God-dess, Radha Krishna

God-dess has infi­nite forms like parts related to the whole. Since God-dess “has no inter­nal dif­fer­ence, the part is not like a piece of stone chopped off from the whole. The part is…the whole–the same all-knowing and all-pervading being. Still, it is called a part, because the” self energy of God-dess “is not fully man­i­fested in it, and the whole is called the whole, because the” self energy “is fully man­i­fested in it.” (101) It is like a holo­gram which may be cut in pieces, but each piece con­tains the whole pic­ture even though they vary in size.

Undif­fer­en­ti­ated One­ness is the low­est man­i­fes­ta­tion of divine self energy and Radha Krishna is its high­est man­i­fes­ta­tion. Radha Krishna are, there­fore, iden­ti­cal with God-dess. Between Radha Krishna and Undif­fer­en­ti­ated One­ness there is an infi­nite hier­ar­chy of par­tial man­i­fes­ta­tions, each of which has a dif­fer­ent form. The dif­fer­ences are due to the dif­fer­ent com­bi­na­tions of majesty and sweet­ness man­i­fest in the var­i­ous forms of God-dess. Dif­fer­ent forms do not imply dif­fer­ence in the iden­tity of God-dess. All forms inhere in God-dess.

Radha Krishna, in their intrin­sic form, pos­sess infi­nite poten­cies, infi­nite attrib­utes and all the divine excel­lences of God-dess. They are the ulti­mate source of every­thing, the prime cause of all causes. They have spir­i­tual bod­ies which are beau­ti­ful beyond words. They some­times man­i­fest “simul­ta­ne­ously in many places and there is no qual­i­ta­tive dif­fer­ence between these man­i­fested forms and the orig­i­nal form.” (102)

They also man­i­fest in dif­fer­ent forms with myr­iad con­ceits to expe­ri­ence unlim­ited pas­times. These expan­sions have their own spir­i­tual abodes where they engage in eter­nal pas­times with their devo­tees. The dif­fer­ent reli­gions are based on our expe­ri­ence of these forms which are revealed accord­ing to time and cir­cum­stance. This accounts for the dif­fer­ent descrip­tions of God-dess. They man­i­fest them­selves in the phe­nom­e­nal world to cre­ate and main­tain the cos­mos and impart spir­i­tual wis­dom to human­ity. They are not sub­ject to mate­r­ial energy. They oper­ate in the realms of con­scious­ness and some­times man­i­fest on the mate­r­ial plane through highly evolved humans.

Many of these forms live in the Cos­mic Con­scious­ness and are able to appear in the con­scious­ness of humans and com­mu­ni­cate with us. Some­times they pos­sess a human and appear in human form through that per­son. Chai­tanya is con­sid­ered to be the incar­na­tion of Radha Krishna who appeared in the guise of a devo­tee to teach the reli­gion of divine love. Some­times he was in the mood of a human devo­tee. At other times, he was com­pletely God-dess pos­sessed. He man­i­fested the mood of Radha Krishna. He was seen and acknowl­edged as such by oth­ers. “The belief in the divin­ity of…Chaitanya was wide spread in his own time and con­tin­ues to this day to be shared by a large num­ber of his devoted fol­low­ers, now spread all over the world.” (106)

The innu­mer­able man­i­fes­ta­tions of God-dess are all per­fect, but they man­i­fest dif­fer­ent degrees of per­fec­tion based on how many divine qual­i­ties they man­i­fest fully or par­tially. God-dess, Radha Krishna, is the source of all man­i­fes­ta­tions in whom all divine qual­i­ties are fully manifest.

Radha Krishna are the supreme real­ity. They are both con­crete and expan­sive. Their infi­nite nature encir­cles the whole uni­verse, but that infini­tude is cen­tered in a con­crete form. Their being is an all-embracing, organic unity. Their con­crete form does not limit or restrict their free­dom because the mod­u­la­tions of their being per­vade the infi­nite expanse of exis­tence. They com­bine “wide­ness of spirit with inten­sity of mod­u­la­tions, the eter­nal peace and calm of per­fec­tion with the dynamism of eter­nally self-revealing and self-fulfilling cre­ative activ­ity, and quick­ness of move­ment with inten­sive har­mony and grace­ful­ness. (Krishna’s) flute wakes up such mod­u­la­tions in our being that our demands for love, knowl­edge and peace are all sat­is­fied in an inte­gra­tive syn­the­sis. It pro­vides free­dom, elas­tic­ity, har­mony and every­thing that makes for the rich­est and the most com­plete spir­i­tual life.” (107)

Since we are finite parts of the holo­graphic whole, God-dess is within us. When we attune our­selves to that level of con­scious­ness, God-dess is awak­ened within us, and we are able to con­sciously engage in a lov­ing rela­tion­ship that is the per­fec­tion of spir­i­tual life.

Vrind­a­ban is the spir­i­tual abode of Radha Krishna. Like them, it con­sists of exis­tence, con­scious­ness and bliss. As such it is dif­fer­ent from the mate­r­ial world. Vrind­a­ban and Radha Krishna are insep­a­ra­bly related. We can­not think of Radha Krishna with­out Vrind­a­ban, nor Vrind­a­ban with­out Radha Krishna. In their orig­i­nal forms, they eter­nally stay in Vrind­a­ban and never leave it.

Just as there are infi­nite man­i­fes­ta­tions of Radha Krishna, there are infi­nite man­i­fes­ta­tions of their abode. For each man­i­fes­ta­tion of Radha Krishna, there is a cor­re­spond­ing man­i­fes­ta­tion of their abode. Vrind­a­ban is the orig­i­nal and high­est abode, just as Radha Krishna are the orig­i­nal and high­est forms of God-dess. High­est means the most excel­lent, com­plete or full manifestation.

Radha Krishna and their abode are the high­est because their sweet­ness eclipses their majesty. They do not appear as God-dess, or even sov­er­eigns, but as young lovers eter­nally engaged in amorous sports with their con­fi­dants on the bank of the river, in the green groves, laden with sweet smelling flow­ers, all of which breathe an atmos­phere of free­dom and sweet­ness which is most enjoyable.

All other forms of God-dess and their abodes are par­tial man­i­fes­ta­tions. When Radha Krishna man­i­fest on earth, they bring their spir­i­tual abode with them. Devo­tees who per­fect their spir­i­tual vision can see Radha Krishna’s sports even today in their man­i­fest abode, Vrind­a­ban, India, as well as in their heart. It is only through the way of the heart that one can enter the spir­i­tual Vrind­a­ban and Radha Krishna’s pas­times. Devo­tion through reg­u­la­tive prin­ci­ples leads to the more majes­tic forms of God-dess.

Vrind­a­ban is here on earth, and it is in the heart of the devo­tee wher­ever they may live. Radha Krishna’s unman­i­fest pas­times go on there even now. One can only see them by the grace of Radha Krishna or their devotees.

God-dess’ abodes are pop­u­lated by eter­nal asso­ciates who enrich the pas­times by their par­tic­i­pa­tion in dif­fer­ent rela­tion­ships with God-dess. Some are in this role with­out begin­ning. Oth­ers attained this role through grace and prac­tice of devo­tion on the mate­r­ial plane.

The asso­ciates serve God-dess accord­ing to the par­tic­u­lar bond of rela­tion­ship, like ser­vant, friend, par­ent or lover, which exists between them. This rela­tion­ship is not due to birth or an exter­nal cer­e­mony like adop­tion or mar­riage. It is due to the spe­cific emo­tion or devo­tional love an asso­ciate has for God-dess. Part of devo­tional prac­tice is to cul­ti­vate such an emo­tional, lov­ing rela­tion­ship with God-dess.

God-dess is per­fect, with­out wants and all “activ­i­ties are with­out motive or con­scious effort. They spring from exu­ber­ance of intrin­sic bliss.” (115) They are called sport, play or pas­times. They man­i­fest in the hearts, minds and lives of devotees.

God-dess’ names, forms, abodes, asso­ciates and sports exist within us, along with every­thing else we can imag­ine. There are dif­fer­ent lev­els of exis­tence and con­scious­ness per­vad­ing every­thing. The devo­tional prac­tices are meant to help us attain that level of con­scious­ness where God-dess lives and enacts eter­nal pas­times with the lib­er­ated associates.

Radha Krishna are the embod­i­ment of the high­est, most con­cen­trated bliss. This bliss is dif­fer­ent from ordi­nary hap­pi­ness. Ordi­nary hap­pi­ness is mate­r­ial, while bliss is spir­i­tual. Ordi­nary hap­pi­ness is tran­sient and lim­ited while bliss is eter­nal and unlim­ited. Spir­i­tual bliss is
quan­ti­ta­tively and qual­i­ta­tively vastly supe­rior to mate­r­ial hap­pi­ness. Tran­scen­den­tal bliss is unique and indescribable.

Radha Krishna are not only the embod­i­ment of bliss but of enjoy­ment. They are both the object that is enjoyed and the per­son who enjoys. This tran­scen­den­tal enjoy­ment is aston­ish­ingly won­der­ful, and it totally absorbs the mind and senses. God-dess is full of infi­nite vari­ety and is there­fore ever new. God-dess is the embod­i­ment of all enjoyment.

God-dess’ bliss­ful energy increases a thousand-fold when it is implanted in the heart of a devo­tee. Devo­tees have a pas­sion­ate desire to serve God-dess accord­ing to their dif­fer­ent moods. The love of devo­tees who are aware of God-dess’ power and majesty is enjoy­able, but divine love is always shy before majesty. The more aware­ness of majesty, the less intense the love.

Devo­tees who, unaware of God-dess’ power and majesty, serve Radha Krishna as a sweet, lov­ing cou­ple with ordi­nary human wants and weak­nesses, give them the high­est enjoy­ment. Their divine love is enjoyed by Radha Krishna more than any­thing else. The high­est devel­op­ment of divine love is only pos­si­ble when nei­ther God-dess nor the devo­tees are con­scious of divinity.

Rupa Goswami was a learned play­wright and poet knowl­edge­able of clas­si­cal Indian aes­thet­ics. Based on the Tenth Canto of the Sri­mad Bha­ga­vatam, he elab­o­rated the play of Radha Krishna and hier­ar­chi­cally sys­tem­atized the var­i­ous forms of God-dess, moods of devo­tion, devo­tional symp­toms of love, forms of sport and how to enter into those sports. His brother, Sanatan, and nephew, Jiva, philo­soph­i­cally sys­tem­atized these concepts.

Thus, we arrive at a point where the high­est con­cep­tion of God-dess and the high­est ser­vice one can ren­der them is for them to be a lov­ing young cou­ple with us as their friends and lovers, totally unaware of divin­ity. Deep, intense love is the key ele­ment. If we apply the prin­ci­ple “as above, so below,” see our­selves cre­ated in the image of God-dess and under­stand this world to be a tem­po­rary, illu­sory reflec­tion of the spir­i­tual world, we can under­stand that God-dess and the tran­scen­den­tal abode must bear some resem­blance to the high­est, most enjoy­able aspects of human life.

Radha Krishna, Vrind­a­ban, the cow-herding pas­times, and so forth are the Indian cul­tural rev­e­la­tion of that ideal life. Now that Radha Krish­naism spread through­out the world, we need to divest it of its cul­tural accre­tions and re-imagine it in our own indige­nous con­texts. This process may take gen­er­a­tions to com­plete. God-dess real­iza­tion is a dynamic process. God-dess and God-dess’ play is ever expand­ing. God-dess responds accord­ing to the mood in which the devo­tee approaches, there­fore, it is not a closed, fixed system.

God-dess craves the love of devo­tees who are free of all con­straints in their talk and behav­ior. Their divine love is ever fresh and enjoy­able. God-dess, though eter­nally free, is eter­nally cap­tive in their hearts. There is an extremely inti­mate, lov­ing rela­tion­ship between God-dess and such devotees.

God-dess and the devo­tee are united in love, but this does not imply a monis­tic union in which the devo­tee com­pletely loses their own iden­tity. “They are so absorbed in each other’s love and lost in each other’s thought that there is hardly any room in their hearts for the thought of any­thing else.” (121) God-dess and the devo­tee become mutu­ally sub­servient to each other sur­ren­der­ing their free­dom to each other. God-dess is con­trolled by the pure divine love of the devotee.

All God-dess’ activ­i­ties are intended to make the devo­tees happy. This is nat­ural in love. God-dess loves the devo­tees as much as they love God-dess. God-dess man­i­fests in dif­fer­ent forms to sat­isfy the devo­tees dif­fer­ent tastes for enjoy­ing devo­tion. God-dess loves the devo­tees in the same man­ner in which they love. God-dess lives in the devotee’s heart in the form the devo­tee med­i­tates upon and bestows divine love. The devo­tee enjoys the bliss of close­ness to God-dess and learns to engage in lov­ing play. These unlim­ited vari­eties of lov­ing rela­tion­ships with innu­mer­able devo­tees are supremely enjoy­able for God-dess.

Radha Krishna are supremely enjoy­able due to the sweet taste of their love. Sweet­ness is the essence of their nature. Scrip­tures describe both the sweet­ness and majesty of God-dess, but the sweet­ness alone is the essence of per­fec­tion. God-dess’ sweet­ness is due to the bliss­ful, lov­ing energy per­son­i­fied as Radha who gov­erns Krishna. A ruler may make a per­son cap­tive by power, but only their sweet behav­ior can win the person’s heart and soul. Sweet­ness is God-dess’ intrin­sic qual­ity, and it is most fully man­i­fest in the love of Radha Krishna.

Love is by nature imper­fect. “It is never sat­is­fied with itself. The more love one has the more one longs for it. Love is essen­tially dynamic. It is ever grow­ing, ever try­ing to over­reach itself. This, at any rate, is spir­i­tual love.” (129) Since God-dess’ love is lim­it­less, God-dess’ hunger for love is also lim­it­less. To sat­isfy this lim­it­less hunger, God-dess bestows devo­tion to have more per­sons to love and be loved by.

God-dess expe­ri­ences bliss in the act of mer­ci­fully impart­ing devo­tion like a mother nurs­ing her child. God-dess’ mercy blesses the giver and receiver. God-dess is essen­tially dynamic. Though per­fect in all respects, God-dess always grows and changes through enjoy­ing rela­tion­ships. God-dess’ every act of mercy is an act of self-fulfillment and self-transcendent bliss.

Book­mark It

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 10:02 and is filed under Steve's Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.