An introduction to Mañjarī-bhāva

yasya sphūrti-lavāṅkureṇa laghunāpy antar munīnāṁ manaḥ spṛṣṭaṁ mokṣa-sukhād virajyati jhaṭity āsvādyamānād api
premṇas tasya mukunda sāhasitayā śaknotu kaḥ prārthane bhūyāj janmani janmani pracayinī kintu spṛhāpy atra me

O Mukunda, giver of liberation!
Who in the world is there with the courage
to pray for the gift of sacred love,
of which the slightest manifestation,
when brushing against the minds of the great sages,
makes them forget the happiness of liberation?
My prayer therefore to you is this:
that I should simply desire for such prema, and that this desire should increase forever, in this world, birth after birth.
(Rūpa Gosvāmī, Aṣṭādaśa-cchanda, Vastra-haraṇa, 2)

Even those self-satisfied sages who directly experience the happiness of liberation immediately become indifferent to that pleasure simply on coming into contact with the fractionally germinated seed of prema; what person in this world is so bold that he would pray for such wealth? I, therefore, always pray only that, wherever I should take birth, I may constantly develop the thirst and enthusiasm for attaining that great prize—that I should remain forgetful of all else and thirst for it in the way that a fish from its pond craves for a return to water, as a cātaka bird thirsts for the appearance of a cloud, or as the fabled cakora seeks the rays of the moon.

Brahmānanda is the name given to the joy found in the transcendentalist’s realization of universal spiritual identity. This pleasure is so highly lauded by its proponents that it is said to make all worldly pleasure, even that of being an emperor or universal creator like Brahmā, appear completely insignificant. Yet this brahmānanda itself becomes an object of scorn for one who has attained the fortune of getting even the slightest scent of Kṛṣṇa- prema, or love for Kṛṣṇa. Prema is therefore the ultimate goal of life, or prayojana-tattva.  

There are unlimited varieties of prema, but there is a vast difference in their magnitude. According to Viśvanātha Cakravartī’s commentary on the varieties of heroine in “The Blazing Sapphire” (Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi), the four degrees  of magnitude are:  atomic, comparatively substantial, great and exceedingly great. In those persons whose devotional taste has not yet developed (ajāta-ruci), prema is present only in atomic quantity; it is only barely detectable and consequently, the Lord’s giving of himself to such devotees is also just barely perceptible. At the opposite extreme, prema is found to be of exceedingly great magnitude only in the person of the Queen of Vrindavan, Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. There, because prema is present in its fullest possible manifestation, Kṛṣṇa is also in complete subordination to her. Sacred love (prema) is great in all the residents of Vrindavan and therefore Lord Kṛṣṇa accepts the role of a subordinate to them also. The Lord submits himself to devotees like Nārada, in whom sacred love is greater or lesser, in proportion to their devotion. When the Lord consents to become a subordinate to his devotee, i.e., in a case where love is either great or exceedingly great, his majestic aspects remain completely hidden in the presence of so much devotional sweetness, in the way that the potencies of a feudal baron, though relatively apparent to his subordinates, remain subdued in the presence of the emperor.

The strength and magnitude of Rādhā’s love is further eulogized in “The Jewel Box of Sacred Love” (Prema-sampuṭikā):

loka-dvayāt svajanataḥ parataḥ svato vā prāṇa-priyād api sumeru-samā yadi syuḥ kleśās tad apy atibalī sahasā vijitya premaiva tān harir ibhān iva puṣṭim eti
 
As a strong lion defeats many elephants and then becomes further nourished and strengthened by feeding on them,
so too does sacred love, when exceedingly great,
conquer all obstacles before it,
whether they come from this world or the next,
from enemies or from family members,
from one’s own body or the things connected to it,
or even from that dearest one
who is the object of the love itself.

Even if such obstacles should be as vast as the immeasurable Mount Meru, sacred love will conquer them and, having conquered, become stronger and more vital. (Prema-sampuṭikā, 54.)

Sacred love is the essence of Kṛṣṇa’s internal potency, known as the hlādinī or bliss-giving energy. This energy manifests in different types of devotees in four basic varieties known as servitorship, comradeship, guardianship and the sweetest affection known as “mistress- ship.” This mistress-ship is called “sweet love” (madhurā rati) because it is the most relishable of the devotional sentiments. It is of three types: common (sādhāraṇī rati), compromising (samañjasā rati), and competent (samarthā rati). Of the three, the last is considered the most perfect. In Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, Rūpa Gosvāmin has described this competent love as kāma-rūpā bhakti or the devotion that has the form or appearance of sexual attraction:

That devotion or love which makes the desire for sexual union submit to it and take on its own form, i.e., makes it function only for the purpose of Kṛṣṇa’s pleasure, is known as kāma-rūpā bhakti. Where such devotion exists, all efforts are made only for his happiness and never for one’s own pleasure or satisfaction, even though externally or superficially this desire for Kṛṣṇa’s pleasure may appear like a desire for one’s own sexual satisfaction. Kāma-rūpā bhakti is widely known to exist only in the cowherd girls of Vrindavan. Learned persons have given the name of sexual attraction (kāma) to the love of the cowherd girls for Kṛṣṇa because, in the multifarious expressions of sweetness, such sports as embracing, kissing and other amorous activities take place. Even great devotees like Uddhava adore the spirit of the cowherd girls because it transforms the essentially selfish sexual desire into pure devotional love or desire for the Supreme Lord’s sensual enjoyment. These devotees desire to attain that level of devotion, but remain forever unable.

In “The Story of Gopāla” (Gopāla-campū) and “The Treatise of Sacred Love” (Prīti- sandarbha), Jīva Gosvāmin writes that the Lord gave Uddhava a position in his life in the spiritual world of Goloka, but even so, Uddhava was unable to obtain the form of a cowherd girl or the true identity of one. This does not mean that Uddhava’s status is not extremely elevated. According to the Bṛhad-Bhāgavatāmṛta (the larger “Nectar of the Lord’s Devotee”), there are five kinds of devotees: (1) the devotee in knowledge (jñāna- bhakta), such as Bharata Mahārāja, (2) the pure devotee (śuddha-bhakta) like Ambarīṣa Mahārāja, (3) the devotee in sacred love (prema-bhakta) like Hanumān, (4) the devotee entirely fixed in sacred love (prema-para-bhakta) like the five Pāṇḍava brothers, and (5) the devotee completely absorbed in and moved by sacred love (premātura-bhakta) like the Yādavas, of whom the chief is Uddhava. Each of these divisions is superior to the one
preceding it.
Nevertheless, even though Uddhava stands as superior to all the above-mentioned devotees, he cannot attain to the ultimate standard of devotional sentiment known as the mood of the cowherd girl (gopī-bhāva).

Devotion to Kṛṣṇa in the form of sexual desire (kāma-rūpā) is further subdivided into two divisions. One entails desiring to be a mistress to Kṛṣṇa. This is called sambhogecchā-mayī, or devotion formed of the desire for a direct sexual relationship with the Lord. The second division is called tad-bhāvecchātmikā, devotion arising out of a desire for the feelings of Rādhā, i.e., devotion which approves of and follows in the wake of the “leading lady’s” affairs with her leading man, Kṛṣṇa. This second category is the one into which the devotion of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī’s girlfriends (the sakhīs) falls.

Amongst Rādhārāṇī’s girlfriends or sakhīs there are again several divisions, all of which participate in the spirit of tad-bhāvecchātmikā devotion. Some of the girlfriends have equal love for both Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa; others are more inclined to either one or the other. Those who are more favorable to Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, Kṛṣṇa’s leading lady, are known as Rādhā- snehādhikā; these are also known as the mañjarīs, or “flower buds.” Rūpa Gosvāmin has given their unique affection or devotional sentiment a special name, that of bhāvollāsā rati, for they consider themselves to be exclusively the maidservants of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī and are more devoted to her that to even Śrī Kṛṣṇa himself.

Pure devotional service, the general definition of which is given at the beginning of the “Ocean of the Nectar of Sacred Rapture” (Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.1.6: anyābhilāṣitā- śūnyam…), namely that it is completely free from any other desire, finds its most perfect actualization in this spirit of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī’s maidservants, bhāvollāsā rati.

The love of the cowherd girls of Vrindavan is called “competent” (samarthā) because it has the power to control Kṛṣṇa, to make him who is the Supreme Lord (“capable of doing anything he pleases, or of not doing it, or of changing from one mode of action to another according to his whim”) incapable of paying back the debt he feels to them. He himself admits to this in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

I am completely unable, even if given a lifetime of the gods, to repay you your good deeds, for you have dedicated yourselves to me completely, breaking off the powerful chains that kept you bound to home and family to worship me. You will therefore have to be satisfied with your good deeds alone.

Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī is the chief of Vrindavan’s milkmaids; she is the presiding deity of this competent devotion. Nevertheless, she herself is incapable of creating any change or transformation in the determination of the mañjarīs to exclusively serve her, their mistress. Even though she is the source and abode of the innumerable goddesses of fortune, she still feels herself to be indebted to the mañjarīs. She is the reservoir of unlimited compassion and is always anxious to fulfill the desires of all the devotees, but the mañjarīs’ only desire is service to her, and they will have nothing else of her. These are confidential and difficult facts that are not known to all, secrets only the select few can comprehend.

In the Prīti-sandarbha, Jīva Gosvāmin has shown that the Supreme Lord enjoys four types of pleasure: one from simply being situated in his being, another that comes from his immeasurable opulences, another that arises from his mind; and the last and best, one that is derived from the love of his devotees.

In the Bhāgavata-purāṇa, the Lord is described as the “devotee of his devotees. Similarly, it is written in the Caitanya-bhāgavata:

kṛṣna tāhā pūrṇa koren, jāhā māgen bhṛtya |
bhakta-vāñchā-pūrti bhinna nāhi anya kṛtya ||

“Kṛṣṇa gives whatever is prayed for by his servant.
He has no duty other than to fulfill the wishes of his devotees.” (CBh, 3.2.478)

When Lord Gaurāṅga, the combined form of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, appeared on this earth, Rādhā’s dearest maidservant, Rūpa Mañjarī, also appeared as Rūpa Gosvāmin. The following incident from Śrī Rūpa’s life will help clarify the above statement. At one time, Rūpa Gosvāmin was living and performing his bhajan at a place called Tero Kadamba, which lies halfway between Nanda Gram and Javat (Yāvaṭa) in the district of Braj. One day he thought to himself that if he only had some milk and sugar he could prepare some condensed milk (khīr) to offer his deity and then serve it as sacred remnants (prasād) to his spiritual master, Sanātana. Only a few moments after having this thought, a young girl came by carrying milk and sugar, which she gave to him, telling him to make khīr for his deity. Having done this, she went away. Rūpa then did as he had been told; he boiled the sugar and milk down into a sweet and delicious preparation for offering up to the Lord. Afterwards he gave the sacred remnants to Sanātana to enjoy. While Sanātana was eating, he was seized by uncontrollable spasms of ecstasy. When he had calmed down somewhat, he inquired from his brother where he had gotten his ingredients. Rūpa told him the story of the Vrajavāsī girl. When he had heard the entire account, Sanātana immediately realized that it had in fact been Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī herself who had come personally bearing gifts for them. But Sanātana was concerned because, despite the great blessing Rādhā had given them, she was their goddess and they were her servants. As the proper relation of served and servant had thus been reversed, he therefore strictly forbad Rūpa accepting any such gifts in the future.

Sanātana Gosvāmin called this servitude to Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī “the most uncommon and elevated of all spiritual goals” in his commentary on his own Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta. Prabodhānanda Sarasvatī, once the spiritual guide of sixty thousand ascetics, elaborates on this idea in his Vṛndāvana-mahimāmṛta (“Nectar of the Greatness of Vṛndāvana”):

Glorious are those persons who desire to climb out of the well of material existence and attain liberation; even more glorious are those who have dedicated themselves to the service of the Lord. More elevated again are those who have become attached to Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet. Those who love the husband of the Queen Rukmiṇī are superior again to such devotees, while more praiseworthy still are those who are dear to the son of Yaśodā. More glorious again are those who have made friends with Subala’s comrade. Superior to those in the mood of friendship are those who worship the Lord as the lover of the gopīs. Yet standing at the head of all devotees in the creation are those whose thoughts have been washed away by the flood of sacred rapture emanating from the daughter of King Vṛṣabhānu, Rādhā, and worship her above all.

That devotion that has been described in the introductory verse to the Vidagdha-mādhava (and then quoted in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta) as “the most elevated of all sacred erotic raptures” is this affection of Rādhārāṇī’s girlfriends, who care even more for her than they do for Kṛṣṇa himself. Their bhāvollāsā rati—a mood of constant exultation in Rādhā’s divine feelings for Kṛṣṇa—is the crown jewel of all mystic achievements. It is the priceless boon of Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s limitless mercy.

anarpita-carīṁ cirāt karuṇayāvatīrṇaḥ kalau
samarpayitum unnatojjvala-rasāṁ sva-bhakti-śriyām |
hariḥ puraṭa-sundara-dyuti-kadamba-sandīpitaḥ
sadā hṛdaya-kandare sphuratu vaḥ śacī-nandanaḥ ||
 
This elevated, effulgent, taste of sacred rapture
is the wealth of devotional love;
the Lord never gave it at any time;
yet, out of his mercy, he came in this Age of Quarrel
to distribute this treasure to the world, becoming incarnate in his golden form. The son of Śacī is like a lion;
may he dwell in your hearts forever.

Mahāprabhu infused all of his power into the heart of Rūpa Gosvāmin, his dearest associate, and had him reveal to the world what was his own heart’s desire. In the Caitanya-caritāmṛta it is said:

The Lord taught Rūpa the truths about Kṛṣṇa, devotion to him and sacred æsthetics, as well as the conclusions of the Bhāgavata. Those conclusions he had heard from Rāmānanda Rāya he compassionately infused into Rūpa.
The Lord transmitted his own powers into the heart of Śrī Rūpa and made
him an expert in explaining all these truths.

When will that Rūpa
who has estabished on earth
the heart’s desire of Śrī Caitanya,
bestow on me a place at his feet?

Caitanya Mahāprabhu himself resided in the whorl of Rūpa’s lotus-like heart in the form of the raptures of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa for the purpose of giving himself to the unfortunate souls of the world. As a result, Śrīla Rūpa Prabhu was able to produce two master works on the varieties of spiritual experience: Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, “The Ocean of the Nectar of Sacred Rapture,” and Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi, “The Blazing Sapphire.”

The non-devotees cannot see directly what is before their eyes, just as an owl is unable to see the bright rays of the sun.

In the twelfth verse of the Manaḥ-śikṣā (“Instructions to the Mind”), Raghunātha Dāsa writes:
“One who recites this poem becomes a follower of Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmin and his group and receives the jewel of worship of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa in the forest of Gokula.”
In his gloss to this verse, Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa expands on the idea by saying, “One should follow in the footsteps of Rūpa Gosvāmin and of those in his entourage (i.e., Śrī Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, Śrī Sanātana, Śrī Lokanātha, etc.) by living in Vrindavan and serving Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa there.”

Raghunātha Dāsa also designated Śrī Rūpa as the leader of the six Gosvāmins elsewhere,
in Muktā-carita (“The Story of the Pearls”) where he makes the following final prayer:

ādadāno radais tṛṇam idaṁ yāce punaḥ punaḥ |
śrī-rūpa-padāmbhoja-dhuliḥ syāṁ janma-janmani ||  

Taking straw in my teeth, I make this one prayer again and again: May I
become a piece of dust at Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmin’s lotus feet, birth after birth.

The conclusion, then, is that if one wishes to get a full appreciation of the inner desires of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, he should know that he has no alternative but to whole- heartedly follow in the footsteps of Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmin.

In Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, the five chief types of sacred feelings with all their component ingredients are described in an comprehensive manner. Sacred erotic love (madhurā rati) has there been characterized as standing above all other kinds of sacred attitude towards the Supreme; nevertheless, it was only summarized there briefly as Rūpa reserved his extensive treatment of the subject for the exhaustive Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi. Rūpa himself explains why:

nivṛttānupayogitvād durūhatvād ayaṁ rasaḥ |
rahasyatvāc ca saṁkṣipya vitatāṇgo vilikhyate ||

Three types of person are unqualified to hear about sacred erotic rapture: (1) renunciates who are excessively inclined to asceticism,
(2) others who are unable to distinguish between mundane sexuality and the divine eros, and
(3) those who, though devotees, are indifferent to the erotic mysticism of the Bhāgavata-purāṇa.
Since the subject is esoteric and rather difficult to understand, as well as being expansive, I have only given an abbreviated description of it here.

Over the course of these two works, however, only the first division of erotic devotion, i.e., sambhogecchā-mayī—that of devotees who desire to be Kṛṣṇa’s lovers, has been described extensively with all the ingredients necessary for the production of its form of rapture, the experience of transcendental emotion. However, the second division of erotic devotion called tad-bhāvecchātmikā, consisting of a desire to serve, promote and share in the feelings of Kṛṣṇa’s lovers, which is the possession of Rādhā’s sakhīs and mañjarīs, who are imbued with a spirit of complete dedication and service to her, has not been described anywhere in the same far-reaching manner. Some details of this type of devotion have been provided here and there in those and a large number of other works, albeit somewhat obscurely. It would be a difficult task for an ordinary person to put these details together in an orderly fashion for contemplation, yet for the practitioners of the devotional life who yearn for the mystic perfection of direct service to the Divine Couple, such knowledge is an absolute necessity. Without the kind of guidance provided by such a manual, eager aspirants for the mood of a mañjarī would not really know from which models they should take inspiration, nor which moods are appropriate, nor with whose feelings they should seek to empathize. For this reason, for an aspirant to mañjarī-bhāva, a complete familiarity with the mañjarīs’ dominant emotions, the specifiers, notifiers and so forth, is an absolute necessity.

In the Muralī-vilāsa (“The Sport of the Flute”), Jāhnavā Ṭhākurāṇī supplies some answers to these questions in a conversations with her adopted son and disciple, Rāmāi Ṭhākur (Rāmacandra Gosvāmin):

Rāmāi Ṭhākur said, “Please continue. Tell me about this attitude called
bhāvollāsâ. Where is it to be found?”
Mother Jāhnavā answered, “Dear one, listen carefully. This bhāvollāsa-rati can only be found in the holy land of Vrindavan. The Lord’s abode of Vrindavan is even beyond the reach of the gods. There, the ever youthful Divine Couple reigns supreme. Serving them raphsodically day and night are hand-maidens like Śrī Rūpa Mañjarī and Śrī Anaṅga Mañjarī who possess this bhāvollāsā rati. The happiness of the Divine Couple is their
happiness; they know nothing else. Always immersed in an ocean of bliss in
the service of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, they are oblivious to time. Their love, which delights in feeling, like a companion mood, aims at giving pleasure to Kṛṣṇa; it feeds and nourishes the love between Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. They are all identical with Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī; they merely possess different bodies—one life, one soul, they all are expansions of Rādhā. When she and her lover are at the height of rapturous intimacy and the hair stands erect on her body, the very same phenomenon occurs on the bodies of her girlfriends. They experience seven times the pleasure that Rādhā does! Sometimes, on some pretext, she arranges for them to have trysts with Kṛṣṇa, seeing which her happiness increases thousands of times. This is a
description of the bhāvollāsa love, which caused the Lord to say in the circle  
dance,’I am unable to repay you gopīs for the love you have shown me.’

The process of attaining bhāvollāsa love is described by Narottama Dāsa Ṭhākur in the
first song of his famous “Moonbeam of Sacred Love” (Prema-bhakti-candrikā):

The love of the Divine Couple is as pure as gold refined thousands of times. May glory crown Rūpa and Sanātana, who revealed this treasure to the world.
O, please be kind and give me that treasure of love and I will wear it as a pendant around my neck. In their books, these two great ones
clearly showed all the intricacies of this sacred love. Hearing their works produces the greatest joy in the heart
and shelter in the erotic rapture of the loving Couple.

Raghunātha Dāsa writes:
anārādhya rādhā-padāmbhoja-reṇum anāśritya vrndāṭavīṁ tat-padāṅkām |
asambhāṣya tad-bhāva-gambhīra-cittān kutaḥ śyāma-sindho rasāvagāhaḥ ||

Not ever having worshipped once the dust
that sprinkles from Śrīmatī’s lotus feet;
not having taken shelter even once
of Vraja Dhām, marked with her dainty tread;
not ever having spoken with the souls
so laden with a weighty love for her ,
how foolish they who think that they can plunge
into the secret sea of nectar that is Śyāma!

And from the Padyāvalī,

kṛṣṇa-bhakti-rasa-bhāvita-matiḥ
kriyatāṁ yadi kuto’pi labhyate |
tatra laulyam api mūlyam ekalaṁ
janma-koṭi-sukṛtair na labhyate ||
 
O friend, if you should find it anywhere,
that heart absorbed in Kṛṣṇa rasa so rare,
be quick to buy, how much the soul’s in need! In that bazaar is posted just one price;
millions of pious works will not suffice,
the cost is to be paid in coins of greed.

Where does such spiritual greed come from? Rūpa Gosvāmin summarizes this in Bhakti- rasāmṛta-sindhu:

When one has gained some perception, from hearing the Bhāgavata Purāṇa or other books on the Lord’s sports written by rapturous devotees, that all of Kṛṣna’s senses are pleased by the feelings, beauty and qualities of the residents of Vraja such as Nanda and Yaśodā, an attitude arises that is indifferent to scripture or argument and is a symptom of the development of eagerness or greed (lobha). This attitude is, more specifically, the innate, spontaneous desire for the sweetness of those various moods: “May I also have the same kinds of feelings and qualities.”

Even though spontaneous attraction to the mood of the residents of Vrindavan is so natural, not all persons develop it instantly upon first hearing about it. The Caitanya- caritāmṛta says: “Some rare fortunate soul develops greed on hearing the glories of the residents of Vrindavan.”

One needs the mercy of a devotee who is himself endowed with this spirit and the candidate must be possessed of certain qualities on his own—a certain lucidity or clearness of mind—before such greed can appear. Therefore, Rūpa says in Bhakti- rasāmṛta-sindhu (1.2.309) that it is kṛpaikalabhyā, “only available through the mercy of the Lord and his devotees.”

In the Bhakti-sandarbha (“Treatise on Devotion”), Śrī Jīva describes the development of
greed in the following way:

A devotee whose heart is clear like a crystal will find that when the rays of the moon-like devotion of the residents of Vraja fall upon it, it lights up and takes on that glow itself, i.e., eagerness manifests itself in his heart. Then a curiosity about the dealings or feelings or passions of the eternally perfect residents of Vraja such as Nanda, Yaśodā, etc., arises in the practitioner. In other words a desire to know more about the patterns of their feelings occurs and he develops a taste or hunger for those patterns.

The candidate who is qualified for practicing devotion in pursuit of erotic passion (kāmānugā bhakti) is further described in Rūpa Gosvāmin’s Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu:

Those who have seen the beauty of the image of the Lord or who have heard about his sports with his lovers, from their “falling in love” (pūrva- rāga) to the ecstasies of the circle dance, and who have become eager for the feelings of either the heroines or their friends are qualified for the practice of one of the two types of this form of devotion.

Jīva’s commentary on this verse is as follows:

Previously [in verse 1.2.292], only the process of hearing was mentioned. Now it appears that it is necessary to see Kṛṣṇa’s form also. Seeing Kṛṣṇa’s images, certainly, is also dependent on hearing, for without hearing, there is no possibility that the Lord’s beauty or activities will spring into reality. Moreover, even without seeing the image of the Lord, hearing of his sports will be effective.29

Who then is not qualified? Expanding on the verse from Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (3.5.2), which was quoted above (page xx), Viṣṇu Dāsa writes in his commentary on Ujjvala- nīlamaṇi (1.2):

(1) This spiritual discussion is unedifying for those who, though they are devotees of Kṛṣṇa, have no inclination toward erotic sacred rapture and for those who, considering the Lord’s erotic dalliances to be the same as mundane sexuality, feel dispassion or lack any taste for them.
(2) Although there are many devotees in erotic sacred rapture, still, because they have not been properly trained or purified, not all of them are proficient at tasting rapture. For them, this discussion is difficult to grasp.
(3) It is improper to discuss this topic before those whose minds are deeply absorbed in the path of injunctions, who, because of having various tendencies, are by nature unaware of the path of passion. The superiority of the path of passion means, after all, that there are unlimited lesser natures unsuited for it.

This conception of the mañjarī is as difficult to comprehend as it is rare. Yet, as it is extremely important we have no other recourse than that of familiarizing ourselves with it. Although such a task is beyond the capabilities of an uneducated, foolish and most unqualified person such as myself, still, because of the indomitable influence of this holy land and of the blessings of the Vaiṣṇavas, who are all embodiments of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī’s compassion, I have been inspired to take up this task with enthusiasm.

Translated by Jagadananda das Ji and taken with permission from his edition of Manjari Svarupa Nirupana.