Bhakti means loving Exchanges

July 23, 2003

by Kundali dasa

It is always frustrating to discuss philosophy with people who switch frameworks at will. A discussion of "love" between conditioned men and women surely has relative value in this relative world; and some of it may even have bearing on the spiritual world, because even in the perverted reflection, some true elements of reality must be present. Nevertheless, our system is not to develop our understanding from this world and then seek validation in that world. Yes, John Gray may shed valuable light on our mundane relationships, but we cannot blindly project that unto our ideal. That is not how we philosophize. We don’t move from Gray’s ideas to the philosophy to find support; rather we move from the philosophy to Gray to see if he is in accord with the parampara.

Our system is to seek an understanding of the spiritual world as the firm basis for reality and then apply it to this world. Then, whatever does not correspond with that world we reject it as impure, mundane, perverted. Not part of our ideal—although owing to conditioning or human frailty we may not be immediately above the conditioned conception ourselves and may be influenced by it in the short range. In the long range, however, we can certainly hope to overcome our defect as much as possible. That is how I understand the inconsistency between the sannyasi’s reply to my godsister and his actual performance. But having muddled up the mundane and the transcendent, she saw this response as deceit.

She continues to muddle up the mundane and the transcendent:

Krsna needs Radha to feel His love. Actually He even needs to become Radha to feel love of that mood: How a woman loves.

Here truth and illusion is blended together. This can only create a maze for us. But why create a maze when the purpose of discussion is to achieve a clearer understanding than when we started out? It’s like going on a barefoot journey and throwing tacks in one’s path as one goes, kind of self-defeating.

No doubt Lord Krsna represents the pure male ego and Radha represents the pure female ego, but does that mean that we in the conditioned world are at liberty to compare favorably Their pure ego love with our false ego love? The very word "pure" makes any favorable comparison odious. Therefore Krsnadasa Kaviraja says "Ours is like iron and Theirs is like gold."

A favorable comparison would perhaps be more reasonable if our present bodies was a definite indication of our gender in the spiritual world. Unfortunately, having a female or male body here is no indication of our gender there, so arguing for a "male" or "female" orientation of love on the basis of our present gender is useless—unless the discussion is limited to mundane conceptions of love, which is really not about love, but about mutual sense gratification.

Further, in the final analysis, we are all meant to be enjoyed by the Lord and according to transcendental psychology that makes us all female, prakriti. Only the Lord is purusa, the enjoyer. As an expression of His proclivity for enjoyment, yes, He may desire to take the role of His opposite number, to try and experience or feel love from "a woman’s point of view". But -again- to equate that with our experience of "love" in this world is to equate gold and iron.

This is established in Caitanya-caritamrta: That our feelings or claims of love are reckoned to be various degrees of lust, unless centered in service to Krsna. Here the definition of love pivots around service, and on this point Krsnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami makes no distinction between so-called male orientation and female orientation. It applies equally to the gopis and to the Lord. How love is expressed may differ, but the central motivating factor or symptom of love is service. The gopis serve Krsna and He serves them. That is the definition of bhakti—reciprocal exchanges of loving service. So, love is extending oneself on another’s behalf, or service, but the letter writer has rejected this as "male oriented."

Certainly love involves feelings, emotions (bhava), but love it is not a feeling, rather feelings are derived from love. Some bhavas are steady and some change according to different emotional states that arise as a result of service or the love that is already in the heart. Feelings, bhavas, are derived from acts of service. And this is true for both the male and the female. Thus there is no conflict between the emotional states and the love-as-service definition.

Even if we want to bring Radha and Krsna into the picture, we have no reason to be confused. Of course, Lord Caitanya is Krsna wanting to know the emotional states of Radha. Nevertheless, the basis of those emotional states is the service attitude that She has toward Krsna, radha-dasyam. To try and understand Her feelings without proper understanding of Her service attitude will only lead to pointless discussion and misguided conclusions. It will lead to sentimentality. Sahajiyaism.

The ease-loving sahajiyas love to discuss love and to advertise themselves as highly realized in the topic, but they lack an authentic spirit of service, so their whole program falls short and is condemned by our acaryas. Thus Prabhupada cuts to the heart of the matter when he writes (emphasis mine): "When one is actually advanced in ecstatic love of Krsna, he does not try to advertise himself. Instead, he endeavors more and more to render service to the Lord." Again we see that the pivotal word is service.

Without service all claims of love is sentimentality. And with service, even if there is no overt claim of love, it does not matter, because love is self-evident when there is voluntary service. We must not fail to recognize that the sahajiya tendency, even if dressed up in different language, is still sentimental. Still sahajiya. It is religion without philosophy, not in the sense that there is no philosophy, but in the sense that the philosophy deviates strays from the parampara. Thus we must know the parampara version so we can always verify our ideas by the philosophy. Unless we are very serious about adhering to the parampara we are sure to project or filter our attachments through the philosophy, and this is dangerous. It is dovetailing our private agenda with the philosophy, which a mistake for any aspiring to pure bhakti.

Krsna serves Radha and She serves Him. Bhakti means loving exchanges, not of feelings but of service. And service gives rise to different emotions and so forth. But without service these bhavas would never arise. There would be nothing to stimulate feelings.

For example, what is an ocean? It is a vast body of water, in which there happens to be waves. Waves are derived from the currents in the water and the action of wind on the water. If someone wants to say that an ocean is not water but just the waves, he or she must go back to school, because waves cannot exist without the ocean, but the ocean exists with or without the waves.

In this analogy, the waves are the bhavas and the ocean is the service exchange between lover and beloved. Bhavas may come and go, but the presence of service (the ocean) is the constant or essential factor in defining love. It is the basis.

It is simply ludicrous to try and isolate the waves as the definition of the ocean, but people make this mistake all the time when they try to define bhavas as love. They try to describe bhavas as the thing in itself, when it is in fact the by-product.

A perhaps simpler example is that of the mother and child. A mother feels great emotions of love for a child, but if she is overwhelmed with feelings all day long and does not serve the child, who will believe that she loves? On the other hand, even if she is never swamped with feelings of love, but diligently renders service to the child, who will doubt her love? In love, service is what counts.

Therefore, even in the society of devotees, we have the problem of people being stuck spiritually because of attachment to a romantic or illusory notion of love, which they are unable to kick. Rather than divesting themselves of all their conceptions and trying to understand the parampara conception on its own merit, they try to adjust the parampara concept to find support for their idea. This is never the way to approach our philosophy. We must always try to understand the philosophy free and clear of our private notions, and then we may discard or keep our notion, depending on which parts fit or not. Unless we develop this ability, we will certainly fall on the slippery slope of speculation or sentimentality somewhere on this path, if not on the subject of love, then in some other aspect. We cannot lose our perspective.

If we are unable to clear out our pre-conceived notions and simply hear the philosophy as it is, adjusting our understanding as we go (and this is never a one-time experience; it must be repeated several times in the course of a lifetime so we keep updating our maps), then we must filter the parampara teachings in ways that cause us to adjust the philosophy rather than grow in understanding. It seems that many, many make this mistake, even after years and years of reading chanting and so forth.

The controversy over the jiva issue is a good example of this urge to make the philosophy coincide with what we believe rather than set belief aside and hear the philosophy on its own merit and if necessary update our maps of reality. This is how the process works. People are unwilling to do this. People are lazy. Therefore it is rare that anyone knows Krsna in truth, even though thousands may take to the path initially. Maya derails them sooner or later. One way she does this is to bewilder conditioned souls with notions of male/female love and so forth. Maya has several other schemes as well.

Your servant,

Kundali dasa