki, bhava and finally prema. Or you think Prahlad Maharaja who is a prema vaidhi-bhakta doesn't make spontaneous bhakti? It’s a death wrong conception. The difference is the start: vaidhi is because the scriptures say it’s good for me - and raganuga-bhakti is because of taste for Radha-Kṛṣṇa in Vrindavana and the brajabasis.
Also - and this is properly the most important thing:
These two different types of sadhana will lead to two completely different destinations:
vidhi-bhaktye pārṣada-dehe vaikuṇṭhete yāy “Through vidhi-bhakti, one will attain the form of an associate in Vaikuṇṭha.”
(Caitanya Caritāmṛta Madhya 24.87)
rāga-bhaktye vraje svayaṁ-bhagavāne pāy
“Through rāga-bhakti, one will attain the Lord Himself in Vraja.” (Caitanya Caritāmṛta Madhya 24.85) Simple as that. Closing words:
If one is lucky and has a guru who teaches the right siddhanta - one is just lucky, and if one doesn't have it, one is just unlucky. Finally, bhakti is not a science, but the way of mercy. The more mercy the more adhikar (understanding/taste) the devotee has.