Anon APRIL 9, 2018 AT 14:29

About siddha-pranali, is it something that is eternally existing, our identity, or is it something that our guru gives us? Does our guru simply create the 11 points of our manjari identity and then tell us to meditate on it, and thus gradually through meditation we CREATE that identity?

In other words, if it doesn’t require a guru to meditate and “reach into the spiritual platform to find out our siddha-pranali”, then couldn’t any guru give us siddha-pranali, since technically it would not require a liberated guru who is capable of reaching into the spiritual realm to access that information, since it is not pre-existing?

I hope I’ve made my question clear. It’s a bit complex. Basically does our guru just “make up” those 11 points of manjari siddha pranali?

1)

About siddha-pranali, is it something that is eternally existing, our identity, or is it something that our guru gives us?

The siddha deha is an expansion of the Supreme Lord. It is a manifestation of His inner potency or svarupa sakti and it is BESTOWED by Sri Krishna.

tvaṁ bhakti-yoga-paribhāvita-hṛt-saroja āsse śrutekṣita-patho nanu nātha puṁsām yad-yad-dhiyā ta urugāya vibhāvayanti tat-tad-vapuḥ praṇayase sad-anugrahāya (Srimad Bhagavatam 3.9.11)

“O Lord! You, who are approached by being heard about, seen and directly served, enter and remain in the lotus of your devotee’s hearts infused with bhakti-yoga. Much praised Lord! By your mercy, you bestow to them spiritual bodies appropriate to the mood they cultivate during sādhana.”

Srila Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura explains – te sādhaka-bhaktāḥ sva sva bhāvānurūpaṁ yad yad dhiyā bhāvayanti tat tad eva vapus teṣāṁ siddha dehaṁ praṇayase prakarṣeṇa tān prāpayasi aho te sva bhakta pāravaśyam iti bhāvaḥ –

“Or your devotees doing sādhana concentrate on their spiritual form according to their mood of love using their minds, and you have them attain (praṇayase) their spiritual bodies. You become dependent on your devotee.”

vaikunthasya bhagavato jyotir-amsa-bhuta vaikuntha-loka-sobha-rupa ya ananta murtayas tatra vartante tasam ekaya saha muktasyaikasya murtir bhagavata kriyata iti vaikuntasya murtir iva murtir yesham ity uktam (Priti Sandarbha 10)

“In the spiritual world, the Supreme Lord has unlimited spiritual forms. They all are expansions of Himself illuminating that world. With each one of those forms, the Lord enjoys pastimes with a single individual liberated soul.”

In fact, the siddha dehas for manjaris are actually expansions of Srimati Radhika.

akara svabhava-bhede vraja-devi-gana kaya-vyuha-rupa tanra rasera karana
( CC 1.1.79)

Sri Krishna (or Srimati Radhika) will reveal this form to Sri Gurudev, then Sri Gurudev will realize and see this form and he will know his disciple. In that way we can achieve our eternal form. Everything is there – we only have to reach our target. We have our form there. Gurudev will reveal to us the information and the reality of this form. It is not speculation – it is not coming by his imagination.

Maybe Sri Gurudeva will give some things, and then, later, all other details will come by our meditation, by our performance, by our activities. Because there are so many things, Gurudev may reveal some points or he can reveal all these details. By his own sadhana, his bhajan, the sadhaka can see and finally realize all the other details of his svarupa.

2)

Does our guru simply create the 11 points of our manjari identity and then tell us to meditate on it, and thus gradually through meditation we CREATE that identity?

After giving initiation into kāma bīja and kāma gāyatrī Śrī Gurudeva bestows siddha praṇālī, so that the disciple gets knowledge of his distinct relationship with the deity and about the śrī yugalopāsanā, the means to worship the Divine Pair.

In it the disciple will become acquainted with the name, complexion, age, nature and the other of the eleven aspects of his or her siddha svarūpa. The learned knowers of the truth call that initiation ceremony through which all sins are destroyed and divine knowledge is bestowed, dīkṣā — divyaṁ jñānaṁ yato dadyāt kuryāt pāpasya saṅkṣayam tasmād dīkṣeti sā proktā deśikais tattva kovidaiḥ.

In the 283rd paragraph of Śrī Bhakti Sandarbha, Śrīmat Jīva Gosvāmīpāda gives the following explanation of the above mentioned words divyaṁ jñānaṁ – divyaṁ jñānaṁ hyatra śrīmatī mantre bhagavat svarūpa jñānaṁ tena bhagavatā sambandha viśeṣa jñānaṁ ca yathā padmottara khaṇḍādāv aṣṭākṣarādikam adhikṛtya vivṛtam asti, meaning:

“Here the word divya jñāna refers to knowledge of the empowered mantra being the very form of the Lord, and that through it the aspirant will achieve knowledge of his specific relationship with the Lord, Who is the Presiding Deity over the mantra. In this connection there is an explanation of mantras like the 8-syllable mantra in the Uttara Khaṇḍa of Śrī Padma Purāṇa, wherein this meaning of the words divya jñāna is determined.”

In the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava sampradāya the knowledge of this specific relationship means the ekādaśa-bhāva, the eleven-fold relationship of the sādhaka with the mantra devatā Śrī Gopījana vallabha, or mañjarī svarūpa.

In the Pātāla Khaṇḍa of the Padma Purāṇa we find descriptions of how the practitioners who have take shelter of madhura-rasa and who know the principle of Kṛṣṇa-rasa, meditate on their siddha deha which is suitable for mentally rendered devotional service. ‘nādevo devam arcayet’ ‘devo bhūtvā devaṁ yajet’. In other words, ‘unless the sādhaka is a god he cannot worship Godhead’, and ‘being himself a god, he can worship Godhead’. These scriptural statements of rule and prohibition firmly establish the need for the bhakta who aspires for the service of the Lord to do bhajana while thinking of himself as a personal associate of the Lord. Such meditation of the pārṣada rūpa (form of an associate of the Lord) by the sādhaka is a meditation on the siddha deha.

Some think: “At first the sādhaka can take shelter of an imagined mental body, and then later, when the Lord is satisfied with his sādhana bhajana, according to the rule of yādṛśī bhāvanā yasya siddhir bhavati tādṛśī , He will make the sādhaka’s ātmā His associate. In this way, although the pārṣada body of the sādhaka is real, it is an imagination in the stage of meditation.”

This is, however, not the conclusion approved of by the śāstras and the mahājanas. In Śrīmad Bhāgavata (3.15.14) it is described: vasanti yatra puruṣāḥ sarve vaikuṇṭha mūrtayaḥ. ye’nimitta-nimittena dharmenārādhayan harim – “Those persons who live in Vaikuṇṭha have transcendental bodies just like Vaikuṇṭha (Lord Viṣṇu) and they worship Lord Śrī Hari there constantly through causeless devotional service.”

Commenting on this śloka, Śrīmat Jīva Gosvāmīpāda has written in the 10th paragraph of his Prīti Sandarbha — vaikuṇṭhasya bhagavato jyotir aṁśa bhūtā vaikuṇṭhaloka śobhā-rūpā yā anantā mūrtayaḥ tatra vartante tāsām ekayā saha muktasyaikasya mūrtiḥ bhagavatā kriyata iti vaikuṇṭhasya mūrtir iva mūrtir yeṣām ityuktam.

The basic meaning of this saying by Śrīmat Jīva Gosvāmīpāda is that there are two kinds of associates of the Lord in the Supreme Abode, one that is engaged in the Lord’s direct service, and the other that is eternally present in innumerable transcendental, yet non-functioning forms, that are like sparks from the Lord’s radiant form and are the treasures of Vaikuṇṭha-loka’s beauty. Each of the innumerable jīvas is an eternal servant of the Lord, and each of them is staying in the abode of the Lord in a body that is suitable for the Lord’s service. By the grace of bhakti one becomes qualified for the service of the Lord and by the Lord’s grace that body will be attained.

In the siddha praṇālī that is received from the lotus feet of Śrī Guru within the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Sampradāya, the acquaintance with this body is attained. No one should consider this to be imaginative. This is eternal and real. Of all the innumerable abovementioned forms situated in the abode of the Lord there is one form in which the Lord will accept the sādhaka. On the strength of his meditation Śrī Gurudeva is aware of this and is conferring the proper siddha deha to the disciple. While the sādhaka performs his sādhana he establishes his self-esteem into this form, and when he attains prema siddhi he is blessed with direct devotional service within this body.
(Srila Ananta das Babaji, tika to Sri Sri Prema Bhakti Chandrika 56)

3)

In other words, if it doesn’t require a guru to meditate and “reach into the spiritual platform to find out our siddha-pranali”, then couldn’t any guru give us siddha-pranali, since technically it would not require a liberated guru who is capable of reaching into the spiritual realm to access that information, since it is not pre-existing? 

Pre-existence finds no merit in the concept of “eternality”.

The siddha deha, the spiritual body, is not “created”. It exists eternally. Like Srila Vishvanatha Cakravartipada wrote, the siddha deha is AWARDED by Krishna to the perfected [siddha] sadhaka ACCORDING to the sadhana the sadhaka has performed, meaning according to the kind of relationship in love the sadhaka desires to have.

Being an expansion of either Krishna [male siddha deha] or Radha [female], the siddha deha is never created.

What IS created though is our IDENTIFICATION with such a suitable siddha deha. Eternal BHAVA is gradually infused into our hearts and it is our spiritual “task” to identify with the siddha deha Sri Gurudeva has revealed to us. It is not his “invention”. It is revealed to a true sat guru by their Lordships. It is THEIR mercy.

Speaking of a “pre-existence” means that we are still bound and limited by a material and chronological understanding. Eternality has no “pre-existence”.

The jiva has no pre-existence. Krishna says in the Gita that never was there any time where all of us did not exist…what to speak of an eternal spiritual body. Did Krishna pre-exist before Radha? Mahaprabhu before Krishna?

As long as our mind is not filled with pure enlightenment [pure sattva], eternal concepts cannot be fully understood.

My Gurudeva told me that the siddha deha is “there” like a wonderful new dress we desire to wear. From our perspective, it seems that the siddha deha is not “yet active [again, FAILURE or ERROR]. But Jiva Goswami for example writes that these unlimited forms which are AWARDED to a PERFECTED soul are illuminating the spiritual world [NOT ONLY VAIKUNTHA!!!!) and they beautify that realm…so, go figure! But it is our BHAVA that finally makes the siddha deha “active”, our SEVA.

Our materially conditioned mind NEEDS to think in terms of a linear time conception and cannot fathom “eternality”. We just CANNOT understand how it can be for example that the jivas AND Krishna Himself CO-EXIST since eternal time? It is ACHINTYA. We MUST think that Krishna existed BEFORE our “time”. It is wrong.

So instead of worrying about anything “pre-existing”, we need to focus on our task AT HAND:

To identify our SELF with the information of the siddha deha Sri Gurudeva mercifully revealed to us as Krishna´s “agent”.

If we don´t have faith in our Sri Gurudeva [guru shraddha], no spiritual endeavour we undertake will yield any fruit and we will always be trapped in the realm of our “conditioned understanding”.

It is nothing to be understood. It needs to be realized.

The siddha deha is eternal and Krishna´s [or Radhika´s] expansion.

• It is AWARDED to the perfected sadhaka by Their Lordships. It is a GIFT.
• Sri Gurudeva acts as a transparent medium and reveals the information [ekadasa bhavas] of the siddha deha [which he received from Krishna] to the worthy sadhaka.
• It is not Sri Gurudeva´s imagination.
• Our material mind is limited and cannot UNDERSTAND “eternality”.
• Bhakti is infused into our hearts and will culminate in the sadhaka´s realizing the siddha deha.