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JKYog e-Magazine, Issue No. 66
February, 2015
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Madhurya Bhav: Loving Sentiment of the Gopis
Rasik
Saints have emphasized devotion to Lord Krishna through intimate
relationships such as we have in the material world. These
relationships of the devotee and God are known as bhavas. There are five bhavs (sentiments): Shanta, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya and madhurya.
All the aspects of Love, i.e. God as our king, master, friend, child,
and beloved have been established in order to make us feel closer to
God.Each succeeding bhav is superior to the previous one. Dasya bhav is superior to shanta bhav. Sakhya bhav is superior to dasya bhav, vatsalya bhav is superior to sakhya bhav, and madhurya bhav is superior to vatsalya bhav. Shanta bhav
is the lowest, as it is the relationship between a subject and a
king. Awe and reverence dominate this relationship, so it has
generally been rejected by Rasik Saints. In dasya bhav, the relationship is closer, as the devotee considers himself as a servant and the Lord as his master. Sakhya bhav or friendship is closer than servitude, because in this bhav the devotee considers God as his friend. In vatsalya bhav, the devotee has greater privileges than in sakhya bhav, because here the devotee loves the Lord as his little child. Madhurya bhav is the closest of all relationships, as it is that intense sweet love that exists between a lover and her beloved. We
can understand this from worldly examples. Even in the world, the
closest relationship is that of lover with her beloved, less close is
that of parents with their child, even less close is the relationship
between friends, the servant's relationship with the master is even
lesser, and finally, the relationship of a subject with his king is the
least close. One important point to note here is that, madhurya bhav
incorporates within it the remaining four sentiments. Just as
earth, water, fire, air, and space are considered to be incorporated in
the element, earth, so in madhurya bhav, we can think of God as
our beloved, son, friend, master, or king whenever we wish. The
highest Rasik Saints do not give much importance to the shanta bhav, therefore, we generally find devotees of other four sentiments; dasya, sakhya, vatsalya and madhurya. Only
these five relationships are acceptable in devotion. If you look
upon God as God, then you will feel "I am an ordinary living being and
he is All-powerful, how can I love him?" This will create fear in
your relationship. These feelings are also experienced in the
world and one can get an idea of this even though a beloved's
relationship in the world is selfish. The wife regards her husband
as her beloved, but along with this, she has a motherly heart and
expresses vatsalya bhav at the time of serving food. The
wife is also a friend. She is always ready to give an opinion on
matters even where she has no right and in matters where she has a
right, she boldly gives her advice. A husband takes only the
advice of his wife in confidential matters, and he does not discuss
these with anyone else. Lastly, the feeling of servitude is
self-evident in this relationship. Madhurya bhav is the
most intimate of all relationships; in this, the devotee enjoys all
privileges and has complete authority over Lord Krishna. The
selfless amorous divine love of the gopis is known to all. It was
this selfless love that made the Supreme Brahman, Krishna, forget his
godliness and become their eternal servitor. Selfless
amorous feelings of the gopis is the sweetest of all devotional
sentiments. Practicing devotion along these lines guarantees one
attainment of the highest divine bliss. The factual meaning of madhurya bhav
is, "He is my All-in-All". This allows you to love Shree Krishna
with whichever sentiment you desire, whenever you desire. You have
complete freedom in your choice of devotional sentiment, bhav and there
are no restrictions or rules governing the relationship.
This highest emotion, combined with the selfless ideal of the gopis,
should be incorporated into our sadhana from the very beginning.
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Madhurya bhav is the most
intimate of all relationships; in this, the devotee enjoys all
privileges and has complete authority over Lord Krishna. The
selfless amorous divine love of the gopis is known to all. It was
this selfless love that made the Supreme Brahman, Krishna, forget his
godliness and become their eternal servitor.
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The Glories of Selfless Gopi Prem
Madhurya bhav
of the gopis and their divine love for Shree Krishna is universally
known. Bound by the love of the gopis, even Supreme Lord Shree
Krishna loses his almightiness. He willingly goes to the houses of
gopis so that he can hear them call him a thief. He is always
eager to hear their rebukes. This gopi prem is even beyond the
intellect of Brahma, that is why Shree Krishna says in the Bhagavatam:
yathā sahāyā guravaḥ śhiṣhyā bhujiṣhyā bāṅdhavāḥ striyaḥ
He says, "Gopis are everything to me."
Once,
a doubt arose in the minds of the Queens of Dwarka. They wondered that
even though they were all extremely beautiful, cultured and talented,
yet when their husband Shree Krishna remembered a gopi of Braj called
Radha, he forgot all the qualities of his 16,108 wives in Dwarka. What
was the quality that made the gopis of Braj exceptionally attractive and
lovable to Shree Krishna? To dispel this doubt in the minds of
his queens, Shree Krishna performed a leela. He lied down on the
bed and said that his head was throbbing with pain. The queens got
worried. They tried a number of remedies but nothing seemed to
work. Even Naradji got worried. He asked Shree Krishna,
"Dear Lord! Why don't you tell us how your pain can be cured?" Shree
Krishna replied, "If I can get the foot dust of a God-realized soul and I
can rub that dust on my forehead, then my headache will be cured."
Naradji
thought that he needn't go elsewhere to get this work done. All
the queens were God-realized and he could simply use their foot dust to
rub on Shree Krishna's forehead. However, when Naradji approached
the queens for their foot dust, they all spontaneously refused. They
revolted, "How can we give our foot-dust to rub on our husband's
forehead?" Even after repeated insistence, none of the queens
agreed to give their foot dust. Finally Naradji gave up and came back to
Shree Krishna and asked, "Dear Lord, why don't you tell us how to
arrange for a God-realized soul's foot dust?"
To which Shree Krishna replied, "Narad, you go to Braj and ask the gopis for the same thing."
When
Naradji reached Braj and explained the entire situation to the Gopis,
they instantly offered their foot dust to Naradji and asked him to take
as much foot dust as he could. Naradji was startled, he asked the
Gopis, "Do you even realize on whose head will this foot dust be rubbed
and what will be the consequences of doing so?"
Gopis
replied, "Naradji, we understand that we will be sent to the hellish
abodes; but nothing worse than that will happen. We don't care a
bit about it; we have been to the hellish abodes a countless
times. And if this time we have to go to the hellish abodes for
the happiness of our beloved, then what can be a bigger fortune than
that? At least our beloved Shri Krishna will feel
better. Beyond this nothing else matters to us, we don't
care about what we receive in return."
When
the queens of Dwarka heard about this behavior of the Gopis they were
extremely astonished. Now they also became curious to see who
these Gopis were. Once, on the occasion of some festival, all the
queens went to a place to bathe. Even Shree Radha happened
to arrived there with her group. When the queens learnt about this
they became eager to see Shree Radha. They invited Shree Radha
and warmly welcomed her and were mesmerized by her sweet voice.
During
the night time when the queens sat down to press Shree Krishna's feet,
Rukmini noticed blisters on his foot. She was shocked to see her husband
in that condition. Soon this news spread around the palace and
all the queens started mulling over the likely reason for blisters on
Shree Krishna's feet. As everyone started gathering around Shree
Krishna, he woke up from his sleep and asked the reason for which
everyone was present there. The queens enquired the reason for
blisters on Shree Krishna's feet.
He said:
śhrī rādhikāyā hṛidayārvinde pādārvindam hi virājate meṅ
adyoṣhṇadugdhapratipānatoṅgrā vuchchhālakāste mama prochchhalanti
My feet are forever present in Shree Radha Rani's heart. The hot
milk that you served to Shree Radha, fell on my feet.
Such is the divine nature of the selfless madhurya love of the gopis. Only those gopis who receive this love become the sole recipients of the bliss of maharas.
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Prem Mandir Anniversary
Prem
Mandir's 3rd Anniversary was celebrated on 15 February, 2015 with Aarti,
Abhishek, Parikrama and Leela by devotees from India and around the
world.
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Vrindavan Tour by Swamiji
Swamiji
and a large group of devotees from Delhi went for Braj-Dham yatra on Feb 14th. Two days spent in the holy land were as divine and
peaceful as one could imagine. Swamiji took everyone on a guided tour of
Vrindavan and visited the divine places like Vanshi Vat, Bhandir Van,
Maan Sarovar, and Rangnathji Temple. For more pictures, click here
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JK University hosts International Conference on Language, Literature & Community
To
promote the importance of language learning, facilitate the
understanding of literature, and broaden the knowledge of their role in
serving the society, ICRD, JAGADGURU KRIPALU UNIVERSITY and
Canadian Global Society of Intellectuals organised the LLC 2015 in
Bhubaneshwar, India. The purpose of the Conference was to explore
the role of Language and Literature in bringing together the World
Communities and the exact theme of the Conference was: BUILDING UP A
WORLD COMMUNITY THROUGH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.
LLC
2015 provided an interesting platform for researchers,
academicians, language practitioners, policy makers and postgraduate
students, to share knowledge ,exchange ideas and establish academic
relationships.
Swami
Mukundananda was the keynote speaker at the event. Other notable
speakers at the event were Dr. Ramaratnam - Vice Chancellor Jagadguru
Kripalu University, Dr. Donathan L. Brown from Department of
Communication Studies Ithaca College, USA and Dr Lesley Ljungdahl from
Faculty of Arts & Sciences University of Technology, Sydney NSW,
Australia.
Click here for more pictures of the conference
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Little Hands Big Hearts: JKYog & Radha Krishna Temple Help Homeless Children of DFW
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Little Hands Big Hearts - a collection drive benefitting homeless
children - began from the desire to fulfill the mission of selfless
service and uplifting those in need. At the outset, volunteers sought
the cooperation of area businesses to serve as collection points for
donations so that the drive would be accessible to a greater part of the
community and found that businesses were eager to help.
Some
volunteers had interoffice collections within their place of work,
while other businesses welcomed the general public to bring their
donations. A myriad of businesses, from grocers to print shops and
pharmacies & convenience stores committed to support Little Hands
Big Hearts across the entire DFW area.
Volunteers
uniformly painted, decorated and made displays for posters and flyers
for donation boxes for each collection point. The businesses kept the
bright yellow boxes of hope for the needy children in prominent
locations within their establishments, encouraging customers to make
donations.
Using
various media, and word of mouth, before no time the interest in the
collection drive took off. Volunteers collected donations at public
holiday events, even offering face painting in exchange for
donations.
Little
Hands Big Hearts developed into a great learning experience for the
temple youth. Young volunteers visited and volunteered at Captain
Hope's Kids, the organization benefitting from the collection
drive. "My experience with Little Hands Big Hearts Collection
drive has been a very eye opening one. I have 4 kids of my own and
I cannot bear to think of kids being homeless", said Aarti Soni, whose
family participated in the collection drive.
Finally,
the heaps of donated items grew beyond expectations and donations
continued to pour in till the last moment as the drive finally came to a
close. Volunteers filled a large truck full with donations and
delivered them to Captain Hope's Kids. Close to 20 volunteers from
the temple community, young and old side by side, worked for hours
unloading, sorting and categorizing the items so that they could be
distributed to the homeless children.
Sam
Mattox, Program Director for Captain Hope's Kids, presented a
Certificate of Appreciation to JKYog and Radha Krishna Temple volunteers
for their outstanding efforts and expressed the organization's deep
gratitude on behalf of all the homeless children. "You are doing
incredible work and making a huge difference in the lives of so many
children in need. We are impressed by all the work you have done
to bring the community together, as evident by the amount of donations
you have collected. You are doing amazing work."
The
Little Hands Big Hearts initiative demonstrated the commitment of JKYog
and the Radha Krishna Temple of Dallas to making a positive
contribution to the upliftment of the local community. We hope the
successes and experiences of this effort will inspire more outreach to
help the needy in our local communities in the days to come.
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Satsangis Celebrate Gopi Prem Diwas
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Satsang centers in San Jose Bay Area and Dallas-Ft.Worth areas were
among the many centers around the US and the world which recently
celebrated Gopi Prem Diwas, immersing in the sweet nectarine sentiments
of divine love. The Love of the Gopis for Shree Krishna is the
highest form of love - it is totally selfless, without a shadow of
self-interest. With Valentine's Day being a day that lovers
express their love to each other, remembering the Love of the Gopis for
Shree Krishna is the ideal way to celebrate the occasion of Valentine's
Day. On this occasion we reminded ourselves of how Shree Krishna
was enslaved to the Gopis because of their selfless love for him and
thus how striving to make our love be more selfless attracts him to us.
Regularly
attending satsang is a great boost to our happiness. Singing melodious
and enchanting kirtan and immersing ourselves in the Lord's divine
attributes and pastimes brings inner joy to the heart.
Kirtan
is followed by a short lecture which helps us to find ways to put to
practice the ancient Vedic knowledge in our modern day busy lives and
thus help us make progress on the spiritual path. Lively
discussions help us to benefit from the sharing of experiences and
clarifying any questions. Satsang usually ends with sharing a
potluck meal together.
JKYog
has satsang centers all over the US and India actively meeting on
either a monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly basis. To learn about
a satsang center near you, please visit www.jkyog.org for details or
email us at info@jkyog.org.
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The Lover, The Beloved, and Divine Love
by Jagadguru Shree Kripaluji Maharaj
There
are three entities: the lover, the beloved and love. That which
unites the lover and the beloved, is called love. In other words,
love is the intimate union of the lover and the beloved.
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There
are three entities: the lover, the beloved and love. That which
unites the lover and the beloved, is called love. In other words,
love is the intimate union of the lover and the beloved. You know
the meaning of the word lover. And the beloved is he towards whom
love is directed.
This
love is God's most intimate personal power, which can be attained only
by the grace of a Rasik Saint. It cannot be attained through
personal effort. This is why even the greatest yogis, paramahansas
beg for divine love. The treasure house of this Love is Shree
Krishna and his associates alone. No one else can lay claim to
owning this power called love. No personality controlled by Maya,
not even the king of heaven, can occupy the seat of the beloved.
Therefore, no material personality can be the beloved.
You may
be thinking, "I have always known this because I have loved countless
mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives and children in
infinite lives." But no, you have never known what love is.
You have never accepted the definition of love, nor have you ever loved
anyone. If you think you have, you are mistaken. There is
neither any lover nor any beloved in the world, and as long as one is
under Maya, it is not possible to be either, even if one endeavors for
countless lifetimes. Why? Because the definition of the word
beloved is so profound that it cannot apply to anyone in the material
world. Beloved means, "one who is a treasure-house of divine
love," and the person who begs for this love from the beloved, is the
"lover." No one who is under the control of Maya, not even Indra,
the king of heaven, possesses true love. Seeing that no one is
worthy of becoming the beloved, who will then become the lover?
And if someone does become a lover, without a proper beloved, what will
one gain? You can only gain from a person what he himself
possesses. You can acquire wisdom only from the wise. You
can gain wealth only from the wealthy. If someone has no wealth,
what can you get from him, even if he gives all that he has? You
can hope all you want, but all that worldly people have to offer is
broken begging bowls. They are beggars themselves, devoid of love,
even if they hold such exalted positions as those of Indra, Kuber,
Varun, and Yamraj. What then to speak of ordinary human
beings! The celestial gods may have extraordinary powers compared
to humans, but they do not possess love. And it is love that our
soul is craving. How then can we get it from material
personalities, even if they wish to bestow it upon us?
This
treasure called love, is the property only of Saints. By Saints, I
mean those who have received the power called love from some lover of
God. God does not transmit this power directly. Pay close
attention to this point. From where can you get love? The
divine beloved does not bestow love himself. Radha and Krishna are
the treasuries of love, but they do not distribute it themselves.
It is given by the lovers of God. No individual soul can have
direct contact with Radha Krishna.
So, the treasuries of divine love are Shyamsundar and the Saints. The rest of the world, whether they be yogis, gyanis,
Sages, ascetics, or aspiring devotees cannot become the beloved,
because they do not possess love. No one controlled by Maya can be
a true beloved.
Now,
you understand who is to be loved - Shree Krishna and his devotees, the
Saints. That is all. We must not go anywhere else.
Not to any celestial god, or goddess. These celestial gods and
goddesses are all under the control of Maya. The only ones worthy
to be loved, worthy of the designation of beloved, are God and his
divine associates, because they possess divine love. The main
reservoir is God, and the soul upon whom God grants love, is called a
Saint.
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JKYog Presents
Bal-Mukund
Personality Development Classes for Children
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Highlights:
· Character Building Values
· Yoga & Meditations
· Bhajans, Shlokas & Prayers
· Inspiring Stories
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Showcase:
Bal-Mukund
welcomes all contributions of creative works from
children in different areas including poetry, moral
stories, art work, etc.
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Come! Discover Bal-Mukund!
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January delighted
Bal-Mukunds with Saffron, White and Green! Centers invested time and
effort to do Republic Day Crafts which were enjoyed by one and all as
they made a slew of crafts that were carried home with pride and
delight! Denver, CO Bal-Mukunds sang the National Anthem to a captivated
audience! February was the month where LOVE was in the air at all our
Bal-Mukund centers! Delight featured on every face as our Bal-Mukunds
worked hard to enchant the ones they love with souvenirs and creative
projects done in class! Singapore Bal-Mukunds dedicated love notes at
the lotus feet of Radha and Krishna.
Perseverance in January
will give way to the KRIPALU value of Accountability in March - the
month where there will be sprinklings of color in the air as the spirit
of Holi enraptures one and all! As chilling Winter make way for
beautiful Spring, Bal-Mukund centers look forward to joyous weekends!
Come! Discover Bal-Mukund and let your child's creativity, wonder and
imagination take flight! For information e-mail
info@bal-mukund.org
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3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour 2 cups sugar 2 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt 1 cups oil 2 cups water (or milk) 2 tsp. lemon juice 4 tsp. crushed pineapple
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Method
Heat oven to 350
degrees. Sift 3 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking soda, and ½ t salt
into bowl. Add sugar and stir well. Add oil, 2 cups water or milk
to flour mixture and mix well. Add 2 tsp. lemon juice and crushed
pineapple. Pour into 2 heart shaped sprayed baking pans. Gently
place cake in heated oven. Cook 30 - 35 minutes or until tooth
pick comes out clean. Cool cake.
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Contact us
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The Editor JKYog: XVII/3305, 1st Floor, Ranjit Nagar (Near PUSA), New Delhi - 110008, India
Contact us
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The Editor JKYog: XVII/3305, 1st Floor, Ranjit Nagar (Near PUSA), New Delhi - 110008, India
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7405 Stoney Point Dr, Plano TX 75025, USA
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