Mādhurya Kādambinī – Sri Visvanatha Cakravartipada

Commentaries by Śrī Rādhākuṇḍa Mahānta
Paṇḍita Śrī Ananta Dās Bābājī Mahārāja
Translation by Advaita das

 

The two unfolding leaves called sādhana on the desire creeper of bhakti were described before. Now as hearing, chanting and other devotional processes become very smooth, suddenly many shiny petals known as anubhāvas (symptoms of ecstasy) appear at every moment, clinging to the flower of bhāva. Shining brilliantly, the fully blossoming flower of bhāva matures and brings forth the fruit of prema. But what is most astonishing about the creeper of bhakti is that though its leaves, buds, flowers and fruits mature into the succeeding forms, still their original forms remain. Together they shine splendidly in newer and newer ways. Though previously the hundreds if not thousands of emotions of the devotee were firmly bound by ropes of attachment to body, family, house and money, prema now easily severs these bonds, and, through its own power, takes the same emotions, though illusory, and dips them into a well of great rasa, whose mere touch completely transforms them into radiant transcendental feelings. Then it firmly ties these spiritualised emotions to the sweetness of the Lord’s form, name and attributes. Such is prema, the brilliant rising sun that immediately puts the hosts of star-like human aims to shame!

Pīyūṣa kaṇā explanation —

In this eighth nectar-shower the blessed author elaborately describes the characteristics and symptoms of prema. That bhāva or rati that greatly softens the heart through the aforementioned desire to attain the Lord, to act favorably towards Him and to have affectionate friendship for Him, accelerates the topmost bliss and bestows a deep feeling of mine-ness towards the beloved deity, is called prema by the learned. It is said (Bhakti Rasāmṛta Sindhu 1.4.1)—

samyaṅ masṛṇitasvānto mamatvātiśayāṅkitaḥ
bhāvaḥ sa eva sāndrātmā budhaiḥ premā nigadyate

The difference between bhāva and prema is that bhāva softens the heart and prema does so completely. In bhāva there is an increase of ruci, in prema however it is an excess of mine-ness. Compactness is the intrinsic characteristic (svarūpa lakṣaṇa) of prema and the aforementioned tenderness and mine-ness are the two marginal characteristics (taṭastha lakṣaṇa) of prema. After this verse Śrīmad Rūpa Gosvāmīpāda quotes a verse from the Nārada Pañcarātra to prove the point – ananya mamatā viṣṇau mamatā prema saṅgatā; bhaktir ityucyate bhīṣma prahlādoddhava nāradaiḥ “That which reverts the feeling of mine-ness towards the body and home into feelings of mine-ness towards Śrī Viṣṇu, has been called prema by great saints like Bhīṣma, Prahlāda, Uddhava and Nārada.”
In the stage of prema the sādhaka becomes known as a siddha. The definition of a siddha bhakta is: avijñātākhila kleśāḥ sadā kṛṣṇāśrita kriyāḥ; siddhāḥ syuḥ santata prema saukhyāsvāda parāyaṇāḥ (Bhakti Rasāmṛta Sindhu 2.1.280) “siddha mahātmās are free from all suffering, eternally surrendered to Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes and always relishing the bliss of prema.” In this stage there is deep relish of śrī hari-kathā; it is ever-fresh to him just as a womaniser ever relishes hearing topics of women. Śrīmad Bhāgavata (10.13.2) says:

satām ayaṁ sārabhṛtāṁ nisargo yad arthavāṇī śruti cetasām api
pratikṣaṇaṁ navavad acyutasya yat striyā viṭānām iva sādhuvārtā

“It is the nature of the great devotees, who accept only the essence of things and whose hearts, ears and minds are offered to Śrī Kṛṣṇa that they relish topics of Śrī Kṛṣṇa as ever-fresh, just as womanisers are ever attracted to topics of women.”

Previously, in the second nectar-shower, the first two leaves of the wish-yielding vine called sādhana (that destroy misery and bestow auspiciousness) were discussed. It has been said that after the stage of anartha nivṛtti (cessation of vices) comes the stage of āsakti (attachment to the Lord) wherein the vine sprouts, and in the stage of rati it blossoms into the flowers of bhāva. Here, in the stage of prema, all around the flowers of bhāva suddenly many very glossy leaves of ecstatic symptoms like tears, goosebumps, laughter, weeping and dancing sprout, that come forth from the process of hearing and chanting, thus making the wish-yielding vine of devotion very beautiful. When the flowers of bhāva blossom the fruits of prema emerge. The purport is that the more the practitioner of jñāna or yoga progresses towards their goal, the less they practise, because with them there is a difference between the practice and its subsequent perfection. In bhakti, however, practice and perfection are identical. The only difference for the devotee is that in the stage of sādhana the relish is feeble and in the stage of perfection the relish is deep. Therefore the more the practitioner advances towards prema during his devotional practice, the more his practice of hearing and chanting increases. In the stage of prema hearing and chanting becomes the very life of the practitioner and that hearing and chanting becomes beautified by different ecstatic symptoms.
Just as the fruits on a vine are most relishable and sweet, similarly the intoxicating sweet relish of the fruit of prema, which is the essence of the Lord’s pleasure potency, makes the four human aims seem extremely trivial. This prema is itself relishable, making the loving devotee relish the wonderful sweetness of Śrī Kṛṣṇa and blessing Him with the relish of His blissful service. Śrīman Mahāprabhu said:

pañcama puruṣārtha sei prema mahādhana;
kṛṣṇera mādhurya rasa korāy āsvādana
premā hoite kṛṣṇa hoy nija bhakta vaśa;
premā hoite pāi kṛṣṇa sevā sukha rasa (C.C.)

“This great treasure of prema is the fifth and highest human aim which causes the relish of Kṛṣṇa’s sweetness. Through prema Kṛṣṇa is subdued by His own devotees and through prema the devotee gets the blissful relish of Kṛṣṇa’s service.”
In the stage of practice the devotee’s heart is bound to his family, his money, his house and his body through hundreds if not thousands of ropes of mine-ness, but through its rasika transcendental touch prema easily frees the heart of the practitioner from mundane matters like the body and its relatives, spiritualising all mundane thoughts and desires and binding it to the sweetness of the Lord’s name, form and attributes.
Just as one does not instantly accomplish the merging of sulphur and quicksilver just by mixing them, but one can accomplish such a merger by constantly rubbing them, similarly even though the devotional activities of hearing and chanting may enter the sādhaka through the gate of the senses, the consciousness of the ajāta rati sādhaka will not merge or deeply meet with bhakti. However, when bhajana is performed repeatedly through the process of hearing and chanting, it will ultimately merge with bhakti after ascending through the stages of anartha nivṛtti, niṣṭhā, ruci and āsakti. As long as such a deep merger does not take place, mundane faults like attachment and revulsion will remain in the consciousness. When the stage of rati is achieved, the heart’s materialism is destroyed and will become spiritualised. Just as the merger of sulphur and quicksilver is called mercury sulphate, similarly the merger of devotion and the heart is called prema. In the stage of prema the consciousness of the sādhaka becomes absorbed in relishing the honey from the lotus of Śrī Hari’s forms, attributes and pastimes, just like a honeybee. Like the sun, self-manifest prema rises in the heart of the sādhaka and from there suddenly dissipates the stars of all other kinds of human aims. The loving devotee has no other desire than to serve the Lord, fully excluding desires for enjoyment, liberation and mystic perfection.

 

 

The devotee relishes the rasa of the fruit of prema in the form of a particular compact bliss. The power that nourishes this rasa to the utmost is called śrī kṛṣṇākarṣiṇi, she who attracts Śrī Kṛṣṇa. When the devotee commences relishing this rasa it is needless to say that he cannot encounter any obstacle any more. In this condition he forgets himself like a powerful warrior or a very greedy thief who loses all sense of discrimination. Such an eagerness for the Lord is like a hunger that could not be satiated by four kinds of incomparably relishable rice, even if one eats day and night. This eagerness burns in the devotee like the sun and cools him off like millions of moons when a vision appears of the Lord’s endlessly sweet forms and attributes.

Pīyūṣa kaṇā-explanation —

prema bhakti has two attributes, sāndrānanda viśeṣātmā, compact bliss, and śrī kṛṣṇākarṣiṇī, attracting Śrī Kṛṣṇa. In Bhakti Rasāmṛta Sindhu it is said about sāndrānanda viśeṣātmā: brahmānanda bhaved eṣa cet parārdha guṇīkṛtaḥ; naiti bhakti sudhāmbhodheḥ paramāṇu tulām api, “If the bliss of brahman is multiplied trillions of times it could not match even an atom from the nectar-ocean of bhakti.”, on which Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī comments: parārdha kāla samādhinā samuditaṁ tat sukham apītyarthaḥ. “Even ages of samādhi that causes the attainment of the bliss of brahman can not be equal to even a tiny drop of the ocean of devotional bliss.” Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī then quotes the following evidence from Śrī Haribhakti Sudhodaya – tat sākṣāt karaṇāhlāda viśuddhābdhi sthitasya me; sukhāni gospadāyante brāhmaṇyapi jagad guroḥ “O Guru of the world! Compared to being merged in the pure ocean of bliss that is caused by seeing You directly, the bliss of brahman appears not even equal to a cow’s hoofprint.”
About śrī kṛṣṇākarṣiṇī he has said: kṛtvā hariṁ premabhājaṁ priyavarga samanvitam; bhaktir vaśīkarotīti śrī kṛṣṇākarṣiṇī matā (Bhakti Rasāmṛta Sindhu) “bhakti attracts Kṛṣna and His dear devotees as the object of love, and since she subjugates Him she is called ‘she who attracts Kṛṣṇa.” This is proven from Śrīmad Bhāgavata (7.10.48):

yūyaṁ nṛloke bata bhūribhāgā lokaṁ punānā munayo’bhiyanti
yeṣāṁ gṛhānāvasatīti sākṣād gūḍhaṁ paraṁ brahma manuṣya liṅgam

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartīpāda comments as follows on this verse— “Aho how fortunate is this Prahlāda! He has seen the Lord; we are, however, unfortunate!” Yudhiṣṭhira, who was sad in this way, thus told Śrī Nārada: “You are more fortunate even than Prahlāda or his Guru, other devotees, the residents of Yadupura, sages like Vaśiṣṭa, Marīci or Kaśyapa or even Brahmā and Śiva, because even the sages who purify the three worlds with their darśana come to your abode to have themselves purified in all respects. That is because the Supreme Brahman in human form, who is secret (to the Vedas) is always attached to this place (even if you don’t call Him). Even in Prahlāda’s abode the Supreme Brahman in human form does not personally reside, and the sages who desire His darśana also don’t go there.” The blessed author calls sāndrānanda viśeṣātmā the relishable rasa of the fruit of prema, and śrī kṛṣṇākarṣiṇī the most nourishing power of that fruit.
In Śrīmad Bhāgavata (1.2.6) Śrī Sūta Muni mentions two innate attributes to pure transcendental devotion, namely ahaitukī, having no desire for fruits of one’s actions, and apratihatā, or not impeded by obstacles. Even if obstacles appear while doing bhajana the devotee will not be impeded by it, rather they will increase his humility and eagerness that will again elevate him on the path of bhajana. On the stage of prema the devotee is so intoxicated by relishing the fruits of prema that he cannot be grabbed by obstacles anymore. Just as a powerful warrior forgets himself in the ecstasy of combat on the battlefield and a very greedy thief forgets about sin, suffering and even the fear of death, being intoxicated by his thievery, in the same way a loving devotee forgets what is auspicious or inauspicious and becomes intoxicated by relishing the mellows of prema.
In this world hunger and food destroy each other. In this regard the ways of the kingdom of prema are very special. The more the loving devotee relishes Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s sweetness either in visions, dreams or directly, the more his limitless eagerness and his sacred greed to relish this increases. In this way great thirst is the measuring rod. The devotee’s great eager thirst and His attainment of the relish of Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s sweet forms and attributes within visions makes him feel like he is scorched by the blazing of millions of suns and soothed by millions of moons at the same time.

 

This wonderful prema simultaneously grants powerful anxiety and relief from it. When this prema arises in its reservoir, the devotee, and slightly increases, the devotee is constantly scorched by the fire caused by the arrow of his great eagerness to encounter the Lord. His eagerness is so powerful that he cannot be satisfied even by having visions of the Lord’s sweet form and pastimes. At that point his relatives are like a blind waterless well to him, his home is like a thorny forest, any food he may take feels like a great beating, praise offered by the saints feel like snakebites, his daily duties feel like death, his each and every limb feel like a big burden, consolations by his friends feel like a poisonous glance, his constant wakefulness feels like an ocean of repentance, and if sleep accidentally comes to him this again is like a torment tearing up his life. Maintenance of his body is like the embodiment of the Lord’s punishment and his life airs are like grains roasted over and over again. What’s more, that which was always considered desirable in the past is now looking like a great disaster. Even meditating on the Lord appears to be like self-deception!

Pīyūṣa kaṇā explanation

— In the stage of rati the devotee experiences bliss when he relishes the Lord’s form and attributes in a vision, but in the state of prema such a steady relish of sweetness achieved in a vision is no longer possible. At that point great eagerness for the attainment of Śrī Kṛṣṇa arises in the heart of the loving devotee. prema is a very wonderful thing— it is only understood through experience and is matchless. It cannot be explained through words. Unless prema arises within the heart one cannot understand it, even if descriptions of it are heard from others. Understanding this depends on experience. In prema there is simultaneously strong eagerness and its sweet pacification by attaining the relish of Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s forms and attributes through visions. This creates an indescribable ecstatic pain within the loving devotee —

bāhye viṣa jvālā hoy, bhitore ānandamoy,
kṛṣṇapremāra adbhuta carita
ei premera āsvādana, tapta ikṣu carvaṇa,
mukha jvale nā jāy tyajana
sei premā jār mone, tāra vikrama sei jāne
viṣāmṛte ekatra milana

“Love of Kṛṣṇa has an amazing nature—externally it burns, while inwardly it is full of bliss. The relish of this prema is like chewing hot sugarcane— it burns the mouth, but still it cannot be given up. Only a person who has such prema in his heart can understand its power, it resembles a merger of poison and nectar.”

pīḍābhir nava kālakūṭa kaṭutā garvasya nirvāsano
niḥsyandena mudāṁ sudhā madhurimāhaṅkāra saṅkocanaḥ
premā sundari nandanandana paro jāgartti yasyāntare
jñāyante sphuṭam asya vakra madhurās tenaiva vikrāntayaḥ

Devi Paurṇamāsī told Nāndīmukhī: “O beautiful girl! Only a person in whose heart love of Śrī Nandanandana arises can know its crooked yet sweet power. This love gives such pain that it defies even the pride of fresh poison, and when the stream of this love’s bliss begins to flow it belittles the pride of sweet nectar.”
In this way there is a constant clash of ecstasy and agony within the devotee’s heart. In the final end the ecstasy caused by the powerful eagerness to see Śrī Kṛṣṇa directly collides with the agony of separation, making that also very powerful. Through lovely alliterative poetry the blessed author describes the mental and physical symptoms of the loving devotee, thus drawing a clear picture of his eagerness. The author personally narrates how due to this powerful eagerness all bodily activities including meditation on the Lord, which used to be so blissful, turn into an intolerable burning agony. Then, bereft of Kṛṣṇa, the devotee feels like jala vinu yeno mīna, duḥkha pāy āyu-hīna, a fish out of water that suffocates to death. Out of separation from the Lord the loving devotee feels the whole world is void – śūnyāyitaṁ jagat sarvaṁ govinda virahena me. (CC)

 

 

After that, this prema assumes the nature of a magnet that attracts the black iron-like Śrī Kṛṣṇa, making Him appear before the devotee at some time. The Lord then also shows His own most auspicious innate attributes like beauty, nice fragrance, nice voice, His tenderness, nice taste, generosity and compassion to the senses, like the eyes, of His devotee. All these attributes are most sweet and eternally fresh and when the devotee starts to relish them with love, it increases within his heart at every moment. This causes a powerful eagerness and finally creates an ocean of ecstasy that no poet could properly describe. The bliss that a devotee enjoys at that time can only be slightly compared to the bliss a traveller on a sunstricken desert road feels when he comes to the cooling shade of the dense foliage provided by a thick Banyan-tree and takes shelter of a shore washed by hundreds of jugs of cold celestial Ganges water, or a forest elephant, who is constantly tormented by a forest fire feels when he is showered by an unending stream of water, or a person who is afflicted by hundreds of ailments and who is very greedy for taste feels when he suddenly gets sweet nectar to drink.

Pīyūṣa kaṇa explanation —

Just as a child is created from the intercourse of husband and wife, similarly when prema meets with eagerness a direct meeting with the Lord takes place. There is no other way. When the Lord performed His manifest pastimes on earth even loveless demons saw Him, but this is not a proper darśana, because seeing the Lord without relishing His sweetness is like not seeing Him at all. Compare it with a tongue which is polluted by jaundice – it can not relish anything sweet. Just as a magnet naturally attracts iron, similarly prema, which is the essence of Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s pleasure potency, attracts Śrī Kṛṣṇa and brings Him before His devotees’ eyes. Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s relishing the bliss given by His devotees more than the bliss received from His svarūpa is extremely fascinating! Śrī Viśvanātha Cakravartī comments on Śrīmad Bhāgavata (9.4.64): mat svarūpabhūtānandād api mad bhakta svarūpānando’ti spṛhaṇīya iti dvayor api cid rūpatve’pi bhakta vartinyā bhakter anugrahākhya cid vṛtti vipāka rūpāyāḥ sarva cit-sāra-bhūtatvān mamānandasvarūpasyāpyānandakatvād ākarṣakatvācca; Śrīman Nārāyaṇa told Śrī Durvāsā: “O brahman! I much more covet the love that dwells in the heart of My devotees than the bliss I receive from My own innate transcendental potency. Although both these energies are transcendental, the devotee’s loving ecstasy, which arises by the grace of the great pure devotees, is a transformation of the transcendental energy and the essence of all things transcendental. This loving ecstasy gives bliss even to Me and attracts Me.”
The benign Lord appears before the eyes of His eager loving devotees and, seeing the great thirst of His loving devotees to relish His sweetness, gives the matchless treasure of His beauty, His form, odour, sound, touch and taste to the respective senses the eyes, nose, ears, skin and tongue of His devotees, and also makes their minds relish His attributes like generosity and compassion. These attributes are not only sweeter than sweet, they are also ever-fresh like a stream of water; in this way they constantly increase the eagerness and great thirst in the devotee’s heart. The more one thirsts, the more one relishes, and the more one relishes the more one thirsts. As a result of this great thirst the loving devotee is as if swimming in a great ocean of divine sweetness. This eagerness and this relish is so inconceivable that no amount of poetry could define it! Still the blessed author gives the example of a traveller who was travelling for long through the desert and then finally reaches the bank of the very cold celestial Ganges which is washed by endless streams of water and takes shelter there of the shade of a Banyan tree, of a forest elephant that is afflicted by a forest fire and who is then showered by a great stream of water, or a greatly sick person who is very eager for some nice taste and who gets to drink nectar. With these examples he has simply given a drop of the ocean of actual ecstasy that takes place. Actually no worldly bliss could be equal to even a drop of this great ocean of transcendental ecstasy.

 

 

When this first arises the Lord reveals His own sweetness to the eyes of the greatly astonished devotee. This sweetness turns all the senses and the mind of the devotee into eyes. Then obstacles in the form of paralysis, shiverings and tears in the eyes appear and the devotee may faint of ecstasy. In order to wake that devotee up the Lord fills up his nostrils with His second sweetness, His fragrance. Then the devotee’s senses all turn into noses and the devotee faints for the second time. The Lord then calls him and says: “O My devotee! I am now fully subdued by you—don’t be upset and just experience My sweetness.” In this way the Lord appears to the devotee’s ears with His third sweetness, His beautiful voice. When this beautiful voice appears all the devotee’s senses turn into ears and the devotee faints in ecstasy as before. Then the Lord gives him the touch of His divine lotus feet, lotus hands, chest etc. and thus gives him His fourth sweetness, His tender touch. The Lord gives His devotees that are in the mood of a servant the touch of His feet on their heads, His devotees that are the mood of His friends the touch of His lotus hands in their hands, the devotees that are in the mood of His parents the touch of His hands, that wipe out the tears from their eyes, and His devotees that have an amorous attitude towards Him the touch of His breast on their breasts and the touch of His arms that embrace them. In this way He touches His devotees in different ways.

Pīyūṣa kaṇā explanation —

It has been said that the Lord bestows His darśana on His most eager loving devotee, giving him the relish of His beauty to his eyes, His fragrance to his nostrils, His beautiful voice to his ears, His tender touch to his skin, and His sweet taste to his tongue. Thus He pleases all his five senses and additionally He pleases his mind with His divine attributes such as His compassion and generosity. Here the author describes the cause and the course of these revelations before the devotee’s senses.
First of all, the Lord reveals His endless sweetness to the eyes of His loving devotee, who is eager to see Him. kṛṣṇa rūpāmṛta sindhu, tāhāra taraṅga bindu, eka bindu jagat ḍubāy (C.C.) “One drop from the ocean of Kṛṣṇa’s nectarean form can drown the whole universe.” When this ocean of nectarean beauty wells up before the eyes, all the senses of the devotee, who is so eager to see Him, focus on the eyes. Even though all the senses are fixed on the view of the Lord’s form, the loving devotee cannot fill His eyes with this vision, because then ecstatic sāttvika symptoms like paralysis, shivering and tears in the eyes arise and block his vision. Then the devotee faints in ecstasy. In order to awaken the devotee the Lord makes the wonderful fragrance of His body enter into the devotee’s nostrils. kasturī lipta nīlotpala, tāra yei parimala, tāhā jini kṛṣṇa aṅga gandha (C.C.) “Kṛṣṇa’s bodily fragrance defeats that of a blue lotus anointed with musk.” When the devotee catches this fascinating sweet fragrance he recovers from his swoon and all his sense-perceptions focus on his nostrils. The devotee is unable to bear the weight of this sweetness and faints again. Then Śrī Hari awakens him by injecting his ears with the sweetness of his nectarean voice — se śrī mukha bhāṣita, amṛta hoite parāmṛta (C.C.) “The words that emanate from His mouth are sweeter than nectar”. When the devotee relishes this all his sensual perceptions tend towards the ears and the devotee faints in ecstasy for the third time. Śrī Hari then gives the devotee’s skin the sweetness of His divine touch. kṛṣṇa aṅga suśītala, ki kohibo tāra bala, chaṭāya jine koṭīndu candana (C.C.) “Kṛṣṇa’s limbs are cool – what can I say about their strength? He is cooler than sandalwood paste and millions of moons.” When the loving devotee attains this cool touch he comes back to consciousness. Śrī Hari gives the sweet touch of His different limbs to different devotees according to their feelings towards Him, this is clear from the original text of this verse.

 

 

Again, at the beginning of the fourth great swoon, the Lord shows His fifth sweetness; the taste of the nectar of His lips becomes perceivable to the devotee’s tongue. But this He reveals only to those who are in a amorous relation with Him, not to any other devotee. After that, just like in the previous times, the ecstatic swoon is very deep. There being no other way to awaken him, the Lord reveals His sixth sweetness, His generosity. This is the state where all the Lord’s attributes like beauty forcefully manifest simultaneously to the devotee’s senses like the eyes. At the time prema gets the hint from the Lord to increase immensely and this accordingly increases the devotee’s sacred thirst. prema thus becomes like the moon, simultaneously creating hundreds of waves on the ocean of the devotee’s ecstasy and causing friction that is deeply striking. The moon being the presiding deity of the mind, prema revives the heart of the loving devotee and extends its power over him in such a way that the devotee can relish all these attributes simultaneously without hindrance. It is not proper to suggest that it is not possible for the devotee’s mind to be so divided that it can relish many subjects at the same time. Rather on the strength of the Lord’s inconceivable potency He extends an unprecedented wonder so that the devotee’s aggregate of senses turn into eyes, ears etc. at the same time to make this relish very deep and blissful. Such an inconceivable thing is not perceived through mundane logic; it is to be experienced only. The scriptures say that one should not falsely argue over inconceivable matters.”

Pīyūṣa kaṇā explanation —

At the outset of the devotee’s fourth swoon the Lord shows him His fifth sweetness, the sweet relish of His lips, making it available to the devotee’s tongue. He gives His servant-devotees the relish of His food remnants or betelleaves remnants, and He gives His amorous devotees the relish of His sweetness as they desire it. When the devotee becomes over-ecstatic due to relishing this ecstasy that comes forth from this sweetness, he faints again. The Lord then does not know how to revive His devotee once more and thus extends His sixth sweetness, His attribute of generosity, by revealing His own beauty, sweet fragrance, tenderness and sweet taste to His devotee’s five senses, the eyes, ears, nose etc.
One may ask here, it may be possible for a devotee to relish one sweetness at the time, but is it possible for him to relish five kinds of sweetness through one mind and five senses simultaneously? To this the answer is, attaining the hint from the Lord to do so, the love of the devotee increases greatly, and along with this his thirst or eagerness also increases greatly. Thus, just as the moon causes great agitation to the ocean-waves, the ocean of the devotee’s bliss also swells up and makes it possible for him to simultaneously relish the five features of the Lord’s sweetness.
In the same way, if the mind is normally able to fix itself on one subject at a time, one should not doubt that it can under some circumstances fix itself on five subjects leading in five different directions. One should not think that the mind would be unable to have deep relish through the different senses under these circumstances. Actually the Lord, through His own inconceivable energy, simultaneously turns the devotee’s senses into eyes, ears etc. like before and gives him the power to deeply relish His five-fold sweetness. In other words, on the strength of the Lord’s inconceivable potency there is no obstacle to the devotee simultaneously relishing His five-fold sweetness through his five senses. All these extraordinary matters are not subjects for mundane debate.

 

 

After that the devotee becomes like a Cātaka bird eager to relish all the Lord’s sweetness at once, but he fails to catch each raindrop in his beak, so seeing this, the Lord thinks to Himself: “Aho! Why am I having so much sweetness in Me?”, and He extends His seventh sweetness, His compassion, just to let the devotee relish all of His sweetness at once. This is the empress of all the Lord’s energies in the middle of the lotus on whose eight surrounding petals are the eight energies, like Vimalā and Utkarṣiṇī that are mentioned in the Āgama scriptures. This compassion towards the devotee is also called anugraha and manifests itself in the Lord’s lotus-like eyes. Compassion or anugraha is given different designations, such as protective affection (vātsalya) or kindness (kāruṇya) to those who have moods like that of servitude. When it appears to devotees in an amorous mood it is called citta vidrāviṇī ākarṣiṇī śakti (melting Kṛṣṇa’s heart and attracting Him). Thus it appears in different names. By this kṛpā-śakti the Lord’s all-pervading willpower delights the hearts of the sādhus with rāga and greatly astonishes even fully realised self-satisfied souls. Being subdued by this kṛpā śakti the Lord’s attribute named ‘affection for His devotees’ rules like an emperor over all His other auspicious attributes, like truthfulness and cleanliness that are mentioned by mother earth in the first Canto of the Bhāgavata.

Pīyūṣa kaṇā explanation —

The thirst or eagerness of the loving devotee is so powerful that he cherishes the desire to relish all the Lord’s sweetness at once. Although the thirsty Cātaka bird in the scorching summer heat desires to drink all the rain showers at once as soon as they come, can he ever do this with his small beak? Similarly, when the Lord sees that His eager loving devotee is thirsty for His full sweetness but is only able to relish a small drop, He thinks: “If My devotee cannot sufficiently relish all of My sweetness, I have carried all this sweetness in vain.” Thus He extends His seventh sweetness, His compassion, to the loving devotee. While discussing meditation on the Lord the Vedic Āgama scriptures describe a force of compassion (anugraha śakti) in the whorl of an eight petalled lotus on whose eight pollen-tubes the eight energies of the Lord, such as Vimalā reside:
vimalotkarṣiṇī jñānā kriyā yogeti śaktayaḥ
prahvī satyā tatheśānānugrahā navamī smṛtā

(Haribhakti Vilāsa 1.5.140)

“Vimalā, Utkarṣiṇī, Jñānā, Kriyā, Yogā, Prahvī (the energy that causes endless possibilities and capacities), Satyā and Īśānā – these eight energies stay on the eight petals of this lotus and in the whorl is the ninth energy called Anugrahā, who rules like a great empress over these eight energies. This anugraha śakti emanates from the Lord’s lotus-eyes. This means that when the Lord casts His merciful glance the kṛpā-śakti is showered over the devotee. In the devotees in a servant mood, a fraternal mood and a parental mood it appears as kṛpā śakti and to His other devotees either as vātsalya or kāruṇya. When it appears to devotees in an amorous mood it is called citta vidrāviṇī ākarṣiṇī śakti (melting Kṛṣṇa’s heart and attracting Him). Again sometimes it is revealed under the names of affection, love or sweetness.
When the Lord’s willpower is piloted by this kṛpā-śakti, even the crownjewels of self-satisfied sages like Śrī Śuka, Sanaka etc. become greatly astonished at Śrī Hari’s attributes and they give up their (indifferent) self-satisfaction to become devotees. Mother Earth has described the innate attributes of Śrī Hari like truthfulness and purity—

satyaṁ śaucaṁ dayā kṣāntis tyāgaḥ santoṣa ārjavam
śamo damas tapaḥ sāmyaṁ titikṣoparatiḥ śrutam
jñānaṁ viraktir aiśvaryaṁ śauryaṁ tejo balaṁ smṛtiḥ
svātantryaṁ kauśalaṁ kāntir dhairyaṁ mārdavam eva ca
prāgalbhyaṁ praśrayaḥ śīlaṁ saha ojo balaṁ bhagaḥ
gāmbhiryaṁ sthairyam āstikyaṁ kīrtir māno’nahaṅkṛtiḥ

(Śrīmad Bhāgavata 1.16.27-29)

“Truthfulness, purity, compassion, steadiness, renunciation, satisfaction, straightforwardness, mental equanimity, sense control, austerity, equality, tolerance, indifference after gaining profit, scholarship, knowledge, dispassion towards sensuality, majesty, chivalry, vigour, strength, remembrance, independence, expertise, beauty, patience, soft-heartedness, boldness, humility, righteousness, skill with the mind, active senses and knowledge-acquiring senses, enjoyment, gravity, steadiness, faith, fame, honour, absence of pride — these 39 attributes are present in the Lord to the full. The attribute of Śrī Hari called compassion is ruling over all these attributes like an emperor.

 

 

Delusion, drowsiness, mistakes, cruelty, intense lust, restlessness, intoxication, envy, violence, sorrow, fatigue, untruth, anger, desire, anxiety, universal folly, partiality and dependence on others – these are the eighteen faults. The scriptures proclaim that these eighteen faults do not exist in the Lord. Although these faults are completely out of bounds for the Lord, on the request of the attribute of compassion they can sometimes be found in avatāras like Rāma and Kṛṣṇa and are experienced as such by Their devotees. Then they become great virtues instead. They are extended by the Lord for the relish of His devotees. To completely relish the beauty and other attributes of the Lord the enlivened devotee savours them over and over again to his supreme astonishment. His heart melts when he repeatedly contemplates the Lord’s unprecedented affection for His devotees.

Pīyūṣa kaṇā explanation —

God is the ocean of innumerable attributes, endless and eternally faultless. Just as it is impossible for darkness to exist within the self-manifest sun, similarly it is impossible for even the slightest fault to exist within the Lord. Still we can see that Śrī Rāma was bewildered out of separation from His wife Śrī Sītā devī, and in the pastimes of the Original Full Personality of Godhead all these faults except ‘intense lust’ and ‘cruelty’ can be seen.

Śrīpāda Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa has written in his ‘Siddhānta Ratna’:

nanu tato vatsānadṛṣṭvaitya puline’pi ca vatsapān.
ubhāvapi vane kṛṣṇa vicikāya samantata ityatra mohah.
kvacit pallava talpeṣu niyuddha śrama karṣitaḥ.
vṛkṣamūlāśrayaḥ śete gopotsaṅgopbarhaṇa ityatra tandrā kheda pariśramāḥ.
tāvaṅghri yugmam ityādau mugdha prabhītavad upeyaturanti mātror iti bhramaḥ.
vatsān muñcan kvacid asamaye krośa sañjāta hāsaḥ ityādau lolatā.
mada vighūrṇita locana īṣan mānadaḥ sva suhṛdāṁ vanamālītyādau madaḥ lokeśa mānināṁ mauḍhyād dhariṣye śrīmadaṁ tamaḥ ityādau mātsaryam.
hiṁsā ca pūtanādi vadhaḥ.
nāhaṁ bhakṣitavān amba sarve mithyābhiśaṁsinaḥ ityatra jarāsandhacchalādau cāsatyam.
krodho’pi tatra tatra prasiddha eva.
tāṁ stanyakāma āsādya mathnantīṁ jananīṁ hariḥ.
gṛhītvā dadhimanthānaṁ nyaṣedhat prītimāvahan ityatra ākāṅkṣā.
kvāpyadṛṣṭvāntar vipine vatsān pālāṁś ca viśvavit.
sarvaṁ vidhikṛtaṁ kṛṣṇah sahasāvajagāmaha ityatra āśaṅkā.
so’kāmayata bahu syāṁ prajāyeya ityādau jagad āveśa rūpa viśva vibhramaḥ.
samo’haṁ sarva bhūteṣu na me dveṣyo’sti na priyaḥ.
ye bhajanti tu māṁ bhaktyā mayi te teṣu cāpyaham ityādau vaiṣamyam.
ahaṁ bhakta parādhīnaḥ ityādau parāpekṣā cāvagamyate.
rukṣma rasatā prema sambandhādṛte rāgaḥ.
ulbaṇo duḥkha hetu kāmaḥ. tāvatau māstām.
tataś ca mohādīnāṁ ṣoḍaśānāṁ pramāṇa siddhatvān nirdoṣatanutvaṁ katham iti cenna bhaktānanda vaicitrya poṣaka līlā vilāsa bhakta saṁrakṣaṇa bhakta vātsalyādi siddhaye prākṛta gandhāspṛṣtāḥ svarūpa dharmā evaite udayante tān vinā līlādyāsiddheḥ.
tadasiddhau ca pūrṇatvānupapattiḥ. itareṣu sarveṣu guṇeṣu rucyabhāvāt tad bhaktyanupapattiḥ.

“If you say that these faults are found in the Lord, for instance in Śrīmad Bhāgavata: “After this, when Kṛṣṇa could not find the calves and their herdsboys on the beach He began to search for them everywhere.” Here we can see His bewilderment. “Sometimes Kṛsṇa was tired of fighting and He reclined on a bed of flowers at the base of a tree, placing His head on the lap of a cowherd boy.” This verse shows the Lord’s drowsiness, distress and fatigue. “Baladeva and Kṛṣṇa crawled towards mother as if They were bewildered and scared.” These words show the Lord’s delusion. The gopīs told loving mother Yaśodā: “Sometimes Kṛṣṇa released the calves too early and when that aroused anger He just smiled.” This shows His fickleness. “With intoxicated eyes Vanamālī gave a little honour to His heart’s friends.” This sentence shows the Lord’s intoxication. When Indra wished to commence his torrential rainshowers Kṛṣṇa said: “I will destroy the pride of these fools who consider themselves rulers of the universe!” These words show the Lord’s envy. We find Him violent when He kills Pūtanā. Then He performed the pastime of eating clay and said: “Mother! I did not eat clay, they’re all telling lies about Me!” At this instance and also when He killed Jarāsandha He was guilty of lying. It is also well known that He showed anger in those pastimes. Then again it is said: “Kṛṣṇa was eager to drink from His mother’s breast, so He went to her while she was churning yoghurt and clasped the churning rod, trying to forbid her to churn.” This shows His desire. “In no place in the forest the universal knower (Kṛṣṇa) could find any calves or herdsboys, so He surmised it was the work of Brahmā.” This shows the Lord’s anxiety. He desired “I will become many” in the words of the Śrutis, and this is universal folly, since Śrī Hari is universally absorbed here. In Śrīmad Bhagavad Gītā Kṛṣṇa says: “I am equal to all living beings. I hate or love nobody, but I am still inclined towards My devotees. They dwell in Me and I dwell in them.” This shows His partiality. In Śrīmad Bhāgavata He says: “O brāhmaṇa! I am subdued by the love of My devotees”; this shows the Lord’s dependence on others. rukṣma rasatā means that one can be attached to someone else without having a loving relationship, and lust which leads to misery is called ulbaṇa kāma. These two faults do not exist in the Lord, and so He shows 16 of the 18 faults that are mentioned in the scriptures. How is it then that the Lord is devoid of the 18 great faults?
The answer is that Kṛṣṇa shows faults like delusion to delight His devotees, to enjoy His play, to protect His devotees and show love for them. The above attributes are innate in Him and are completely free from wordliness. Without these ‘faults’ Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes cannot reach perfection, and if these sweet pastimes do not reach perfection He cannot be the Complete and Original Personality of Godhead. Therefore what are great faults in the conditioned souls are great virtues in the Lord, and when the devotee experiences all these greatly astonishing attributes his heart melts.

 

 

The Lord then tells His devotee: “O best of devotees! For many births you have given up wife, children and wealth for My sake and have tolerated many hardships like cold, wind, hunger, thirst, pain and disease just to worship Me. You have tolerated the insults by many people and spent your life begging. I cannot repay you in any way and remain a debtor to you. Lordship over the world or mystic perfections do not suit you, so what can I give to you? How can a human being be given animal fodder like grass or husk? Hence, although I am Ajita, the invincible, I am now conquered by you. The vine of your good conduct is now My only support.”
Then the devotee takes these very gentle and sweet words as ear-ornaments and says: “O Lord! O Master! O ocean of compassion! You see how I have fallen in the dreadful ocean of material existence and am being torn apart by its resident crocodiles. This has made Your butter-like soft heart melt, so You now assume the supernatural form of Śrī Guru and give Your darśana, which is like the Sudarśana disc that tears apart the ignorance of lust and so and thus releases me from their terrible teeth. Now You make the syllables of Your mantra enter the path of my ears so that my pain is extinguished and You can engage me as a maidservant at Your lotus-feet. You repeatedly purify me by allowing me to hear, chant, and remember Your holy attributes and names. However, although You bestowed the association of Your devotees on me and taught me how to serve You, I am such a low fool that I cannot serve You for even one day. But although I am punishable and wicked You still made me drink the sweetness of Your darśana.”

Pīyūṣa Kaṇā Explanation

— It was already described before how the experience of the Lord’s attributes like affection for His devotees makes the heart of the loving devotee incessantly melt. The Lord is completely subjugated by His devotee who has done bhajana and tolerated unlimited suffering and insults by hundreds of people. In a very sweet and tender voice the Lord tells His devotee that in exchange for one spoon of water and one Tulasī leaf He gives Himself to His devotee and considers Himself forever his debtor, unable to repay Him.
Here one may ask: “The Lord is full of all prowesses, so if He wants He can easily give His devotee lordship over the world, emancipation with brahman, or mystic perfection—why should He remain His devotee’s debtor? The answer to this is that the pure-hearted devotee only aims at Kṛṣṇa’s happiness and worships Him, in exchange for which Kṛṣṇa cannot give Him anything else spiritual but His own devotional service. He thinks to Himself, “If I give him My devotional service I am Myself also attained.” So there remains nothing left for Him to give. Although He is Ajita, the invincible, He is fully subdued by His devotee. The devotee’s good nature is His only support. In other words He is only consoled when His devotee is happy in serving Him.
The root cause of devotion is humility and the nature of devotion is that one is never satiated with it. The loving devotee thus naturally considers himself always bereft of devotion and sādhana bhajana. Hence when the devotee drinks the nectar of the Lord’s compassion-laced words, he thinks himself completely bereft of bhajana and remembers the endless mercy the Lord bestowed upon him in the form of his Guru and the Vaiṣṇavas. This makes him unsteady and he thinks that although he is so wicked the Lord still blesses him with His darśana and such mercy of Śrī Hari astonishes him greatly.

 

 

But when I hear that best of Lords say: “I have become a debtor to you”, I become bewildered and think to myself: “What shall I do? Five, seven, eight, no a hundred million offenses dwell in me, now I consider it arrogant even to beg Your pardon. I think I have committed even more than a trillion offenses, and each of these offenses was very grave. Let me suffer the remaining part of the reactions to them, I will not beg for an amnesty. Now I understand the offenses I committted just the other day by comparing Your limbs with a fresh raincloud, blue lotus and sapphire, Your feet with the moon and Your feet with fresh sprouts. It is like comparing a golden mountain with half a sesame seed, a Cintāmaṇi-gem with a chickpea, a lion with a jackal or Garuḍa with a fly. That was so foolish that I committed great offenses. By offering such worldly praises to the Lord now my foolish ‘poetry’ is praised by people at large. Now that I have seen Your divine form with my very eyes for even a fraction of a second, I understand that my words of comparison are like the teeth of a restless, chased-up cow that thus tried to pollute the wish-yielding vine of Your beauty, but wasn’t able to.” In this way the devotee laments in many ways and the Lord is very pleased with him, and shows him, as far as possible, and according to the devotee’s own mood, like the amorous one, the superexcellent rasika Śrī Vṛndāvana, the wish-yielding trees, the great Yogapīṭha, the daughter of Śrī Vṛṣabhānu, His most beloved, Her girlfriends like Śrī Lalitā, Her maidservants, His friends like Śrī Subala, His cows that are herded by Him, Śrī Yamunā, Śrī Govardhana, the Bhāṇḍīra tree, Mount Nandīśvara, His mother, father, brother, friends, servants and maidservants that dwell there and all the other Vrajavāsīs that are so excellent due to His enjoyments. When the devotee is thus wholly immersed in a river of fascination, the Lord and His associates suddenly disappear.

Pīyūṣa kaṇā explanation —

When the Lord declares that He is indebted to the loving devotee, the devotee floats in an ocean of humility, and considers it the causeless mercy of the Lord, who is an ocean of compassion, since he feels himself such an offender, so much so that he thinks even praying for forgiveness for his offenses is an arrogance. [In Bhakti Rasāmṛta Sindhu 1.2.154] We can find such humble prayers of the devotees¬—

mat tulyo nāsti pāpātmā nāparādhī ca kaścana
parihāri’pi lajjā me kiṁ bruve puruṣottamaḥ

“There is no one as offensive and sinful as I am, O Puruṣottama! I am ashamed even to beg for pardon, what else can I say?” For this reason the loving devotee does not beg the Lord’s pardon for the offenses he humbly imagines he has committed, but just prays for full punishment.
Apart from this, the devotee has previously described Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s limbs by comparing them with a fresh monsoon cloud, a blue lotus or a blue sapphire, and by comparing His face with the moon, but now he considers this to be another great offense, because the moon and the lotus are just transformations of five gross material elements and can never be the objects of comparison with Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s matchless transcendental form. Śrīla Bilvamaṅgala Ṭhākura told Śrī Kṛṣṇa (in Śrī Kṛṣṇa Karṇāmṛta, 97)—

tat tvan mukhaṁ katham ivāmbuja tulya kakṣaṁ vācām avāci nanu parvaṇi parvaṇīndoḥ
tat kiṁ bruve kim aparaṁ bhuvanaika kānta veṇu tvad ānanam anena samaṁ nu yat syāt

“How can I compare Your face with a lotus? The moon always shrinks in each dark quarter and is ultimately no longer worth mentioning. Hence they cannot be compared to Your face. O only master of the world! With what shall I compare Your face, that is playing the flute?” It is as if Śrī Kṛṣṇa replies to this: “Līlāśuka! Then why are the poets comparing My face and My smile with the moon and the lotus and so? Why don’t you tell Me this?” To this Śrī Līlāśuka answers—

śuśrūṣase śṛṇu yadi praṇidhāna pūrvaṁ pūrvair apūrva kavibhir na kaṭākṣitaṁ yat
nīrājana kramadhurāṁ bhavad ānanendor nirvyājam arhati cirāya śaśipradīpaḥ (98)

“O Lord! If You want to hear my answer, then listen: The ancient poets have not attentively seen Your face, hence they have just compared it as poets do with the lotus and the moon. Actually the moon could be used as a camphor-lamp [candra means both moon and camphor] to worship Your face and after that it can be thrown far away.”
The loving devotee exclaims: “O Lord! Let me not pull You down any more by trying to find some objects of comparison to You.” When Śrī Kṛṣṇa hears all these lamentations by the loving devotee He blesses the mañjarī bhāva sādhaka by showing him the matchless wealth of Śrī Vṛndāvana’s beauty with Śrī Rādhārāṇī, Lalitā and the sakhīs, Śrī Rūpa and the mañjarīs and all the other associates in His most rasika pastimes of madhura rasa. Being unable to carry the weight of this great ecstasy the devotee faints and Śrī Hari vanishes.

 

 

A little while later the devotee regains his consciousness and prays again for the darśana of his Lord., when he opens his eyes and fails to see the Lord he showers himself with his own tears and thinks to himself: “Have I just witnessed a dream? No, no, otherwise I could see signs of it on the bed and in my eyes. Then was it someone’s magic spell? No, no. Such ecstasy could never be an illusion! Then was it an error of my consciousness? That is also not possible; otherwise, I would have experienced obstacles like laya and vikṣepa (see beginning of this book). Or is this perhaps the fructification of one of my subtle yearnings? No, no, because none of my secret wishes could ever reach up to such boundaries! Then is it perhaps a direct vision of the Lord? No, that is also not possible, because I remember all my previous visions and this one was very special indeed!”
In this way the devotee has various doubts. Since he fell on the ground he has become grayed by dust. Sometimes he is praying for darśana again and again and rolls on the ground in great distress as a result, getting injured and fainting. Sometimes he wakes, rises, sits, runs or loudly cries like a madman. Sometimes he remains still for a while like a grave person, sometimes he ceases his normal rituals like a fallen person and sometimes he speaks nonsense like someone grasped by the planets (gone insane). Sometimes when some devotee-friend comes to console him and inquires from him privately, he will tell him what has happened to him. Then, when that friend tries makes it clear to him: “O friend! How lucky you were! You had the direct darśana of the Lord!!” he comes to his senses for a while and says: “Alas! Will I never behold this form again?” Then again he sadly says: “Alas! By the grace of the crown jewels of great and deeply realised devotees I have seen this wonderful form. I am so unfortunate that I was never acquainted with the Lord before even slightly. I suppose that this has happened as the result of some causeless mercy at some time on such an ocean of faults as myself. Alas! By some indescribable luck, this jewel came to my hand— has it now, as the result of some great offense, fallen from my hand again? I am fully ignorant, I cannot understand these things myself at all, I am stunned with bewilderment in such a calamity. Where shall I go, what shall I do? Whom can I ask advice? I feel completely empty, bereft of friends and relatives, like scorched by a forest fire or swallowed by the three worlds! I will leave society for a while and contemplate on this matter in solitude.” But even when he is alone the devotee says: “O Lord! O You with a beautiful lotus-face and nectar-like lips! All of Vṛndāvana is filled with Your fragrance! The bees are greedy for the honey that trickles from the garland of forest flowers that hangs from Your neck and hang restless all around it. How can I see You ever again for even a moment? I have relished the nectar of Your sweetness just once! Am I not able to welcome You ever again so that I can relish this wonderful sweetness of Yours?
In this way the devotee laments, rolls around, breathes out deeply, faints, goes mad and becomes immersed in ecstasy when He sees the Lord in all directions. Sometimes he laughs, as if he embraces the Lord, sometimes he dances, sometimes he sings, sometimes he can again not see the Lord, so he laments and weeps. In this way he spends his days performing extraordinary activities without having any cognisance whether he is still in his body or not. In due course of time, he leaves his body without being aware that ‘The Lord, who is an ocean of mercy, is now manifest to me after having been worshipped by me. Now He will take me to His own abode to engage me in His direct service.” Thus he is blessed.

Pīyūṣa kaṇā explanation —

When the Lord observes the devotee’s eagerness and anxiety He once gives him the darśana of Himself and His associates. Then it is described that, when the devotee becomes overwhelmed with ecstasy due to beholding the Lord, the Lord vanishes. In this paragraph Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartīpāda describes the wonderful feelings of a loving devotee when he sees the Lord directly and when the Lord disappears. Just to create these feelings of great anxiety and eagerness in the heart and mind of His loving devotee the Lord once grants him His darśana and then disappears again. This want for the Lord’s direct audience and its consequent mad thirst is the highest pursuit of human life.
In Śrīmad Bhāgavata it is seen that Śrī Nārada, in his previous birth as the son of a maidservant, attained prema by the grace of sages, in his childhood. In the deep jungle the Lord gave His darśana to Nārada, and then vanished from him. When Śrī Nārada prayed for another darśana of Śrī Hari with great eagerness the Lord told him:

sakṛd yad darśitaṁ rūpam etat kāmāya te’nagha
mat kāmaḥ śanakaiḥ sādhuḥ sarvān muñcati hṛcchayān

“O sinless one! I have shown you this form of Mine once, just to increase your attachment to Me. When the desire to see Me has become very strong all the sensual desires of the devotee will cease from the heart.”
In the Rāsa-līlā Śrī Kṛṣṇa disappeared from the Vraja-sundarīs and after they greatly suffered separation from Him He gave them His darśana by reappearing before them. On the pretext of offering Him a riddle they brought an accusation before their dearmost Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa then told them —

nāhaṁ tu sakhyo bhajato’pi jantūn bhajāmyamīṣam anuvṛtti vṛttaye
yathādhano labdha dhane vinaṣṭe taccintayānyan nibhṛto na veda

“O sakhis! When a poor person gets wealth and then loses it again by chance, he will think of nothing else. Similarly, to make a devotee’s meditation on Me uninterrupted I sometimes do not appear to him, even if he does worship Me.” Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartīpāda has drawn such a clear picture of how anxious the devotee feels after losing the direct vision of the Lord that it becomes clear how endlessly attractive the festival of the Lord’s extraordinary beauty is. At the same time we learn how full of thirst and divine madness the love of the devotee is. Finally the Lord brings the loving devotee to the kingdom of His direct participation in His Divine pastimes and blesses him with the gift of His loving devotional service. Understanding this, the devotee feels himself blessed.

ādau śraddhā tataḥ sādhu saṅgo’tha bhajana kriyā
tato’nartha nivṛttiś ca tato niṣṭhā rucis tataḥ
athāsaktis tato bhāvas tataḥ premābhyudañcati ityarthaḥ sādhu vivṛtaḥ

 

 

“First there is faith, then one associates with saints, then one engages in bhajana, then one becomes free from bad habits, then one becomes fixed in bhajana, then one attains deep taste, then one becomes attached to the object of worship, then one attains bhāva and then prema awakens.” Thus the scriptures have justly described the course of devotional progress. Above that there are even more juicy fruits in the wish-yielding vine of devotion, named sneha, māna, praṇaya, rāga, anurāga and mahābhāva. This material body of the practitioner is unable to tolerate the heat, cold or collisions of relishing this treasure, therefore they cannot possibly manifest in this body. For this reason they have not been described here. But in this treatise the ascertainment of stages like ruci, āsakti, bhāva and prema and their direct experience have been described. Although there is sufficient evidence on this they have not been mentioned here. Although dependence on scriptural evidence makes the path of direct experience harsh, still in case someone may depend or rely on evidence, it is given below: tasmiṅs tadā labdha rucer mahāmateḥ. This verse from Śrīmad Bhāgavata describes ruci; guṇeṣu śaktaṁ bandhāya rataṁ vā puṁsi muktaye, this verse describes āsakti; priya śravasyaṅga mamābhavad ratiḥ, this verse describes rati; premātibhara nirbhinna pulakāṅgo’ti nirvṛtaḥ, this verse describes prema; tā ye pibantyavitṛṣo nṛpa gāḍha karṇais tān na spṛśatyaśana tṛṅ bhaya śoka mohāḥ, this verse describes the anubhāva or symptom of ruci; the verse gāyan vilajjo vicared asaṅgaḥ describes the symptom of āsakti; the verse yathā bhrāmyatyayo brahman svayam ākarṣa sannidhau; tathā me bhrāmyate cetaś cakrapāṇer yadṛcchayā describes the symptoms of rati; the words hasatyatho roditi rauti gayatī in the verse evaṁ vrata sva priya nāma kīrtyā describe symptoms of prema; the verse āhūta iva me śīghraṁ darśanaṁ yāti cetasi describes sphūrti or transcendental visions at these places; the verse paśyanti me rucirānyamba santaḥ describes a direct vision of the Lord; the verse tair darśanīyāvayavair udāra vilāsa hāsekṣita vāma sūktaiḥ describes the devotee’s condition when he has attained this direct vision, and the verse svabhāve vāso yathā parivṛtaṁ madirā madāndha proves the activities of such a devotee. These verses can be researched for evidence for the different conditions.

Pīyūṣa kaṇa explanation —

The human race is grasped by ignorance and their hearts are covered by the filth of lust. If they are lucky enough to attain the grace of a saint they can develop faith and commence bhajana. After taking shelter of a bonafide Guru they will commence with the process of hearing and chanting, become free from bad habits and ascend to the kingdom of prema by first developing the conditions of niṣṭhā, ruci, āsakti and bhāva. For the offenseless practitioners, however, it is not necessary to pass through such a course to attain prema. Simply by practising harināma sankīrtana they will attain prema. Since however such offenseless persons are very rare in this world, the above stages of devotional development have been described for all the people of the world. That is reasonable.
Above prema there are again highly relishable stages of sneha, māna, praṇaya, rāga, anurāga and mahābhāva. In all these stages the material body of the devotee is unable to tolerate the transcendentally cold experience of meeting Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the heat of separation from Him and the collision of different other inner feelings. After attaining prema and the collapse of the current body (death), the devotee attains a transcendental body of an associate of the Lord in which he ascends to the Lord’s abode and the abovementioned stages become manifest according to his respective feelings of fraternal, paternal or amorous love towards the Lord. The highest manifestation of prema in the devotees that have taken shelter of Vraja’s amorous feelings, named mahābhāva, then arises— this is not possible in any other kind of devotee.
In this book the blessed author has described the stages from śraddhā (faith) up to prema. The Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas that have taken shelter of Śrīman Mahāprabhu’s lotus feet worship Śrī Rādhā in mañjarī bhāva. Śrīman Mahāprabhu’s beloved associates Śrī-Śrī Rūpa and Sanātana Gosvāmī are the teachers of this mañjarī bhāva by example, hence we offer a brief acquaintance with these stages by quoting Śrīmat Rūpa Gosvāmīpāda’s Śrī Ujjvala Nīlamaṇi.
sneha – āruhya paramāṁ kāṣṭhāṁ premā cid dīpa dīpanaḥ
hṛdayaṁ drāvayann eṣa sneha ityabhidhīyate
atrodite bhavejjātu na tṛptir darśanādiṣu

“When prema reaches superexcellence, becoming cid dīpa dīpana, showing the perception of prema and its object, and melting the heart, then this is called sneha. When this sneha arises one is never satiated with beholding the beloved.”

māna – snehastūtkṛṣṭatā vyāptyā mādhuryāṁ mānayan navam
yo dhārayatyadākṣiṇyaṁ sa māna iti kīrtyate
“When sneha becomes superexcellent and causes a new experience of sweet relish, becoming crooked and averse, it is called māna.”

praṇaya — māno dadhāno viśrambhaṁ praṇayaḥ procyate budhaiḥ

“When māna bears the mark of viśrambha it is called praṇaya.” Here the word viśrambha means trust or absence of awe and reverence. In this mood one considers one’s own heart, mind, intelligence, body and environment to be identical with those of the beloved.

rāga – duḥkham apyadhikaṁ citte sukhatvenaiva vyajyate
yatas tu praṇayotkarṣāt sa rāga iti kīrtyate

“Due to an excess of praṇaya one is so eager to attain Kṛṣṇa that one considers even the greatest suffering to be happiness. This is called rāga.”

anurāga – sadānubhūtim api yaḥ kuryān nava navaṁ priyam
rāgo bhavan nava navaḥ so’nurāga itīryate

“When one experiences the beloved, who has been experienced all the time, as ever fresh and ever-dear and thus the passion is ever-fresh, this is called anurāga.”

mahābhāva – anurāga svasaṁvedya daśāṁ prāpya prakāśitaḥ
yāvad āśraya vṛttiś ced bhāva ityabhidhīyate

“When yāvad āśraya vṛtti anurāga reveals a state of svasaṁvedya it is called mahābhāva.” rāga is the shelter of anurāga, and when it has arisen as far as it can, it is called yāvad āśraya vṛtti. When this anurāga has attained the condition of svasaṁvedya it is known as mahābhāva. And svasaṁvedya means that only those Vrajadevīs who have attained this yāvad āśraya vṛtti anurāga or mahābhāva can know it. No other type of devotee has mahābhāva. Indeed, it is very rarely attained even by Rukminī, Satyabhāmā and other queens of Kṛṣṇa. In it are manifestations of uddīpta and sūddīpta sāttvika bhāvas. There are also many other astonishing manifestations of mahābhāva as well as varieties like sneha, māna and praṇaya. For further knowledge please see the Sthāyibhāva Prakaraṇa of Śrī Ujjvala Nīlamaṇi.
In this Mādhurya Kādambinī scripture the stages of ruci, āsakti and prema have been described along with their experiences. Although there is ample evidence of it in the scriptures such reliance on evidence feels gross and harsh to the heart of the sensitive rasika bhakta, hence the blessed author has so far not quoted any evidence of these stages. If anyone, however, depends on evidence the blessed author has quoted the crownjewel of Purāṇas, Śrīmad Bhāgavata, for their convenience. The example of ruci has been given in Śrīmad Bhāgavata (1.5.27)

tasmiṅs tadā labdha rucer mahāmate priyaśravasyāskhalitā matir mama
yadāham etat sad asat sva māyayā paśye mayi brahmaṇi kalpitaṁ pare

Śrī Nārada Muni told Vedavyāsa: “O high-minded one! When I heard topics concerning Śrī Hari from the mouths of these sages I got a taste for that and my mind also became fixed in Govinda. Through such a spotless intelligence I could understand that this gross and subtle body of mine should only be engaged in the service of Śrī Govinda, the Supreme Brahman. (according to commentary by Śrī Viśvanātha Cakravartī) From this verse it is learned that the result of hearing these topics of the Lord from the mouth of a saint is that the contamination of lust dissipates, taste for bhajana awakens and the heart becomes fixed in Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s devotional service. Śrīmad Bhāgavata (3.25.15) gives this example of āsakti—
cetaḥ khalvasya bandhāya muktaye cātmano matam
guṇeṣu saktaṁ bandhāya rataṁ vā puṁsi muktaye

“The mind is the cause of either bondage or release for the soul. When the mind is attached to the sense objects it is the cause of bondage, and when it is attached to the Supreme Lord it is the cause of release.” This shows āsakti. The example of rati is:

tatrānvahaṁ kṛṣṇakathāḥ pragāyatām anugraheśāśṛṇavaṁ manoharāḥ
tāḥ śraddhayā me’nupadaṁ viśṛṇvataḥ priyaśravasyaṅga mamābhavad ratiḥ

Śrī Nārada said: “O Vyāsa! By the grace of these sages, who were engaged in glorifying Lord Hari I could hear the sweet descriptions of Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes, while sitting at their feet. By constantly and faithfully hearing these topics I got rati for Śrī Govinda, who performs fascinating sports.” (Śrīmad Bhāgavata 1.5.26) The evidence for the arising of prema is—
premātibhara nirbhinna pulakāṅgo’ti nirvṛtaḥ
ānanda saṁplave līno nāpaśyam ubhayaṁ mune

Śrī Nārada said: “O Vyāsa! My hairs stood on end due to an outburst of prema and my heart experienced a thrill of excessive bliss and peace. Immersed in a flood of ecstasy I lost awareness of both myself and the Lord.” (Śrīmad Bhāgavata 1.6.18) This mentions the awakening of prema. After this an example is given of the symptoms of prema after ruci. The symptoms of ruci are described thus in Śrīmad Bhāgavata (4.29.40):

tasmin mahan mukharitā madhubhiccaritra pīyūṣa śeṣa saritaḥ paritaḥ sravanti
tā ye pibantyavitṛṣo nṛpa gāḍha karṇais tān na spṛśantyaśana tṛṅ bhaya śoka mohāḥ

Śrī Nārada told King Prācīnabarhi: “O Rājan! In the company of saints the nectar-river of discussions on Śrī Madhusūdana’s pastimes flows in all four directions! Those saints who attentively and with thirsty ears drink this nectar cannot be touched by hunger, thirst, fear, lamentation and delusion.” The symptoms of ruci are described here: when taste has awoken for topics of Śrī Hari one can never be inattentive and one will relish topics of Śrī Hari with thirsty ears. The symptoms of āsakti are—

śṛṇvan subhadrāṇi rathāṅga pāṇer janmāni karmāṇi ca yāni loke
gītāni nāmāni tad arthakāna gāyan vilajjo vicared asaṅgaḥ

“One should wander around free from material desires and bashfulness, singing of the auspicious birth and activities of Cakrapāṇi Śrī Kṛṣṇa, that are celebrated in the scriptures and in local traditions (Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī’s opinion) and are spoken in different languages according to the country (Śrī Viśvanātha’s opinion).” (Śrīmad Bhāgavata 11.2.39) The symptoms of āsakti are that the devotee becomes attached to Śrī Kṛṣṇa and is no longer dependent on or attached to matters other than Him, such as public opinion. The symptoms of rati are described as follows.

yathā bhrāmyatyayo brahman svayam ākarṣa sannidhau
tathā me bhidyate cetaś cakrapāṇer yadṛcchayā

Śrī Prahlāda Mahāśaya told his teacher (in Śrīmad Bhāgavata 7.5.14): “O brahman! Just as iron automatically flies to the magnet when they come close to each other, similarly my mind acts when it approaches Cakrapāṇi.” bhāgavatī rati is an self-manifest activity of the hlādinī śakti. When it appears within the heart of the sādhaka the Lord makes him greedy after the relish of His own sweetness, and just as the magnet attracts the iron, it automatically attracts the heart of the sādhaka. The example of the symptom of prema is—

evaṁ vrataḥ sva priya nāma kīrtyā jātānurāgo druta citta uccaiḥ
hasatyatho roditi rauti gāyatyunmādavan nṛtyati loka bāhyaḥ

“As the devotee thus chants the holy name with full dedication, prema awakens, which makes his heart melt. Then he sometimes laughs, sometimes weeps, sometimes roars, sometimes sings and sometimes dances.” (Śrīmad Bhāgavata 11.2.40) Śrīmad Bhāgavata describes the vision of the Lord as follows:

pragāyataḥ sva vīryāṇi tīrthapādaḥ priya śravāḥ
āhūta iva me śīghraṁ darśanaṁ yāti cetasi

“When Śrī Kṛṣṇa, from whose lotus feet all the holy places emanate and who is of spotless renown, heard His own glories sung from my mouth He very rapidly showed Himself in my heart, as if He was beckoned.” In Śrīmad Bhāgavata (3.25.35) this can be found about seeing the Lord directly—

paśyanti te me rucirāṇyamba santaḥ prasanna vaktrāruṇa locanāni
rūpāṇi divyāni vara pradāni sākaṁ vācaṁ spṛhanīyāṁ vadanti

Śrī Kapila deva told His mother Devahūti: “O mother! All these devotees see My satisfied face with its reddish eyes, fascinating transcendental forms which bestow blessings. Thus they have different types of desirable talks with Me.” Śrīmad Bhāgavata describes the nature of devotees that have already attained the vision of the Lord;

tair darśanīyāvayavair udāra vilāsa hāsekṣita vāma sūktaiḥ
hṛtātmano hṛtaprāṇāṁś ca bhaktir anicchato me gatimanviṁ prayuṅkte

Śrī Kapila deva says: “O mother! Seeing the attractive forms of the Lord that have generous playful smiles and captivating glances, and that speak enchanting words, their senses and minds become exclusively attracted. Even if they don’t want it, devotion will bestow the destination of an associate of the Lord upon them.” When the devotee directly experiences Śrī Hari’s form and attributes he becomes so enchanted and absorbed that he ends up desiring nothing from Him. Devotion personified, however, will grant the position of an associate of the Lord upon him anyway, engaging him in the blissful service of the Lord in the Supreme Abode. This is the nature of devotion. The activities of a devotee who has attained the view of the Lord is described as follows in Śrīmad Bhāgavata (11.13.36)—

dehaṁ ca naśvaram avasthitam utthitambā siddho na paśyati yato’dhyagamat svarūpam
daivād apetam uta daiva vaśād upetaṁ vāso yathā parikṛtaṁ madirā madāndhaḥ

“Just as drunkards sometimes have no idea if someone takes away the garments they wear or put them back on again, similarly the siddha puruṣas have no idea if this perishable body, through which he has attained his siddha svarūpa, has risen (from its seat), or is seated.” The heart and mind of a loving devotee who has attained the vision of the Lord remains immersed in the ocean of His sweetness without even slightly becoming externally involved. Śrīmad Bhāgavata, which is the essence of all Vedānta-scriptures, is the spotless authority, more so than any other scripture, hence the blessed author has quoted all evidence from it.

 

 

Its principle is as follows: ahaṅkāra has two aspects: ahamtā (self-identification) and mamatā (possessiveness). They disappear through the development of spiritual knowledge. Then the conditioned soul attains liberation; if he is situated in a life centered around his body and house he is conditioned. “I belong to the Lord, I am His servant. The Lord with His associates, His form and qualities, is an ocean of transcendental sweetness. The Lord is my worshipable person and the object of my service.” In this way he identifies himself (ahamtā) with the associates of the Lord and he considers the form of the Lord the object of his possession (mamatā); this is called prema. Actually this prema is far more wonderful than either bondage or liberation, and hence it was given the title ‘crownjewel of human pursuits’. Its course of development is as follows— when self-identification and possessiveness in its mundane sense are still very strong, one thinks: “I am in material life, but let me become a Vaiṣṇava and let the Lord become the object of my service.” When by good luck a drop of such faith is born he becomes eligible for devotion because he now has a whiff of spirituality. Then, when he starts associating with saints this whiff of spirituality becomes more substantial, after which unstable engagement in bhajana commences. In this stage both self-identification and possessiveness are minimal in the spiritual sense and maximal in the mundane sense. When one becomes fixed in bhajana one’s consciousness becomes pervaded with spirituality and the mundane influence becomes small. When ruci emerges the heart becomes fully engrossed in spirituality and the mundane influence becomes minimal. When āsakti is born, spirituality becomes intense and the mundane influence is reduced to a whiff. Then, when bhāva arises, spirituality is overwhelming and mundane influence is reduced to a mere shadow, like a dream just dreamt. When prema is born, self-identification and possessiveness are most overwhelming in the spiritual realm and have fully lost their relationship with the mundane aspect. When thus bhajana kriyā commences, one meditates on the Lord while there is only a momentary whiff left over of other topics. When niṣṭhā comes to being, other topics are only just like a shadow, when ruci awakens this meditation is devoid of ulterior subjects and lasts for long periods. In the stage of āsakti this meditation is very deep, in bhāva there is mere meditation and the Lord appears in visions. In prema these visions become detailed and the true vision of the Lord takes place.

Pīyūṣa kaṇā explanation —

karttā śāstrārthavattāṁ (Vedānta Sūtra 2.3.33). In this sentence from the Vedānta Sūtra we can read that the soul is the doer. The scriptures say that the individual soul is acting and not the qualities of māyā. The acting spirit soul is simply receiving prompts from the qualities of māyā. This acting soul also has a dependent aspect, that is part of its role as a jīva. Because of its basic independence the individual soul can act as it wishes, and as such it has to suffer reactions to its activities – svakarma phala bhuk pumān. When the spirit soul acts and enjoys, then it surely has an ahaṅkāra or self esteem. This self esteem has two aspects – self-identification (“I am”) and possessiveness (“I have”). The spirit soul, who has forgotten its intrinsic position and who is under the influence of a mundane illusion, establishes its “I am” in the gross material body, which is made by māyā and which it has attained as a result of its fruitive activities, and its “I have” is fixed on wife, children, wealth and property. Such is the conditioned state of the spirit soul. Since beginningless time this individual soul has taken this selfish conditioning along, forgetting its innate position and wandering through 8,400,000 species of life according to the results of its fruitive actions.
The saints and the scriptures advise that the illusion-bound individual soul gives up its identification with gross matter through the practice of sādhana and gradually develops a transcendental self esteem. These two conditions are burned in the fire of spiritual wisdom by the jñānīs and this results in liberation. The actual innate identity of the individual soul is that he is an eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa. Through this the soul that is liberated from illusion can be blessed with the service of Śrī Hari. Hence the jñānīs are destroying the individual soul, which yearns for spiritual bliss. For this reason a person who wants to benefit himself rather covets hell than liberation – naraka vāñchaye tabu sāyujya nā loy (C.C.)
The devotees gradually destroy the two aspects of false ego and turn towards the Personality of Godhead. When the “I am” has fully turned into “I am Śrī Hari’s servant” and the “I have” has turned into “Śrī Hari is mine”, then this is called prema. This prema is the fifth goal of human life, or the crownjewel of human pursuits. Through the practice of bhajana this self-identification and possessiveness gradually give up their connection with the mundane and establish themselves in the spiritual. Accordingly the meditation on the Lord gradually ripens and culminates when it reaches the state of prema. The blessed author describes this course in the above paragraph.

 

 

May this Mādhurya Kādambinī, or cloud bank of sweetness, which is showered from the ocean of sweetness Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya, satisfy the world.

Pīyūṣa kaṇā explanation —

The Original Personality of Godhead Vrajendranandanda Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the embodiment of all transcendental flavours. In His Vraja-pastimes He was unable to relish Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī’s love in three ways, so in order to fulfill these desires He assumed Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī’s feelings and complexion and became Gaura. The meeting between this ocean of rasa and this ocean of prema is the ocean of sweetness, Śrī Gaurasundara!! In Him the high waves of sweet rasa are ever welling up!! From the ocean of His sweet rasika pastimes all realisations about the topics described in this Mādhurya Kādambinī have come to perfection. When this book is studied the devotee will easily become free from all obstacles to bhajana such as desires for profit, adoration and distinction and all offenses will cease, by Śrīman Mahāprabhu’s grace. Thus he will achieve prema and be ever-blessed by relishing the sweetness of the Lord. There is no doubt about this whatsoever.
Finally the blessed author offers a blessing to all of mankind — by the grace of Śrīla Gaurasundara may this whole world, which is constantly scorched by the fire of the threefold material miseries, be satisfied and soothed by the nectar shower emanating from this amazing cloud bank of sweetness, which arises from the ocean of Mahāprabhu’s pastimes. (3)