The transcendental body

Sadhana (religious practice) is either external or internal. External sadhana is connected with the body and the senses, internal with the mind. Raganuga-sadhana is predominantly internal. It’s predominant feature is contemplation of the Divine lila (pastimes). But external practices like hearing and chanting are not to be neglect. In fact, the two are complementary. Hearing and chanting enhance remembrance and remembrance enhances hearing and chanting.

Srila Rupa Goswami has called internal and external practices as the aspects of raganuga bhakti.
External practice should not be regarded as different from internal practice, but as the external expression of the internal practice. Therefore the two not only can, but should go on simultaneously. Remembrance of the lila should go on with hearing and chanting. To perform hearing and chanting mechanically without any mental association or remembrance is not the raganuga-way of practice. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu has said that this kind of mechanical performance of hearing and chanting will not bring about Krishna-prema even if it is performed life after life.

A very clear and succinct statement of the kind of practice Sriman Mahaprabhu wants his followers to practice is found in his precepts to Raghunatha Das Goswami. He had I asked Raghunatha to practice bhajana under the guidance of Svarupa Damodar, but Raghunatha das Goswami also wanted to get some instructions directly from Him. When Svarupa Damodara told Him about this, He laughed. He said to Raghunatha: “I have appointed him as your teacher. He will tell you all about the goal and the practice. I do not know as much as he knows. Still, if you have faith in my words, listen what I say. Know this as the substance of my teachings: He humble and respectful to others, always chant the name of Krishna and serve Radha and Krishna in Vrindavan in your mind.

Here Sriman Mahaprabhu has stated both the external and internal practice: external being the chanting of the Holy Name, internal being the service to Radha and Krishna in Vrindavan through the mentally conceived transcendental body. He has also stressed that both should be carried on simultaneously. The Hari-bhakti-vilas says that hearing and chanting is only fruitful when performed by the mentally conceived transcendental body (antascintita siddha-deha) in the proximity of Sri Krishna. In Raganuga-bhakti, the practitioner separates himself from the physical body and senses by identifying himself with the mentally conceived transcendental body. This is called bhuta-suddhi. Without buddha-suddhi, no religious practice is fruitful even if it is performed strictly according to the procedure late down in the scriptures. The practitioners identification with the transcendental body, however, does not take place at once. He cannot establish direct personal relationship with Krishna and serve Him lovingly and spontaneously as it is done in ragatmika-bhakti.

Though raganuga-bhakti is generally described as spontaneous, it is not spontaneous in the real sense. It is only imitation of the spontaneous ragatmika-bhakti. In raganuga-bhakti, the practitioner only imitates the particular mood of a ragatmika-devotee that suits his natural inclination. It is not possible for an ordinary person in the physical body to attain the ragatmika-bhakti of the associates of Krishna, whose bodies are made of divine bliss. But performing raganuga-bhakti prepares him for ultimately attaining it in a suitable transcendental body. So long as the practitioner stays in the physical body, he performs hearing and chanting and observes the other roules of vaidhi-bhakti outwardly, but inwardly imagine himself to be in the transcendental body, appropriate for the type of bhakti to which he is naturally inclined, and to be serving Krishna day and night through that body.

By constant meditation, he makes the whole of Vrindavan lila come alive before him. He enters into that lila in his imagination and by serving Krishna according to the particular mood of bhakti adopted by him, lives in the ecstasy of to vicarious enjoyment of that service.
In due course of time, the mentally conceived transcendental body becomes real. Srila Narottama das Thakur says, that what the practitioner desires and meditates upon in the stage of practice, he actually attains on its completion. From our perspective, the mentally conceived or contemplated transcendental body therefore is just the transcendental body proper in the making, so to say.
As to the mode of practice of the raganuga-sadhana, Srila Rupa Goswami says:

“Those who desire to attain the rati or prema, which qualifies them for the service of Krishna, according to the mood which is dear to them, should follow the Vrajavasis as practitioners in the physical body and as siddhas (perfected souls) in the transcendental body suitable for that Vraja-bhava (mood).”

Srila Vishvanatha Cakravartipada has written, clarifying the word Vrajavasi, that the practitioner of madhura-bhava should in his physical body follow the line of devotion of Vrajavasis like Srila Rupa Goswami and other Goswamis of Vrindavana, and in his transcendental body, he should follow Radha, Rupa Manjari, etc…

The transcendental body of the practitioner first appears in the mind of Sri Gurudeva (who receives this information from Krishna – Ed.). Sri Gurudeva tells the practitioner all about its form, colour, dress etc. and the particular kind of service to Sri Sri Radha and Krishna assigned to him. So Sri Gurudeva paints a mental picture of the transcendental body in the mind of the practitioner who then thinks it to be his real-to-be body. With that body, he always serves Radha and Krishna in his meditation. The question may now arise: how can the mentally conceived body become transcendental and thus serve Krishna? It may be answered that the transcendental body, which first appears in the pure mind of Sri Gurudeva, which is made then of suddha-sattva, cannot be imaginary. But the guru does not directly make the practitioner realize it. He describes it and makes a picture of it on the mind of the practitioner which then is still material. The picture thus made on the still material mind must be material or imaginary, not spiritual and real. In this connection, we must bear in mind two things. The first is, that even the material mind assumes the shape of the thing, which it always contemplates.

Srimad Bhagavatam says: “If on account of love, hatred or fear, someone is wholly absorbed in the thought of something, he assumes the shape and form of that thing. The bumblebee catches hold of an insect and takes it inside the hole in which it lives. The insect, out of fear of the bumblebee always thinks of it and assumes its form without leaving its body.”

Besides, in the same Bhagavatam, Sri Krishna tells Uddhava: “I am the very essence of the truth. Therefore, whatever the form in which the practitioner imagines himself to be while meditating on Me, automatically, this desired form becomes true.”

Sri Jiva Goswamipad in his Priti Sandharbha also quotes the Chandogya Upanisad (3.14.1), Vrihadaranyaka Upanisad (4.4.5) and Bhagavat Gita (8.6) to support this point.

The second thing is that, because bhakti is the function of Krishna’s Svarupa Sakti, while we are engaged in hearing and chanting or any other kind of bhakti performance, our mind and the senses involved in it will become spiritualized on account of the identification with the Svarupa sakti. The contemplation of the transcendental body is also a bhakti performance. In this contemplation also, the mind is identified with Svarupa sakti. As the contemplation goes on, the mind becomes more and more purified with the increase in the purity of the mind. The identification with Svarupa sakti also increases. When our identification is complete, prema emanates. As soon as prema emanates, mind, body and the senses become completely spiritualized.

The object of contemplation of the mind, which is completely identified with Svarupa sakti, cannot be imaginary or non-spiritual. Besides, at the time of complete identification of the mind with Svarupa sakti and the emergence of prema, Krishna also appears before the practitioner along with his associates. The darshan of Krishna makes the mentally conceived transcendental body spiritual. The practitioner then assumes the transcendental body. The complete identification of the mind with Svarupa sakti, the emergence of prema and the darshan of Krishna and his associates, take place simultaneously and the spiritualization of the mentally conceived transcendental body can be said to be the result of any of these.
On attaining the transcendental body, the practitioner begins a new divine life. Yogamaya contrives to admit it into the eternal pastimes of Krishna with His associates by placing it into the womb of a gopi and by giving it a new birth of the place, where the manifest pastimes are going on. Simultaneously, Yogamaya admits it into the eternal Navadvipa-lila by making it take birth through another spiritual body in the house of a brahmin at a place where manifest Navadvipa-lila is going on.

Sri Jiva Goswami writes in his Priti Sandharbha, that in the eternal realm, infinite spiritual bodies are present as parts of the divine luster of the body of Krishna and the transcendental bodz is one of them. When the practitioner attains perfection, his physical body drops and Krishna identifies his mentally conceived transcendental body with his spiritual body present in the eternal realm. From our perspective, the spiritual body present there in the eternal realm seems to be inactive and it becomes active as it is identified with the mentally conceived transcendental body of the practitioner (But this only seems to be the case from our LINEAR conception of time, bound by beginning and end – Ed.)

The mentally conceived transcendental body, however, must not be regarded as wholly imaginary. It is a mental reflection of the transcendental body, which Krishna out of his infinite kindness imparts to the practitioner. That the transcendental body is a gift of Krishna is corroborated by the second line of verse 3.9.11 of the Srimad Bhagavatam, which runs as follows:

yadyad dhiya ta urugaya vibhavayanti tattadvapuh pranayase sadanugrahaya

Sri Vishvanatha Cakravartipad interprets the text to mean that Krishna imparts to the practitioner a transcendental body exactly like the one which he imagines himself to possess and which is essential for the particular mode of bhakti practiced by him, because Krishna is bound to do so on account of His always being subservient to the practitioner. This seems to contradict the view, that the transcendental body contemplated by the practitioner is the mental reflection of the transcendental body which Krishna imparts to him. This contradiction is only apparent, because the transcendental body upon which the practitioner contemplates is imprinted on his mind by the guru and the guru imprints upon the mind of the practitioner the image of the transcendental transcendental body inspired in the gurus mind by Krishna. The idea of the transcendental bodz may not be acceptable to science. But the scope of the scientific inquiry is restricted by its unscientific assumptions. Science must explain everything in terms of matter and energy. The vital, the physical and spiritual revelations of the finer forms of energy must always remain sealed close to science, because they are the expressions of primal energy and not the expressions and radiations of much cruder forms of energy working on lower levels.

Even matter is an expression of primal energy. Sriman Mahaprabhu does not believe in the existence of matter in the ordinary sense. He accepts the kind of dualistic hypothesis in which both matter and the finite spirit are related to the Divine, matter indirectly and spirit directly. Matter is not an entity. It may be described as the restricted movement of the primal will, very much similar to Bergson’s matter which is described as an inversion of movement of the “elan vital”.

The Taittriya Upanishad speaks of the five kosas, by which the atma is enfolded, the blissful body, the intelligence body, the vital body and the physical body. Beyond all these bodies is the spiritual body or the bhava-deha. When the practitioner is sufficiently advanced in devotion, he becomes free from the material bodies and realizes the spiritual body. The spiritual body is made of pure suddha-sattva, the luminous, expressive and unfettered substance of the spiritual world.
The mentally conceived spiritual body which the practitioner contemplates is an imperfect replica of the spiritual body, which he attains on the fruition of his devotion.

/ O.B.L Kapoor “Sri Caitanya and Raganuga-bhakti”