Questions on today’s Swami call:
Dandavats, Guru Maharaja. Please accept my humble obeisances. I have a question that has been on my mind. If Mahāprabhu spent much of His early life as Nimāi Paṇḍita, deeply engaged in nyāya, grammar, and scholarship in Navadvīpa, what was the transformative element in His meeting with Īśvara Purī that brought forth such profound ecstatic devotion? More specifically, what was present in Īśvara Purī—and in the line of Śrī Mādhavendra Purī—that revealed and nourished the intimate mood of Vraja within Mahāprabhu's līlā? I would be very grateful to hear your insights on this point.
Are there any earlier examples of madhurya-rasa in the Madhva-sampradaya?
Dandavat pranams, Guru Maharaja. At what stage does divine love cease to be something we consciously practice and reveal itself as our intrinsic nature?
In BG 7.28 Krsna says "all beings are born deluded, bewildered by the dualities arising from desire and hate." Is Krsna referring to the Jiva/soul or the material psycho-physical mechanism?
In the Purport of BG 8.22 you mention "Krsna is attained by unalloyed devotion, devoid of even the desire for liberation or one's own spiritual benefit." What kind of spiritual benefit is being indicated here? Thanks Guru Maharaja, my loving obeisances!
Pranams, Maharaja. Thanks to the work of Srila Bhaktikavi Atulananda, we have a large number of devotional songs available in Spanish. Personally, I find it very beneficial to sing in my native language, since I can better understand the meaning of the words and feel that I can connect with them more deeply on an emotional level. My question is this: Is there any loss or spiritual disadvantage in singing devotional songs in one's own language rather than in Sanskrit, Bengali, or Vrajabhasa? Is there any particular benefit that is preserved only when singing in the original languages?
For a while now, I have been wondering about how the personal process of realisation for Srila Prabhupada (and also Jesus and other messiahs) looked like. I think Srila Prabupada had famously said that there was never a time when he didn’t think about Krishna, right? But do you have perhaps insights into the „personal awakening“ of Srila Prabhupada to his divine mission on earth? Was he born „ready to go“ so to speak, or were there gradual moments of discovery of his own Shaktyavesh-ness and insights into his feelings - apart from the Jaladuta poem?
Pranams, Guru Maharaja. What will be the theme of your lecture series at the upcoming retreat in Poland?
Dandavats, Guru Maharaja. Do you have any thoughts on the importance of Tantra in Gaudiya Vaisnava lifestyle. I am asking this, as our reading group is currently reading "Rasa: Love Relationships in Transcendence,” and I thought it might help us all to know this.
