Parakiya-rasa, the highest means of absorption in the Absolute Truth

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Extract from Aesthetic Vedanta by Swami B.V. Tripurari

 

Once a young lady stole into the night to meet her lover while her husband

was away from home. Running in the dark, blinded by her love, she

accidentally tripped over a sage engaged in meditation. Disturbed, the sage

condemned the lady for both her rendezvous and her recklessness.

 

After meeting her lover, the lady returned home along the same path, more

awake now to her surroundings, having put her love to rest for the time

being. Upon reaching the sage she greeted him with the traditional

"namaskara."

 

Astounded at her audacity, the sage condemned her for having broken his

meditation while treading the path of irreligion. Characteristically denying

that which she was involved in, she pressed the sage as to when it was that

she broke his meditation. When the sage related the details, she honestly

admitted to remembering nothing of the sort. Astounded, the sage learned

something about meditation that night.

 

This story is not intended to sing the virtues of immorality. It does

however, instruct us on the intensity of passionate paramour love. The

paramour lover was so absorbed in her rendezvous that she lost all external

consciousness. The sage involved in traditional meditation, on the other

hand, was easily disturbed from his practice. Thus the potential for

absorbing one's consciousness through passionate love is immense. If then

one could make the Absolute the object of passionate love, this would

arguably be the highest form of meditation. Such is possible when the

Absolute is conceived as Krsna, the emporium of Rasa. Yet to love him

passionately, one must learn to live in the world of consciousness, not the

world of matter.