NOD – VIHE Nectar of Devotion—Part 23

Giriraj Swami: Now we shall discuss an interesting subject called, rati-ābhāsa. Ābhāsa means semblance or glimpse. When one comes to the stage of bhāva, he manifests various symptoms called anubhāvas. Anu means which follows. So, he will experience some ecstasy within. And then following the ecstasy that he feels within, there will be some symptoms without—in the body like crying, hair standing on end, trembling, and so on. Now we know that bhāva-bhakti is very rare, and Krishna only bestows it upon pure devotees. But sometimes persons who are not pure devotees are seen to be exhibiting symptoms like ecstasy.

Rupa Gosvami discusses what is actually happening. So, he divides rati-ābhāsa into two categories; one is pratibimba or reflected, and another is chāyā or shadow. In pratibimba someone who has desires for bhukti or mukti hears that just by chanting the holy name one can become liberated, or just by chanting the holy name all desires will be fulfilled; and so he joins with pure devotees who are chanting the holy name, and he also chants. And he is very elated because the mukti which he could have attained only with great difficulty and severe austerities can be attained just by chanting the holy names. So, he is very happy.

And in a few, not all, but a few, who are very fortunate, the moon of bhāva which has risen in the sky of the hearts of some pure devotee will reflect on the heart of the person who’s actually desiring mukti or bhukti, and the reflection of the ecstasy from within the heart of the pure devotee will cause him to exhibit symptoms that resemble ecstatic symptoms, but they’re not actually real ecstasy but they’re reflections of real ecstasy.

The other category of chāyā rati-ābhāsa refers to someone who doesn’t have any special desire for bhukti or mukti. He is just an ordinary person who happens to come to the association of pure devotees, and he becomes curious that they are chanting and dancing. What is this chanting and dancing? And they seem to be feeling some emotion. What is this emotion that they’re feeling? And then he thinks, Well, I will also join the chanting and dancing. So again, not every ordinary person who joins the chanting and dancing with the devotees will experience rati-ābhāsa but someone who’s very fortunate, he can experience rati-ābhāsa.

Now in the first case of pratibimba rati-ābhāsa, the person has desires for mukti or bhukti, which are against the principles of pure devotional service, so he may get mukti or bhukti from rati-ābhāsa because rati-ābhāsa is very powerful. Like nāmābhāsa, from nāmābhāsa one can get mukti also but because of such material desires, he is not in pure devotional service. But the person, ordinary person, who’s just curious or inquisitive, he is not really chanting to get mukti or bhukti, he is just chanting to experience what it is. He, by the association of pure devotees, can himself become a pure devotee and the rati-ābhāsa or bhāva-ābhāsa can actually become real śuddha-bhāva—real ecstasy.

So, by association with pure devotees even bhāva-ābhāsa or rati-ābhāsa can become real bhāva and therefore the association of pure devotees is so valuable, but then Rupa Gosvami says that although the association of pure devotees is so valuable that even an ordinary person can be elevated to the stage of ecstatic love of Godhead by such association, but if one offends a pure devotee, then his bhāva or rati can be affected. And there are different degrees of offense, depending on how dear the devotee is to Krishna who has been offended and how severe the offense. It is compared to the waning of the moon that if the offense is very severe, then one’s attachment for Krishna or rati for Krishna can gradually diminish like the waning of the moon and disappear, if the offense is very serious. If the offense is less serious, then actual bhāva or rati can become rati-ābhāsa, and if the offense is even less serious, then one’s bhāva or rati can be degraded. Just like if someone has mādhurya-rati, and if someone commits some offense it can become vātsalya-rati. If someone has vātsalya-rati, and he commits some offense, it can become sākhya-rati and so on.

So, we should always bear in mind the importance of serving the spiritual master or not offending the spiritual master because if even if someone is in the stage of bhāva, but if he neglects the order of the spiritual master or the mission of the spiritual master, his rati maybe may come to a lower [rati].

Then Rupa Gosvami says that even in someone who has developed bhāva-bhakti, there may be some traces of sinful activity. And if such traces become manifest, they will automatically be vanquished by the power of bhakti—by the power of bhāva-bhakti. And the devotee doesn’t have to do anything separate to rectify himself, and no one should decry the devotee or blaspheme the devotee. He should see the temporary appearance of some defect, like a spot on the moon. If we look at the moon, we may see there are some spots, but they can’t really impede the diffusion of light from the moon. So similarly, even if there is some trace of sinful behavior in a bhāva-bhakta, it should just be seen as a spot on the moon, which has no real effect. It cannot really act.

Oh yes, yesterday one devotee asked, “Sometimes we also may cry or laugh or exhibit some symptom which is like bhāva. So what is our position?” So, Rupa Gosvami also explains that, you could say, the higher stage of rati-ābhāsa or bhāva-ābhāsa is when a sincere devotee chants the holy name or hears some discussion about Krishna or pure devotees, experiences, his mind becomes overwhelmed with thoughts of Krishna consciousness, and he experiences some symptoms like crying or laughing or dancing. So, the devotee is really not the same as someone who has pratibimba rati-ābhāsa or chāyā rati-ābhāsa because the person is actually a devotee but just hasn’t really come to the stage of bhāva-bhakti. So, here the experience is still an ābhāsa of bhāva, but it’s a higher level, and it will certainly help the devotee to come to experience actual bhāva.

Devotee: So the rati-bhāva that is experienced by the devotee doesn’t come under the category of either pratibimba or chāyā.

Giriraj Swami: No, those are for non-devotees.

Devotee: In Jaiva-dharma, Bhaktivinoda Thakura mentions that chāyā rati-ābhāsa can also be experienced by the neophyte, but you are just saying that if we experience something like that then it’s not pratibimba or chāyā bhāva, but it’s something different.

Giriraj Swami: Well, if he is a sincere devotee who doesn’t really have other motives and is practicing pure devotional service, I haven’t seen that he comes in either of those categories. Neophyte again we have to see the translation what is the actual original word that’s been translated as neophyte because sometimes, but there are many stages up to bhāva-bhakti which aren’t included in neophyte either in which a person can have some experience of transcendental sentiments which can’t be called actual rati because he hasn’t come to the stage of rati or bhāva, but he still may be more than a neophyte.

Devotee: You have some reference I mean if we are pratibimba or chāyā. . .

Giriraj Swami: Yeah, like in the southern division which discusses the five types of bhāva, there are explanations in more detail about bhāva-ābhāsa, and one type of bhāva-ābhāsa is rati-ābhāsa, which is mentioned there that even the pure devotees who haven’t come to the stage of bhāva-bhakti, they can still have bhāva-ābhāsa by chanting and hearing about Krishna or remembering.

Devotee: It’s kind of like shraddha.

Giriraj Swami: Yeah, then there is sāttvikas-bhāvas in which the mind is overwhelmed by some ecstasy which then becomes manifest in the body. There are eight sāttvikas-bhāvas. So, there can be ābhāsa of the eight sāttvikas-bhāvas within the mind. So that is called sāttvikas-ābhāsa.

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Sorry, which sāttvikas-bhāvas?

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Yeah see there is something where material and spiritual emotions sort of get mixed. Like one lady sees Rāmāyaṇa, she sees some performance of Rāmāyaṇa, and she cries and cries through the whole performance, and then at the end she says, “I also had a son who left home.” So sometimes we mix material sentiments and spiritual sentiments, or some spiritual performance will draw out some emotion which is mixed with material experiences.

Devotee: Is that detrimental?

Giriraj Swami: Not really. No. Well, ultimately because we are in contact with Krishna consciousness, it’s helpful but the pure part should be preserved, and the material part should be purified.

Devotee: I have one more question. You mentioned that with offense our rati can be degraded like vātsalya to sākhya, so I mean I can’t understand how is it that the sthāyī-bhāva can change because it doesn’t makes any sense because we are supposed to have an eternal seed, it would seem more logical to me that. . . Of course, that’s no premise.

Giriraj Swami: Logical? What do you mean?

Devotee: Because our philosophy is that everyone has a bhāva that is eternally there, so if someone offends someone then how can your sthāyī-bhāva change?

Giriraj Swami: Yeah, but the different types of rati are hierarchical and the elements of the lower attachments are included in the higher attachments. It doesn’t mean that permanently the person will be degraded, but temporarily he can be degraded. Generally, one won’t be satisfied until he has realized his full potential, but temporarily there can be some interruption to it. Like even say Bharat Maharaja was at the stage of bhāva-bhakti but he fell down, he fell down. So going from say mādhurya-rati to vātsalya-rati is less of a fall down than what Bharat Maharaja experienced or what Bilvamangala Thakura experienced, but it’s temporary. They can be reinstated.

Devotee: Just taking that question and going the other way with it. Are there, are there are stages through which one passes through up to the full development or fruitful realization of like once one comes to the bhāva stage, isn’t that one well let’s say one’s constitutional position is of mādhurya, his rati developed through the lower stages first for instance.

Giriraj Swami: No, if he has greed, then he will immediately be attracted to a particular type of attachment to Krishna. He doesn’t have to go through neutrality and then servitorship and then friendship and so on, but it is mentioned in The Nectar of Devotion, there is a type of neutral bhāva and when someone has a neutral bhāva if he comes in contact with something of mādhurya-rasa, he experiences ecstasy. If he comes in contact with sākhya-rasa, he experiences ecstasy but ultimately, he will have to develop some sthāyī-bhāva, some permanent ecstasy.

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: No, in the translation the same word neutral is used but that doesn’t refer to śānta-rasa. That refers to some neutral bhāva, which can be excited in different contexts in different ways. Visaka?

Visaka: Through the stages of bhāva. . . I am sure in the case of Bharat Maharaja’s fall down [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Oh yes, in the stage of bhāva-bhakti, he can’t really commit an offense unless by the will of the Lord, but he may still suffer some from some past offense—some trace of some past offense.

Okay we have to go to prema. Otherwise, we won’t be complete. What’s the definition of prema? 

Devotee: The bhāva is intensified.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, intensified and concentrated bhāva. That’s the primary characteristics, and what are the other characteristics?

Devotee: The heart becomes completely solid.

Giriraj Swami: Completely melted, completely melted, the heart is completely melted. And?

Devotee: One’s concentration is totally fixed on Krishna.

Giriraj Swami: Yeah, all sense of possessiveness is reposed in Krishna. Like ordinary people or neophyte devotees, they think, My body, my wife, my child, my house, my clothes, my position, so many things we think.

So gradually as we make advancement in Krishna consciousness the sense of my, which is invested in so many material things beginning with the body becomes reduced. And one thinks in terms of Krishna like in one verse Krishna dasa Kaviraja Gosvami it says in Caitanya-caritāmṛta about those who have no other possession except the lotus feet of Lord Chaitanya, they can understand Caitanya-caritāmṛta. So gradually as we advance, all sense of possessiveness or identification becomes withdrawn from every other object and becomes fully reposed in Krishna.

So even in the stage of bhāva, there can be some attachment, slight attachment. And in the sages of Dandakaranya, who became gopīs in Vrindavan in the stage of bhāva, they still had some attachment to their husbands and their children but when by the mercy of Krishna, they were in the fire of separation, then all attachment for everything else became burned up and then they had attachment only for Krishna.

So, in prema, one has no sense of ownership or identification with anything except Krishna. As Srila Prabhupada says, the devotee says to Krishna, “Krishna is mine, and I am Krishna’s. Nothing else.”

Then how can one get prema-bhakti? Again it is similar to bhāva-bhakti, in the sense that one can get prema-bhakti from the previous stage of bhāva-bhakti, which again may be either vaidhī-bhāva or rāgānugā-bhāva, and Rupa Gosvami gives some nice verses. Actually, one of them (SB 11.2.40) is quoted here, on page 111 of the verse book:

evaṁ-vrataḥ sva-priya-nāma-kīrtyā
jātānurāgo druta-citta uccaiḥ
hasaty atho roditi rauti gāyaty
unmāda-van nṛtyati loka-bāhyaḥ

Evaṁ-vrataḥ means according to one’s vow. Just like we discussed it’s not exactly a vow, but Raghunatha dasa Gosvami was determined that he will only become Radhika dasi. He won’t accept any other position. Then sva-priya-nāma, then it means the name which is dear to one or the form which is dear to one. Like in mādhurya-rasa, the name will be Radhanath, Gopinatha, Gopijana-vallabha, and so on. Or in vātsalya-rasa, it may be Gopal. In sākhya-rasa, Krishna. Of course, maha-mantra includes everything but while chanting the holy name, he’ll be chanting the name of the form of Krishna which is dear to him and remembering the qualities of Krishna that Krishna is a young Kishore boy, and the pastimes of Krishna that He is playing on His flute and the gopīs are coming and He is searching looking at all the gopīs and becoming very happy and looking where’s Radharani.

evaṁ-vrataḥ sva-priya-nāma-kīrtyā jātānurāgo, that is very advanced—anurāgo. In anurāgo, one is so thirsty to enjoy Krishna. Of course, we should always understand ‘enjoy Krishna’ means ‘serve Krishna,’ but it’s as if even seeing Krishna or tasting Krishna. Krishna assumes ever newer and newer features, never the same from one moment to the next, newer and newer features of Krishna are experienced by the devotee.

Then druta-citta, that means melted heart, melted heart. Uccaiḥ—loudly. Hasaty—laughs. Just like the devotee sees that Krishna is coming so he becomes very happy and laughs. Or he will see some humorous pastime of Krishna. That Krishna has come to the courtyard of Jatila’s house in Javat and by pre-arrangement, He makes some sound to call the attention of Srimati Radharani so She will come and meet Him, but unfortunately Jatila hears the sound, and she comes into the courtyard, and Krishna becomes panicked, and He has to hide in the corner of the courtyard and for so many hours, He practically has to spend the whole day in the corner of the courtyard because He might be caught by Jatila.

So, seeing that or that Krishna is little Krishna is entering the house of some gopī to steal butter and the old lady says, “Oh, that thief Krishna has come. Stop Him, arrest Him.” So, seeing this the devotee will laugh. Seeing some humorous scene from Krishna’s pastimes, the devotee will laugh, and then suddenly it will be gone, and the devotee will lament so much that I saw Krishna, I saw the pastimes of Krishna. Now Krishna is gone. And then he will cry. He’ll cry very loudly and very piteously. Then after some time Krishna will appear again to the devotee, and say, “I have heard your loud cries, and I have come.” Then the devotee will become very jubilant, and he will sing and dance like a madman. And not caring for what other people think. So this is hasaty, he laughs. Then when Krishna disappears, roditi—he cries, and when Krishna comes again gāyaty – he sings, and unmāda-van—like a mad man. Nṛtyati—dances. Loka-bāhyaḥ—not caring for outsiders.

Then the other example given by Rupa Gosvami is from Padma Purāṇa. This is about how one gets prema by rāgānugā-bhakti, and he quotes about Chandrakanti, a celebrated fair-faced girl, rigidly observed celibacy in order to obtain Krishna as her husband. She always engaged herself in meditating on the transcendental form of the Lord and always chanted the glories of the Lord. She did not desire to accept anyone else as her husband. So, we discussed also that bhāva-bhakti can be achieved by rigid spiritual practices either in vaidhī-marg or rāgā-marg, and there also Chandrakanti was given as the example that she danced all night long for the pleasure of Krishna in the mood of a gopī, and thus attain bhāva-bhakti. So the acharyas have commented that how could she have a direct meeting with Krishna like Srimati Radharani has? And they have quoted various verses from the scripture about the position of Srimati Radharani. And they have concluded that Chandrakanti cannot be any ordinary soul, but she is actually herself an expansion of Srimati Radharani or a manifestation of Srimati Radharani. And she got the blessings of Srimati Radharani, she attained perfection and became one of the girlfriends of Srimati Radharani.

So, this brings up the point that we discussed yesterday after the class that in kāmānugā-bhakti there are two divisions—sambhoga-mayī and tat-tad-bhāva-ichha-mayī—in one there is desire for direct meeting with Krishna, and in the other there is desire only to experience indirectly, to serve Srimati Radharani and assist Her in Her pastimes of Krishna and experience everything through Srimati Radharani not directly but indirectly.

So, the question is whether any jiva can have the same position as Srimati Radharani?