What is Shanta Rasa?

October 30, 2005

Is it the state of witnessing peacefully (after having transcended material consciousness)the Lord's activities rather than participating in it? Who expresses it, can you give examples? Has it to do with impersonalism, because there's apparently no relationship with the LOrd?

Yesu_Bhaktan · October 30, 2005

TRANSLATION SB 10.86.48

Let me offer my obeisances unto You. You are realized as the Supreme Soul by those who know the Absolute Truth, whereas in Your form of time You impose death upon the forgetful souls. You appear both in Your causeless spiritual form and in the created form of this universe, thus simultaneously uncovering the eyes of Your devotees and obstructing the vision of the nondevotees.

PURPORT

When the Lord appears before His devotees in His eternal, spiritual form, their eyes become "uncovered" in the sense that all vestiges of illusion are dispelled and they drink in the beautiful vision of the Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead. For the nondevotees, on the other hand, the Lord "appears" as material nature, His universal form, and in this way He covers their vision so that His spiritual, personal form remains invisible to them.

Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti gives another interpretation of this verse, based on an alternative understanding of anatmane, a form of the word anatma: Various classes of men know the Absolute Truth in different ways. The devotees of the Lord who are in the reciprocal mood of neutral admiration (santa-rasa) meditate on the Supreme as possessing a divine, personal form (atma or sri-vigraha) transcending all aspects of material illusion. The impersonal philosophers (jnanis) conceive of Him as formless (anatma). And the envious demons see Him in the form of death.

October 31, 2005

One who is developed in paramatma realization is in santa rasa. When bhagavan realization takes effect, the desire to reciprocate in relationship with the Supreme Lord takes place. Paramatma realization is appreciation of the Supreme Lord, but there is not really a desire to serve, other that appreciation.

November 1, 2005

Santa rasa means the state of being where the soul is "filled with the light of God (Vasudeva)"

As in Bhagavad Gita verse 7.19:

<blockquote>bahunam janmanam ante jnanavan mam prapadyate

vasudevah sarvam iti sa mahatma su-durlabhah

</blockquote>

also:

Before acquiring material designations, the living entity is supremely pure. Even though he is not engaged in serving the Supreme Lord, he remains situated in the neutral position of santa-rasa due to his marginal nature. Though the living entity born from the marginal potency does not at that time exhibit a taste for serving the Lord due to a lack of knowledge of self realization, his direct propensity of serving the Supreme Lord nevertheless remains within him in a dormant state. Though the indirect propensity of material enjoyment, which is contrary to the service of the Lord, is not found in him at that time, indifference to the service of Hari and the seed of material enjoyment, which follows that state of indifference, are nevertheless present within him.

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- Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Goswami Prabhupada ('Brahmana and Vaisnava' page 86)

To attain santa-rasa is to go back to where you started from. Back home, Back to an attitude of neutrality towards Godhead.

Brahma samhita, text 16

<blockquote>ahankaratmakam visvam tasmad etad vyajayata

translation:

The function of Sambhu (Shiva) in relation to jivas is that this universe enshrining the mundane egotistic principle has originated from Sambhu.

PURPORT (Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Goswami Prabhupada):

...when in course of the progressive evolution of mundane creation each universe is manifested, then in the principle of Sambhu, born of the space between the two eyebrows of Visnu, there appears the manifestation of the personality of Rudra; yet under all circumstances Sambhu fully enshrines the mundane egotistic principle. The innumerable jivas as spiritual particles emanating from the oversoul in the form of pencils of rays of effulgence, have no relation with the mundane world when they come to know themselves to be the eternal servants of the Supreme Lord. They are then incorporated into the realm of Vaikuntha. But when they desire to lord it over Maya, forgetting their real identity. the egotistic principle Sambhu entering into their entities makes them identify themselves as separated enjoyers of mundane entities.

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