Rasa In Mel's New Film - Has He Captured It Successfully?

Which criticism do you mean here that creates doubts? Which questions are they unable to address?

Can you all please tell me what you mean by "THE MYTH"?
I thought Vaishnavas took Radha Krishna lila to be factual.

Merriam-Webster online:

= = = = =

Main Entry: myth
Pronunciation: 'mith
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek mythos
1 a : a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon b : PARABLE, ALLEGORY
2 a : a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone; especially : one embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society b : an unfounded or false notion
3 : a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence
4 : the whole body of myths

= = = = =

Particularly 1a and 2a are relevant.

A myth may also be factual.

Common usage in the western world most often interprets "myth" as some imaginary tale as in the Greek mythology.
As far as I know, Greek mythology has never been considered as factual histories amongst the academia.

Most people in the western world will take the word myth to mean an imaginary tale or story that is not based on actual historical events.

The way that "myth" as being used in this forum is the least common usage of the word and will generally be misunderstood as betal_nut has just done.

Well, last time I checked, the stories about Krishna, or the other stories in the Bhagavata, haven't been accepted as factual histories amongst the academia either.

If someone does not understand our application of the term, we will gladly explain it. One learns through misunderstandings and subsequent inquiries.

However, when speaking within a circle of devotees, the term "myth", used in regards to acharyas or Avatars, might not be the best form of description. Especially, if one is refering to the reputation and status of someone else's guru, and not one's own guru, then some might take that as a slight or an attempt to minimize the glories of another's guru.

Of course, there is always a certain mythological character that follows the lives of great souls as they become larger than life, but in the case of the pure devotees it is almost impossible to over glorify their greatness. In fact, their greatness can never be properly understood or extolled by conditioned souls who judge such pure devotees by their own stamp.

How did the guru-issue come in here? How does our treatment of myth relate in any way to the reputation and status of someone else's guru?

I take it that you have something particular in mind. May I ask, what's your background?

This is how the issue of gurus got into this. Jagat says
"Even Srila Prabhupada is more important as myth than as real person (except to him, of course)."

He says that Srila Prabhupada Swami is more importantly a myth than a real person.

Did you think I just dragged this in out of nowhere?

My feeble background and personality are not of enough merit to discuss in this forum.
Thank-you anyway.

I see. It did indeed seem to be a bit out of the blue, since Jagat's post was some 40+ posts ago in this thread, and that theme wasn't really developed any further. At any rate, I do not think Jagat was trying to minimize anyone's glories.


Oh, but I insist. To help us be more considerate in our dialogues with you, may I at least ask which branch of the Gaudiya tradition are you affiliated with? I wonder, do we know you from any other forums out there, perhaps with a different nick?

The DaVinci Code is supposedly going to be made into a feature film with Ron Howard as director. That should be good and even more controversial than The Passion as it has as it's subject matter the "de-feminisation" of Divinity/Christianity, and the conjugal relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdelene.

I am personally in favor of people being up front with their identities. The moderators on these forums would like the mood to be one of mutual respect and a certain amount of intimacy.

This means that we open our arms to Vaishnavas of all persuasions as long as they are willing to show a fundamental respect to everyone else who enters here.

Some may have an excellent reason for dissimulating, so we will not stop anyone from participating under a hidden identity, but we favor openness. Is there really any reason for us to be afraid to be ourselves?

A few words in your profile should be enough. I greatly appreciate reading those few words of background information. I find it helps me to respect those with whom I am associating. A lot more, I might say, than displays of false humility.

Radhe!

what a horrible movie!

more than 20 minutes whipping, blood and gore, buh!

what is the purpose of this "movie" and what is its message?

two thumbs down!

Taunji

Yes, I have only seen extremely negative critiques in respectable papers in Europe. It is seen as a mix of bloodthirsty horror-movie and Kitsch made in Hongkong (the sweetish type of Jesus-figure for the naive and dumb). It is also said that the movie would hardly have made it to European cinemas if it was not for the media propaganda in the U.S., and it is doubtful that the movie will be a success here. Gibson sems to be a fundamentalist belonging to a Group calling itself Catholic Church (obviously not the Roman one). Movie-goers asked in interviews say they miss differentiation of characters and religious feelings.

sorry, only in German: The title says: "No man has this much blood", an article in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, by a professor in Theology and Judaistics

So viel Blut hat kein Mensch
«The Passion of the Christ» - ein Film von Mel Gibson

In den USA hat Mel Gibsons «The Passion of the Christ» (NZZ vom 27. 2. 04) innert Kürze 264 Millionen Dollar eingespielt. Nach längerem Hin und Her gelangt der Film, der die zwölf letzten Stunden im Leben Jesu darstellt, am kommenden Donnerstag in die Deutschschweizer Kinos. Am selben Tag läuft er auch in Deutschland an. - Einige kritische Beobachtungen aus bibelwissenschaftlicher Sicht.



Der Film gibt vor, authentische Sachverhalte zu vermitteln, und versucht, durch Detailtreue den Eindruck von historischer Richtigkeit zu erzeugen. Dies ist mehrfach verhängnisvoll. Denn die Evangelien sind nicht in historischer Absicht geschrieben worden, sondern als Zeugnis des Glaubens dargestellt. Sie sind Tendenzschriften, keine Quellen historischer Fakten. Keine dokumentarisierende Wiedergabe kann deshalb diesem Anliegen gerecht werden. Zudem ergänzt Gibson seinen Stoff auch noch mit ausserbiblischen Inhalten und nimmt sich sehr viel persönliche Interpretationsfreiheit heraus.
Historische Ungereimtheiten

Der Film lässt die Römer Latein reden, die Juden, zu Recht, Aramäisch. Historisch richtiger wäre wohl das Griechische als damalige Umgangs- und Verkehrssprache zwischen den beiden Gruppen gewesen. Pilatus wird - gegen bessere historische Einsicht - den Evangelien getreu als unschuldig Getriebener dargestellt, der über die Wahrheit philosophiert. Dieses Bild ist für die Evangelien mit ihrer Tendenz, die römische Macht für sich zu gewinnen, nachvollziehbar, nicht aber in einer historisierenden Verfilmung. Die Ent-Schuldigung des Pilatus lässt die römische Oberhoheit als Werkzeug von jüdischen Gruppierungen erscheinen, was sicher falsch und gerade im Blick auf die lange Leidensgeschichte des Judentums - begleitet von dem Vorwurf des Gottesmordes - mehr als bedenklich ist.

Pilatus' Frau Claudia wird zu einer Sympathisantin des Christentums hochstilisiert und verkörpert damit wohl das Heidenchristentum. Beide aber, Pilatus wie Claudia, erzeugen den historisch zweifelhaften Eindruck einer überaus zivilisierten römischen Verwaltung in Palästina. Gibson bemüht sich zwar, das Bild durch die römischen Soldaten zu korrigieren, die als dümmliche Gewaltmenschen agieren; aber je höher die Ränge, umso edler die Römer. Die - negative - Darstellung des Judas erhält keinerlei eigenständiges Profil; sichtbar wird nur eine von Dämonen gehetzte Gestalt. Damit bedient Gibson das alte Vorurteil des todeswürdigen «jüdischen Verräters», während in den letzten Jahrzehnten die Judasfigur differenzierter als politisch denkender kritischer Geist dargestellt und «rehabilitiert» worden ist.
Die Schuldfrage

Sehr problematisch ist die Darstellung der jüdischen priesterlichen Mitglieder des Hohen Rates. Gibson teilt ihnen die Schuld am Tod Jesu zu, ohne dass man verstehen würde, warum sie ihn so hassen. Die Vorwürfe, die gegen Jesus erhoben werden, wirken wie erzwungene Versuche, einen gehassten Gegner loszuwerden. Aber woher dieser Hass? Der Film bemüht sich, nicht den Eindruck zu erwecken, dass «die Juden» Schuld am Tod Jesu tragen. Er differenziert. Schuld sollen eindeutig die Priester sein. Das hat historisch nachvollziehbare Hintergründe im Konflikt zwischen Jesus und der sadduzäischen Oberschicht. Dennoch überspannt Gibson den Bogen.

Zur Verurteilung Jesu, das zeigen historische Untersuchungen, hat der Impuls zur Abwehr von Aufstandsbewegungen und Unruheherden wesentlich beigetragen. Dabei trägt die römische Besatzungsmacht die Verantwortung für den Tod Jesu. Priesterliche Kreise, die sich von der tempelkritischen Haltung Jesu angegriffen fühlten, mögen dabei unterstützend gewirkt haben, ausschlaggebend waren sie wohl kaum. Gibson erzeugt das gegenteilige Bild, er zitiert das verhängnisvolle Bibelwort «Sein Blut komme über uns und unsere Kinder!» auf Aramäisch, das aber in den Untertiteln nicht übersetzt wird. Dieses Wort hat unsägliches Leid über viele Generationen von jüdischen Menschen gebracht, die von Christen verspottet, verfolgt, vertrieben, getötet wurden. Wer angesichts dessen die Befürchtung zum Ausdruck bringt, der Film verstärke antisemitische Vorurteile, ist nicht leicht zu entkräften. Wer so interpretieren will, findet Stoff.
Brutalität im Übermass

Eine alternative Lesart ist zumindest möglich: Wem die fast statisch agierenden Priester als Vertreter einer verknöcherten institutionalisierten Frömmigkeit erscheinen, die ganz und gar nicht auf das Judentum beschränkt bleibt, der kann darin auch eine massive Kritik an jeder religiösen Institution sehen, die den lebendigen Glauben durch Verwaltung von «Glaubenswahrheiten» ersetzt.

Die Absicht des Films ist, eine vorhandene Leidensmystik zu vertiefen; katholisch gesprochen: das Bewusstsein zu stärken, dass Jesus, der Christus, «sein Leben für uns hingab». Gibson wird dieses Ziel am ehesten bei jenem Publikum erreichen, das in einer tiefen Spiritualität durch die Leidensmystik, die Versenkung in das Martyrium des Erlösers, innere Stärke und Kraft gewinnt. Dieser Zugang zur christlichen Religion hat jahrhundertealte Tradition und ist besonders in der mittelalterlichen Frömmigkeit verbreitet.

Der Film zeigt Brutalität im Übermass. So viel Blut hat kein Mensch. Für den Gläubigen ist das nur ein Symbol der Leidenskraft Jesu, die Stärke im Glauben gibt. Für einen Aussenstehenden aber ist es eine unverstehbare Aneinanderreihung von Gewalt. Der Film konzentriert sich auf Leid und Tod Jesu. Er lässt keinen Raum, Jesus als den grossen Lehrer, den Tora-Interpreten, den politischen Visionär, den sozialen Mahner zu begreifen. Diese Glaubensvertiefung in das Leid ist zu respektieren. Aber sie erzeugt auch Unwohlsein und hinterlässt den bitteren Geschmack, den die Darstellung des Leidens immer hinterlässt, wenn sie von dessen Verherrlichung nicht mehr zu unterscheiden ist.

Ein Aspekt des Films ist hingegen durchaus bemerkenswert. Es handelt sich um die lange Szene, in der Simon von Kyrene Jesus das Kreuz tragen hilft. Dieser Simon ist dem Evangelium nur einen Satz wert (Mt 27, 32). Bei Gibson wird er, wie auch die übrigens unbiblische Veronika, ganz als ursprünglich unbeteiligter Jude dargestellt. Er trägt eine Kippa und wird vom römischen Soldaten als Jude beschimpft und gezwungen, das Kreuz zu tragen. So gehen Simon und Jesus mit oft ineinander verschlungenen Armen gemeinsam an die Stätte des Todes. In dieser Szene geht es vielleicht nicht um die symbolhafte Darstellung jüdischen Leidens, aber sicher um die Solidarität im Leiden, die sich äussert, wenn eine stärkere Macht mit Gewalt regiert. Judentum und Christentum, beide Opfer solcher Gewalt, könnten im Tragen der Last des Schicksals verbunden sein. Die Geschichte nahm einen anderen Lauf. Christen haben die Herrschaft «Roms» an den Juden ausgeübt, haben die Rollen getauscht. Der Film könnte, so gesehen, bei den Christen anmahnen, nicht triumphal über den anderen zu herrschen, sondern in der Erinnerung an das Leid Jesu die Solidarität mit den Leidenden in den Mittelpunkt zu rücken. Eine Solidarität, die man am Juden Simon lernt, der Jesus stützt, sich gegen die Besatzer wendet und die Soldaten beschimpft. - Das wäre ein ganz und gar nicht antisemitischer Zug des Films.

Fazit: Der Film ist entbehrlich, historisch sicher unzuverlässig, auf weite Strecken problematisch. Ich würde ihn jedoch weder pauschal als antisemitisch abwerten noch verteufeln. (Ab Donnerstag in Zürich in den Kinos Cinemax, Corso.)

Gerhard Bodendorfer

Der Autor ist Theologe und Judaist, Professor am Fachbereich Bibelwissenschaft und Kirchengeschichte der Universität Salzburg.

I've always had problems with the Christian theology of God coming in the form of man to suffer abuse, sadistic torture and death for mankind. Why so much focus and emphasis in his suffering and death? It is as though men get off real easily with just accepting the faith because God suffered for them. Why would God want to suffer for anybody? Who wants to suffer torture and sadistic brutality? Is God a masocist?

I found the Srimad Bhagavata conception of God as a supreme enjoyer who engages in blissful lila much more attractive than the gory conception of Christ as God incarnate. Equally appealing is the concept of doing bhajan to attain God. Basic faith alone is not enough. Faith evolves through the different stages bhakti till one attains Sri Krsna, percieving Him with transcendental senses surchaged with prema.

I'm with Radhapada 100% here. As soon as I heard of the all-attractive Krishna and the process of changing the heart to cultivate inherent love for Him, especially by singing, any other concept of Godhead seemed arid and lifeless.

The polemic of the last few posts, while having a certain validity (certainly Mel did not need to depict the violence of the flogging and crucifixion so graphically), still skirt the issue of this topic. Also, I don't think that one aspect of the film negates all of its positive attributes. If the same graphic approach were taken in a film about the battles of the Mahabharata, would people be making the same complaint here? I have to wonder.

That the Romans were brutal towards their subjects is supported by the historical records. To depict them as anything less than sadistic would be sugar coating the reality, IMO. What Gibson has done is use that as a tool to evoke an emotional response in his audience. He has also used the response to that brutality by various characters in the film to evoke a sympathetic response in the audience. That was the whole point of my bringing up rasa, since those characters had a personal relationship with Jesus.

Crucifixion is brutal, and so is whipping (wasn't whipping done more recently in Uncle Tom's Hut in the U.S. too?) But crucifixion was a regular procedure at that time, thousands were crucified, and died relatively fast. It is not possible to survive that for more than an hour or so because of the weight of the body hanging there and tearing down. I do not know whether that was really sadistic. Those were legionaries who were forced to do as told at the risk of their own lives. I think stoning as the muslims practice still today is as brutal or more so.

Crucifixion was used as a showcase to the people to scare off unrest and agitation. It was not done to make people suffer unnecessarily. Peter was a Zelot, a terrorist (or if you want: liberation fighter) group who carried swords with them. Weapons were forbidden in Jerusalem at that time. This was clearly a politically motivated congregation, and the Romans did what they did with reason.




Sympathy with whom? With Gibson? :-) (I know, with Jesus... the sweet poor sufferer.) People say they are turned off completely after a few minutes. Gibson said that he healed his own wounds by making this film. Perhaps he meant the money he was going to make in the U.S.

That film is considered tasteless and unnecessary here in Europe by many people.

Some of them saw it a long time ago

A link inside that article is also pretty good: The Fountain Fill'd with Blood

The should have named the movie "THE PA$$ION OF MEL".

Good link, Braj. By "linking" this subject to medieval passion plays you have put this discussion of the rasa interpretation of this essential portion of the Christ myth into an equivalent social context.

The rasikas of Gibson's film will be the ones with the gadha-samskara in this rasa. Those with a mundane samskara, who do not like the bibhatsa, karuna or bhayanaka rasas will be left indifferent.

Those who have cultivated the bhakti-rasa in the various moods that are prioritized in Christianity will relish that particular flavor of bhakti in watching this film.

The essence of all rasa is adbhuta, or camatkara. This means "wonder." The element of wonder in bhakti-rasa comes from the belief that "This is God acting here."

God has taken human form and is suffering and dying. Why is he doing this? It is acintya, but of the manifold reasons, the principal one is to show his love for humanity, to show his commitment to everyone.

Now, of course, Christian friends tell me Christ did not have to suffer. This is besides the point. Just like those who say he did not really die. That too is besides the point. The point is that all human suffering incarnates and is focused in the person of Christ.

Through the process of identification (sadharani-karana), one attains salvation.

The process of identification is somewhat complicated by the confusion of roles. In this case, Christ is a little more like Chaitanya than Krishna. Chaitanya came to show that our identification is with Radha and not with Krishna. Similarly, Christ is a mixed figure--both God and man. So naturally we identify with his suffering, but the idea is to identify with his bhakti also. I think that the question of taratamya enters here. (This para is a bit confused, but it does have real content!)

My original question is about erotic love. How would you depict the Rasa-lila without turning it into a porn film? God is a hero, and the hero is a manifestation of God. But could Arnold Schwartzenegger or Sylvester Stallone play Krishna?

The difference between the Christian approach is to take death seriously. Heroism and erotics glorify the idea of corporeal immortality. When you read Hindu (Jain and Buddhist too) texts also, you get this completely different idea of life as continuous, transcending death. Dying just means another body in an interminable series. I think this must produce a different psychological effects.

But that doesn't mean that death is not taken seriously. It's still seen as a source of suffering, and life itself is seen as duhkha. Death as Kala is also seen as a form of the Divine. But the "Death of God" is not seen as the locus of salvation itself. The conception itself is foreign. That is the great originality or genius of Christianity, and thus its power.

God as an erotic lover is a similarly powerful mythical model. It exists in all religions, but never prioritized in the way that it is in Vaishnavism. For us, the Rasa Lila is the only myth that is really important. It is our central story. It is the eye of our tornado. The gopis' story is our story. It is our only story.

Krishna played his flute and we ran. Some of us were blocked when we ran, and some of us escaped. Krishna tried to trick us into going home, and some of us may have gone home, but others amongst us saw that he was just fooling and we were rewarded for seeing through his trickery. Then we got proud and he left us alone in the woods. But we can't give up because he never really leaves us. It is a dance. The rasa dance is not just the circle dance on the Yamuna banks, but it is the dance of him hiding from us in the woods and us looking for him. Our story is that he is going to keep on doing this too us, and who knows where it ends. Maybe it doesn't...

That is where the two stories are similar and become religion--faith. Death incarnates as salvation in Christianity, but faith means thinking that we transcend death. Where's the proof?

The Rasa Lila says, "Krishna is there, he's only pretending not to be." But where's the proof? Krishna's absences will always obliterate the moments of grace. We will remember his blessings, but they his absences will alway challenge our faith in his love. The absences are as eternal as his presence.

Here is the essence of the Rasa Lila--

nAhaM tu sakhyo bhajato’pi jantUn
bhajAmy amISAm anuvRtti-vRttaye
yathAdhano labdha-dhane vinaSTe
tac cintayAnyan nibhRto na veda

O friends, I am different [from all these other kinds of lovers] in that I do not simply respond mechanically to the devotion of those who worship me. Rather, I wish to see their love increase [until], like the poor man who has lost a fortune and in his loneliness can think of nothing else, [they can think of nothing but me].

evaM mad-arthojjhita-loka-veda-
svAnAM hi vo mayy anuvRttaye’balAH
mayA parokSaM bhajatA tirohitaM
mAsUyituM mArhatha tat priyaM priyAH

Thus, because you gave up worldly happiness, religion and family in order to attain me, O weak ones! even though you could not see me, I was always there beside you, rewarding your love. So please, forgive me as lovers always forgive their beloved.

na pAraye’haM niravadya-saMyujAM
sva-sAdhu-kRtyaM vibudhAyuSApi vaH
yAm Abhajan durjara-geha-zRGkhalAH
saMvRzcya tad vaH pratiyAtu sAdhunA

I am left powerless, for even if were given the lifetime of the gods to repay you your good deeds, I would be unable, for you have dedicated yourselves to me completely, breaking off the powerful chains that kept you bound to home and family to worship me. You must therefore be satisfied with your good deeds alone.

Jai Radhe!

Actually what I had in mind was sympathy for Mary the Madonna, Mary Magadalene, Peter, Simon and Judas. I guess I did not make that clear enough. Sympathy for Jesus would not be applicable, since by his very nature a Christian is unable to identify with him - only with other sinners seeking redemption and salvation.

If a movie was ever to be made about Sri Krsna sporting with the gopis then it should be made into a musical. It will make the movie more delighful for an audience that is unfamiliar with the concepts of Krishna lila. I think an excellent and delighful theme would be the Holi lila. Lots of special effects with water colors shooting from seringers and colored powered balls of pollen would present a spectacle for the audience to relish. Lots of funny dialogues between Madhumangala and the gopis would churn the hasya rasa.

A musical I was impressed with was 'Moulin Rouge'. The film was an incredible spectacle of color, song and dance. Why not make a Holi lila film?

I agree, as long as it is done in that same style, rather than in the typical Hindi movie genre, which would just be too camp.

I agree with this assessment, at least in the abstract. I haven't seen the film yet (haven't decided yet whether I'm going to give him any of my money and a couple of hours of what little time I have left), but I'd guess that Gibson is trying to evoke sympathy for Jesus' sacrifice in his audience, and it seems to work for the Christians. Mina's remark reminds me of criticism of the film The Deer Hunter. Lots of folks pointed out that there wasn't rampant Russian roulette in the Vietnam conflict, as depicted in the film. The producers' response was that they weren't historians but storytellers. The feeling I got from the film was that they were trying to keep alive our sympathy for the horror of that conflict.

I wouldn't say that he was trying to evoke sympathy for the sacrifice of Jesus, but rather awe and reverence. They are not one and the same. Sympathy is more in the domain of the more intimate rasas such as vAtsalya, sakhkya, and mAdhurya, as opposed to the awe and reverence saturated rasas of zAnta and dAsya. One does not try to sympathize with an almighty and omnipotent Deity. Arjuna did not express the mood of sakhya while being bombarded with the imagery of the universal form, but rather one of sheer terror.

Now, if you are saying that there is sympathy for Jesus as emissary of the Deity and his willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice out of love for the conditioned jivas, then perhaps you are onto something. However, that is probably a stretch for the average Christian, who does not really think in such terms. For them salvation leads to an afterlife in heaven, but they do not contemplate anything along the lines of a personal, let alone erotic, relationship with their Deity.

Since my wife is Catholic, I think I can speak a little bit on this issue since I am aware of her perspective on it.

Mina - I think you misjudge the average Christian considerably. Christianity in general is all about a 'personal relationship' with God through his earthly manifestation in the form of Christ Jesus. The central theme of the film is that Jesus loves us so much that he lays down his life for our sake. There is a passage in the bible that confirms this general concept - it says that no greater love hath a man for a friend than he who gives up his life for him (I'm paraphrasing, not directly quoting). So, it is this incredible love that drives Christ Jesus to lay down his life that is at the heart of Christianity and that his followers so intensely identify with. God's omnipotence and splendor is crossed over by his appearance as the simple carpinter Jesus and in that form intimacy is indeed possible and the emotional response of sympathy is not only possible, but part of the tradition.

My wife saw the movie twice and was greatly moved by the film since it depicts that which is central to her belief - that Jesus loves her so much that he suffered and died on her behalf.

I thought Mel did an excellent job depicting Mary's vatsalaya rasa when he went back to a childhood scene where she came to his rescue when he fell to the ground as a youth as his mother was rushing to him as he fell under the pressure of the cross his bore. Being a parent myself, I couldn't help but cry at this point in the film - it was a powerfully moving image - what parent can't identify with the feeling of wanting to protect their child?

I saw the movie with my Wife and kids. I don't recommend this movie for children. My 15 year old daughter had nightmares due to the intensely graffic violence in the movie. I told my wife after the movie that I would have preferred a 'lighter' movie depicting Jesus' intimate pastimes with his followers to one that was so intensely violent. She disagreed with me - her view is that the movie is all about what is central to Christian belief. Of course the whole lila also serves as a symbol for the Christian to 'take up their own cross' and bear the suffering associated with living a faithful and dutiful life of devotion. The truly devout will be scorned, shunned and ridiculed by the world who see their faith and dedication as foolishness.

Jagat - I think the "Passion' from a Gaudiya perspective could be very tastefully depicted, but I am not sure that it would be widely accepted or appreciated. The biggest hurdle would be to have a widely recognized director and production company embrace the idea - the second hurdle would be to develop the story and show the import - selfless love hidden beneath what appears on the surface to be a mere lusty affair which breaches all moral and ethical codes of conduct. Still I could envision a good director being able to convey the basic concept that one has to become completely selfless and devoid of passion for the world in order to enter into the passionate/intimate life of God.

Your servant,
Audarya-lila dasa

Point taken. I just have not heard much from any Christians about their idea of relationships with their Deity in their conception of heaven.

I saw a show on PBS where they constructed a bust of Jesus that would have conformed more to the features of the Jews of Israel at the time of Jesus.
The Jesus we have today is predominantly a European looking deity, rather than the Jewish features that Jesus was most likely to have had.

The Jesus most people think they know from modern art probably looks nothing like the real Jesus - if indeed Jesus was a real historical personality.

I think Audarya has understood what I was getting at. This is precisely what I was saying: The central point of Christianity is the death of Christ, even more you could say than the resurrection, pretty much in the same way that in terms of rasa, the separation of the gopis is more important than the union. Even though union (like resurrection) is essential to the story, the story itself, the rasa, is in the suffering.

Now what I am getting at is that the Gaudiya way of understanding spiritual experience/salvation as rasa, its terminology and categories can all be applied to the Christ story, just as it can to the Rasa Lila.

Christ suffers--so it is just suffering, right? No.

Radha suffers, so she is just an ordinary girl piner for her beloved, right? No.

But our identification with that experience and our experience of their mood, with the added overlay of adbhuta, which comes from knowing that this is a divine event with cosmic significance that is being described, an event in which we participate as finite jivas in relation with Infinite God and the universe, makes it rasa.

But Audarya's comments illustrate another excellent point: samskara. His wife has a Christian samskara, so the story is deeply meaningful to her, she participates in it, and therefore the depth of emotion, of rasa that she experiences is deeper than that of Audarya, whose samskara is different.

---

An interesting question that arises from this is the following, and I speak this with a certain amount of trepidation, and perhaps this is another realm of discussion that needs or will need another thread: To what extent can two people share lives without sharing the same myth? Human relationships are obviously very complex and not governed by any one thing, and values can be shared without sharing this, what I think is the deepest part of our psyche. At least, the extent to which we are possessed by the myth splits us off more and more from the world around us, and the hunger to touch another soul more acute.

I often reflect on the I/Thou paradigm Buber brought into the world of theological discourse. God IS in the Thou. Unless we contact other souls, even our relationship with God is a kind of self-absorption. The Personal God is the Other.

Often our friendships are like those of soldiers marching in line, side by side, rather than like those of lovers, looking into each other's eyes and souls.

Anyway, gotta go...

Jagat

Just a quick thought on the sharing of lives which are centered around different myths. Prior to our marriage 17 years ago some of my wife's family and friends told her, 'you are not evenly yoked' - basically, it was the same idea - you have a different ideal so how compatible are you? really?

Well, the answer that I have for that is that the world, of which we are all a part, is full of diversity and yet we all feel a great sense of unity in that diversity. I am very evenly yoked with my wife in the sense that we both feel a great sense of urgency to developing our lives as servants of God and feel the only thing worth living for is spiritual life centered around seva.

Anupama had a different ideal from Rupa and Sanatana and even though he agreed philosophically that Krsna was supreme, he couldn't give up his ideal of Rama as his ista devata. Still, he traveled with Rupa and from what we know, he was in a very intimate relationship with his brothers which seems to have been unhindered by his different ideal. The same can be said of Murari Gupta in terms of his dealings with Mahaprabhu's other associates and, of course, Mahaprabhu himself.

Remember that each of the gopis heard the flute call as an individual and heralded the call alone. No matter who we associate ourselves with, this truth is there for all of us - as much as we share in community, we also must tread the path in our deepest moments alone and we shall also die alone.

I have often thought that my companionship with my wife is more enriching in many ways for both of us than if we did share the same myth. It allows us to learn and grow with each other and forces us to consider deeply another meta narrative on live.

Anyway - got to go. BTW Jagat - I am a little more than half way through Gopal Tapani Upanisad and it is really very wonderful - thank you for your efforts and insight.

Your servant,
Audarya-lila dasa

I knew there was a reason I saved this picture:



And now that we have Audarya here, I'd like to ask: how close is the Christian concept of the crucifixion to audarya? Is the concept of guilt and gratitude (and gore?) anything akin to that of mercy? In one sense, Jesus's suffering--and he is the only (begotten) son, just to make it more poignant--is the ultimate in grace, but in another it is so jarring and horrific. Whereas it is often said that a Vaisnava does not want to hear of the Lord's passing from this world, Christianity's central theme is the death of Christ. Can a healthy religion ever be based on suffering, no matter how glorious the cause?

I recall once meeting a man who thundered at me, "Did your Swami die on the cross for you?" Martydom prevents any further questions; it is the exclamation mark for the once-born spiritualist.

I've been mulling that one over too, Braj. The other day, after the Madrid bombing, the Al Qaeda people made the rather radical statement, "You worship life and we worship death."

Have any devotees here read Sri Tattva Viveka by Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur?

In that book he critiques Christian beliefs. In particular the Adam and Eve myth and the crucifixion myth. Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur suggests that the concept of Satan originates from the Persian sage Zoaraster whose ideas were assimilated by the Hebrews when the Hebrews were slaves in Babylon. Apparently Zoaraster came up with the idea that some Great and Infernal Power was constantly challenging the Good God; and then in the New Testament we read how Jesus was tempted by Satan when he was in the desert. "Join me, oh Jesus, and be Supreme!" Anyway, Bhaktivinode Thakur said that no sensible person would ever believe that an omnipotent God would need to be born and be crucified in order to expiate the sins of humankind. Indeeed, as the Muslims say, God the Almighty only needs to will that something shall happen and it must happen; so why would He the Almighty choose to plan an unfolding of history wherein he has to become incarnate and be killed by a group of barbarians?

I also remember Carl Jung saying, someplace, that maybe God was crucified because he felt he had botched his work of creation by making such a shocking mess of the world. The Rastas consider the entire modern world to be nothing but Babylon. That is another interesting perspective.

I would say that in order to understand Christianity you would have to do so from within the conceptual framework within which it operates rather than try to understand it from within a Gaudiya conceptual framework. Having said that, I do think that Christianity embraces Audarya in that Christ's outreach is for everyone at all times and all places. Additionally, his outreach is not based on qualification or merit, but rather, is for the lowest of the low and the highest of the high equally.

I have read some of what Bhaktivinoda Thakur had to say about Christianity - some of it was very accomodating, some of it not so. His harshest critique of the tradition seems to have missed the mark considerably due to his not really understanding the tradition with any depth - at least that is my opinion.

I am not a Christian apologist by any stretch of the imagination, but since I live with a very devout Catholic I have had to come face to face with the tradition and my own realization is that no one can really understand another tradition by standing on the sidelines and trying to fit it's tenets into a world view from another tradition - they have to be understood from a perspective within the tradition itself to have any possibility of genuinely knowing it. Having said that, Christainity has many 'mysteries' which are left to the practicioner to understand through practice and development of faith - very much like our own tradition.

It seems as though some people believe that Sri Guru may suffer from the 'sins' of his/her sisyas. This has always seemed to me to be an imposition of Christian ideas onto vaishnava doctrine. I know that Vasudeva datta asked to take on the karma of all souls so that they could be relieved and come to their constitutional position - but that seems different than the Christ idea. We also see in C.C. that Krsnadasa Kaviraja depicts Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as turning black momentarily when he accepted Jagai and Madhai and 'cleansed them of their sins'. Again, this is quite different than crucifixtion

But really the myth has to do with love and it's pinnacle. Not everyone will agree that the pinnacle of love is complete selflessness and self sacrifice - but in that there really is not much difference between the Christians ideal and our own. Sridhara Maharaja liked very much to quote Hegel's idea that one must 'die in order to live'. This is really the heart of the matter.

I have heard people criticize us for embracing a Lord who comes in the form of a half man/ half lion and places a small boy's father on his lap and rips him open with his claws. The depictions of this lila are frightening and ghastly - much like the crucifixtion. But the philosophical point that Lord Narasingha is destroying our anarthas and purifying us - helping us 'die to live' - really has to be understood to fully appreciate the lila in the context of being a sadhaka. The Christians, likewise, embrace the idea of 'taking up their cross' and 'dying to live' as they tread the path of devotion and embrace the 'imitation of Christ'. They also recognize the fact that they need mercy and help in their feeble attempts to live a life of divine love.

Your servant,
Audarya-lila dasa

Yes Audarya,

You make many good points. And I also was brought up as a Catholic, in an Irish Catholic boys only school, so I am familiar with the beliefs of the Christians. Once when I was about eight years old I was singing in a choir, and I was a bit ill so I fainted on the ground, then when I awoke from my faint I found myself surrounded by friendly boys faces and on looking above their heads I saw the effulgent light coming through stained glass windows of the old stone church we were in, and I felt some sort of religious feeling of transcendence and awe. That was my experience, when I saw the Light above us. But Gaudiya Vaishnavism, as you will agree, has greater depth of insight.

Having also been raised a Catholic (and whipped by Welshmen with bamboo canes for having my socks down), I have to admit that Christianity has always been hard for me to fathom. Probably the only insight I got was from reading Thomas Merton, but by then I was already on this path. Catholicism does seem deeper than other forms of Christianity, e.g. God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense

Maybe we need to change the name of this forum to "Catholics for Krishna."

At one point a friend of mine (going by the name Moishe Kapoyer) had me create a site called "Jews for Jagannatha."

What needs to be said in this context is that suffering and death of Jesus is not seen as central in Roman Catholic Theology, but resurrection is. That goes as far as that Good Friday is not a Holiday at all for Catholics, while it is the holiest one for Protestants.

There are farming villages in Switzerland where Catholic farmers bring out liquid manure, the most intense stink you can think of, on Good Friday, just to annoy the Protestants. The Protestants pay it back on Corpus Christi, when the Catholics are on procession thru the fields.

THere are many common points of Catholicism and Vaishnavism, and I think that this film brings it out. Catholicism has more tendency to appreciate Christ in a way that is "aesthetic" in nature. The stations of the cross, for instance (which is what the Passion is all about) is a meditation on the essential rasa-producing motif of the Catholic faith. The iconoclastic sects no doubt can identify with this mood, but I don't think that they cultivate it in the way that Catholics do. They are more interested in the mechanics of surrender (being "born again").

There are no doubt cultural variants of Protestantism and Catholicism. We generally think of Southern Baptists as archetypal Protestants in North America, but of course, here in Canada we have a wide variety--Anglicans, United Church (Methodist and Presbyterian), as well as evangelicals. They are about as different as you can get. Notwithstanding their common features, the Irish, French and Polish Catholics are all quite different, too.

What? Now even my Catholic upbringing was bogus too? Good Friday was always a holiday for us, replete with a special mass (that one year included a slide show of the tools of the crucifixion). Wonder if that was just a local preference, perhaps brought about in response to the Anglicans.

The Catholic Encyclopedia states:



but other sites agree that it was not celebrated.

Good Friday would not have been celebrated. It would have been a fast day.

Actually, ever since Nara Narayan Vishwakarma wrote a rather incendiary letter denouncing the influence of Catholics in Iskcon (after many others denounced the prominence of Jews in the GBC), I have wondered about religious background and the effect it would have on a convert's approach to Krishna consciousness.

I once speculated on the Protestant character of the Ritvik branch of KC.

It would take a bit of research, but I am sure some interesting results could come of it, though I have no idea what they would be.

There are some differences between different communities of Catholics, but I was always under the impression that we all believed in one central dogma - Rugby is the greatest game on earth, as also it is in heaven.

That is real funny, especially since most continental Europeans do not have much of an idea what Rugby is. Does it have something to do with pulling your Rug from under your feet?

In my experience on Good Friday there was no mass but at 3 p.m. when Jesus was supposed to have died, the reading of the Passion text of the Evangile and some liturgical ceremonies around it, with the exposition of the Monstrance in which the transformed bread was present. This was the time when Passion mystery plays where eneacted in previous eras. The whole thing was an unusually sad, depressing event.

Catholic theology focuses more on the aspect of transformation, or as they call it: transfiguration, because in death Jesus becomes Christ - the human aspect of the son of God is transformed into the Divine, the God-aspect of the Messiah. That view is prevalent when seeing the Cross and Crucifixion. The death and resurrection mystery is the prototype of the Transsubstancialisation-mystery (sic!) of the Holy ... (Wandlung in German, can't find the word in English of the act when bread and wine are transformed into flesh and blood in the Holy Mass). So Good Friday is only important in terms of the sacrifice, but it is still more a human affair than a divine one. You also remember from the Catholic Credo: there is the descent into Hell, and on the third day the Resurrection. Everything is silent in the Catholic church from Good Friday to the Easter Mass: The bells are silent, no organ playing, in old Europe they use wooden instruments instead of bells, kind of a "dead sound".

The Catholic religious practice is really one of celebration. That was also the life in medieval times. There were more Holidays than working days! Kind of like the vaishnava calendar full of events to celebrate.

In popular spirituality Mother Mary's sacrifice and her love have become almost more prominent than the one of Jesus. Mariology is one of the most prominent branches of Catholic Theology. Motherhood and its sacrifices is a strong archetype accessible to human intuition.

The main difference between Protestant theology and the Roman Catholic one is that the latter is really archetype-oriented and archetype-fed, whereas the Protestant one is more emancipation-oriented, concerning the liberation of the individual thru the act of faith. Catholic Theology based on the contributions of what are called the Church-Fathers (preserved and elaborated in what is called Patrology) was fed to a large degree by the archetypes of Alchemy. Alchemy was a florishing lore in Hellenism, the first centuries of the Christian era. Philosophical systems were built on Alchemy, already at the time of the pre-Socratics with their speculations on Nature and what it is made of in its first elements. Until not long ago Philosophy and Theology were one in the Occident. Some of the Church-fathers were philosophers who built those archetypes of Alchemy into the system of explanation of the mystery of God. Death ( Caput mortuum, Nigredo) plays a prominent part in the mystery of the process of alchemy, but more than death, the ressurection of a divinised, resplendent body out of the darkness of the abyss of dead putrefying matter, is seen as the prototype of the Divine descent into matter for the sake of its salvation. As happened with Jesus who became the Christ, so will happen with his believers who become immortalized souls. That is the general pattern, and out of this mysterious experimentally observable process of Alchemy, the extrapolations of Catholic Theology were nourished, in such a way that each new addition and explanation stays within the paradigm of Alchemy. This fact was secured by the adoption of the philosophical system of the genius Saint Thomas Aquinas who was himself a philosopher of Alchemy who knew the secret, even though he probably was not a practicing alchemist. But he definitely saw the transformation of lead into gold, as he discusses the result of it in his writings.

I think this brief outline should help us see the structural difference between Catholic and Protestant paradigms and their effect into our lives. As you probably all know Catholic actually means Universal in Greek. Which implies its tenets are applying to everyone, and this by dint of them being extrapolations of the universal paradigm of Alchemy. Of course, in exoteric teaching the connection to Alchemy is not mentioned, but esoterically it is present until the last detail for instance of the Holy Mass or of the Church Calendar, especially regarding the Holy Week, the colors used during it, and many details of liturgy.

The Protestant Reformation has cut itself off from this living tradition of archetypes, images and intuitive streams of wisdom. Its most important act was to define the individual and his or her relationship to God through scripture as the focus of salvation. There is a first subjectivation (stress on the subject in connection with the object) occurring wheras the medieval type of faith was more cosmic-universal, perhaps more object-oriented, the object being God with his glories and mysteries manifesting in the world in the form of the Church.




As Jagat has mentioned it would be interesting to see between us how Catholic or Protestant upbringing has pre-structured our types of reception of the Gaudiya contents and how it is affecting our choices. A first thing that I suspect (among others by the absence of their voices here) is that the largely scripture-oriented vaishnavas probably have a Protestant back-ground, whereas we Catholics come more from a, may I say, cosmos-oriented approach, cosmos meaning "order of things".... more of an intuitive, image/archetype-oriented approach. Of course, there are lots of individual differences, but as a devotee I have always found it to be much easier to communicate with a former Catholic than with a Protestant within the vaishnava frame-work. This is just a very broad generalisation.

Amen! My school, run by the Rosminian Brothers, certainly worshipped God's Game. Those from our small school who made it to the Holy Land (the All Blacks), were paraded before us as Christ's own disciples.


See this clip for a spine tingling introduction to God's Game (albeit with an Adidas logo and a Kiwi spin)

Thanks for that.

I guess it is more of a generic Christian samskara, but I had a moment of insight several months back when reading Haberman's "Acting as a Way of Salvation." (At least, I think it was that book.) The author was discussing the European Indologists and their reaction to bhakti--"It is just like Christianity." He pointed out that many of them assumed it was a matter of belief, devotion, and overlooked the existence of sadhana. When I read that I realized how deeply ingrained in me is this notion that I believe (and that is all I have to do).

I'm probably not doing justice to any true Christians or to scholars, but that was pretty much the substance of my Christian understanding.

That's the book.

Excellent clip. But it's just the girls team isn't it?

Catholics were drunkards in my home town. The Church had a "rap-loft" complete with black-lights and psychedelic posters (circa 1969). My girlfriend was a Catholic and she took me there a couple of times. The priest cornered us and wanted us to spill the beans and the "steet scene". He popped open a bottle of wine and drank the whole thing in about a half hour.
Problem was there was no street scene in that town at that time. There were only a handful of older guys that were even into drugs. I really couldn't figure out why they even needed a "rap-loft" for kids to come and hang out at. It was the first time I ever saw black lights and posters. It kind of made me want to become a pot-smoking hippy. I thought it was cool. A couple of years later I started smoking weed and set my room up just like the "rap-loft".
It's almost like they wanted to create a class of drugged out hippies so they could have someone to preach to.
The priest used to come to parties at my girlfriends house. Her parents were like the richest people in town. The priest was always drunk at these parties.

Coming from a Baptist upbringing, I thought the Catholics were really off. They were always drinking wine and getting buzzed. In the Church I grew up in, drinking wine was considered a sin.

I guess I would have to say that I was spared for the most part from the coloring of my reception of Vaishnavism by Roman Catholicism. I only was forced to attend Catechism on Sundays for a year, maybe two. I was baptised in the Church, but did not receive holy communion until Christmas Eve of 1979 along with Jaisacinandan Das and his wife. I was hesitant to go up and take communion, because the rule is that one is supposed to go to confession first, but Jaisaci convinced me to do it anyways. I was never officially confirmed. All water under the bridge of course, but I guess the only thing I had to relate to was the mysterious rituals of mass, etc. and the Latin chants of the priests. Those have their parallels in Vaishnavism with puja and agnihotra ceremonies.

So, I am more or less discovering the subtleties of Christian theology from the vantage point of a Chaitanyaite.

Greetings. This is one of the major misunderstandings of Christianity. Too many Christians want to put Jesus up on a pedestal and worship him rather than accept his instructions to "Follow me" become his disciple. Orthodox Christian teachings declare Jesus to be fully human and fully God. Only looking at Jesus as God is a heresy popularly known as Jesusolatry.

Many Christians prefer to focus on Jesus' humanity and how he was a model for us, a new Adam. He fully devoted his life to the service of God even unto the point of death on a cross. However, rather than that death being some sort of redemptive sacrifice to appease an angry God, it was more along the lines of Martin Luther King Jr. going to Memphis even though he knew he might be killed there. He did what he needed to do and stuck to his principles. Not all Christians accept the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. There are much better ways to look at Jesus and his death. I don't believe Jesus needed to die in order for God to forgive us of our sins. God is love, gracious and merciful. Always was, always will be.

I do not say these things from a Gaudiya vaishnava viewpoint but from a mainline Protestant theological point of view. Mel Gibson's film does a disservice to progressive Christians with it's theme of redemptive violence.

Peace,
Subal Das

Frankly, it amazes me why anyone would want to make or watch such a movie. I certainly will not see it. Just reading about it disgusts me. I have a hard time watching the crucifixion scenes in any Jesus movie, what to speak of two hours worth. I found it hard to watch the end of Gibson's "Braveheart" also. So why anyone would want to see it repeatedly and take their children to see it is incomprehensible. If you love someone, do you really want to see them suffer and die a horrible death?

I want to make it clear that I write as a seminary educated, ordained Christian clergy person. I also want to make it clear that the idea Gibson wants to promote, showing how God required this awful sacrifice of his son so that God could forgive us is abominable and barbaric. Who would want to worship such a God? No wonder we have so much violence in the world if that's what we think God is like. This is called substitutionary atonement, which says that Jesus died for our sins and now we are forgiven. Do you think God is so hateful that God couldn't forgive us without Jesus having to die that way? There are other reasons to follow Jesus than because he died so that we could be saved. We are saved by the grace and love of God. Jesus died because we are a sinful people who killed an innocent man who tried to help us evolve spiritually. We have killed many who came in the name of God to help us, and it is not because God wanted it. Rather God was on the cross with Jesus suffering along with him and crying over the cruelty of humankind. This idea of substitutionary atonement has been much promoted for two thousand years and is believed by many, however there are other informed theological views of salvation and Jesus' death.

Gibson wants to promote this movie as being historical, but we need to understand that the gospels themselves are not historical as we currently understand history. Rather, they are more like a historical novel or myth. All four gospels differ in their accounts of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. Other, non-canonical gospels give different accounts and interpretations. The gospels lack many details of Jesus' final hours, and what we do have is not necessarily based on eye witness accounts since it is said the disciples deserted Jesus when he was arrested except for possiblely some women and the beloved disciple who watched the crucifixion. They certainly were not in the Jewish court or the inner chambers of the Praetorium. Scholarly opinion does not accept that any of the gospels were written by eye witnesses.

Another point we should remember, is that Jesus and his original disciples were Jews, and Jesus did not intend to start a new religion. It wasn't until around 70 CE when the Jews expelled Jesus' followers from the synagogues and persecuted them that they became a separate sect known as Christians. It is most probable that the Romans were responsible for Jesus' death since they saw him and his followers as a security threat during the nationalistic, Jewish holiday of Passover. However, it was politically convenient for the gospel writers to shift the blame from the Romans to the Jews in order to avoid further persecution from the Romans who were able to administer the death penalty at will.

Peace,
Subal Das

The nectar of devotion to Sri Sri Radha Krishna, the divine couple who are the fullest manifestation of the Godhead is such a thing that once it gets in your system, one cannot get it out. It is bitter sweet. It is so attractive that one cannot get enough of it. Yet sometimes one wants to give it up all together. What goal can be higher than the desire to live in the eternal spiritual abode of Vrindaban as an eternal associate of Radha and Krishna assisting them in culminating their amorous love affairs. When I read about these pastimes 38 years ago, I immediately became attracted and remain so to this day.

It was so refreshing to read about God as the supreme lover rather than a terrible, fearful, vengeful God as is so often portrayed in the Judeo-Christian religions and which is causing such a stir in Mel Gibson's "The Passion." Even as a Christian, I do not believe God is that way. I much prefer the concept of "God is love" as described in 1 John. Jesus also made it clear, love God, love your neighbor and love yourself. This is also the essence of Jewish teaching.

Why is society so lacking in love? Why after all these thousands of years does humankind as a whole still not get it? Why do we commit atrocities against one another in the name of God, religion and the nation? I pray that love may someday win. It always does in the end.

Peace,
Subal Das

This is not only a problem for Krishna devotees, but also for Christians. There are many seminaries where Christian clergy are taught theology in a critical, analytical manner. Most mainline clergy understand the Bible as myth and themselves as purveyers of myth who are charged with presenting the ancient myths in a way that will attract post-modern minds.

It is very difficult for progressive clergy to present new ways of looking at the ancient myths to the people in the pews. They feel very threatened and often attack the clergy in various ways. What I am saying is that I am not surprised at this reaction by Krishna devotees since there is even such a reaction among Christians where there is a structure and tradition to support it.

To my knowledge, there is little or no such tradition and structure in Gaudiya vaishnavism. In fact, such thinking has been repressed in my experience. From what little I know of Bon Maharaja's teachings he may have come the closest. Some of Jagat's writings drew me to this site since they provide such critical thinking which I find very refreshing.

Your servant,
Subal Das

Now, that's what I call an opening line in the forums! Must be the all-time record. Welcome!

Thank you. I don't want to dominate the discussion, but I'm a new member, just catching up and have a lot to say.

Your servant,
Subal Das

Certainly is nice to have the participation of another learned soul. And now having googled to your home page, I look forward to your involvement even more. You certainly have a rich background. My humble greetings to you.

I didn't know my website would be so easy to find with the information I gave. I just tried it and see how easy it is. It is good for me to be here with other learned souls also. I have longed for such association.

Your servant,
Subal Das

Sorry, I really am a snoop but I can edit that part out if you like.

I hope you manage to complete your book--not just for the history of your involvement with Gaudiya Vaisnavism but also for the other approaches you seem to have integrated. I'm sure you'll find the association you seek also...which is an appropriate point for me to disappear.

That's OK. I've been hiding out long enough. Hopefully, no one will come after me for what I say.

Subal

Clearly Subal is not a Catholic! I also saw Braveheart recently on TV and that lengthy torture and execution scene at the end certainly did make me think of the Passion. I also don't feel particularly inclined to go to see this film.

I remember Subal very well from his days in Hawaii, and I appreciate the contributions he's made here and look forward to more from him. I also have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to see Gibson's movie. (I much prefer Life of Brian.) I'd really rather see a film that shows how his life demonstrates what he said when asked about the most important commandment: love God with all our hearts and minds and love others as we love ourselves. If someone could make a film that moves Christians to follow that, or, as Subal writes, to follow Jesus rather than worship him, I think that could make a real impact on the world.

Another Protestant!

Just kidding.

This is of course the very question that I intimated at when I asked about "mysticism" vs. "ethical religion." "other-worldly" vs. "this-worldly" religion. And perhaps you are contradicting your earlier post?



My point has been (as to why anyone should want to see the film) is that Mel Gibson is trying to create a specific religious experience through the rasas of the Passion, which for him is the central point of the Christ story. Christ is not just a man going through this, he is God himself as man.

But leaving the Mel Gibson film aside for a moment, we have the same kind of discussion in Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Though to some extent all Gaudiya Vaishnavas are experientially oriented ("Stay High Forever with the Maha Mantra"), it appears to me that the Gaudiya Math puts brakes on at a certain point ("First Deserve, Then Desire").

The raganuga idea is first lobha, then seva. Lobha arises out of a glimpse of rasa, i.e. spiritual experience.

Dear Jagat,

I beg to differ. Jesus was just a man going through what he went through. He had no idea of his messianic identity and certainly did not consider himself God. We see a progression in the gospels from Mark to John as Jesus becomes more and more Godlike. This is a result of the theological developments of his disciiples.

He was a spirit filled man who allowed God to work through him as an instrument perhaps to a much higher degree than is usually manifest. You might say he was a transparent via media to God or a manifestation of jagat guru. Christ means the anointed one. Jesus was imbued with the Holy Spirit at his baptism. He lived his life guided by the Spirit. In that way he was man and God. Bhaktivedanta Swami considered him a shaktavesh avatar like Buddha, a jiva empowered by God. I see him in this way also as do many educated mainline, liberal Christians.

It is true that Jesus may have made a breakthrough in becoming a God-man as "hu" in hu-man connotes. This is an example for all to follow. The historical Jesus is somehow mysteriously connected to the Cosmic Christ which is a manifestation of God perhaps comprable to the paramatma.

So far the the distinction between worldly and other worldly religion: As a sannyasi, I was engaged in an effort to transcend the material world and enter into the realm of Goloka Vrindaban. These efforts were constantly frustrated by the demands of Bhaktivedanta to perform service which took me away from my spiritual practices, and ultimately when I left ISKCON I embraced the world and decided to see what spiriitual "truths" and practices stuck and what were just cultural externals. I embraced a much more incarnational theology and accepted that if God put me in this world, I must be here to do something more than try to escape so let me put my time and energy to good use. I have worked diligently for peace, justice and the environment.

I still consider myself a mystic with my head in the clouds and my feet on the ground. I don't think there needs to be a duality between the two paths. Thirty years later, I still yearn for Vrindaban and the eternal service of Sri Sri Radha Krishna. What can I say?

Your servant,
Subal

Actually, I did grow up Protestant. And I think I may have been hasty in saying that I can't imagine why anyone would want to see the film. Audarya-lila has explained why his wife apprecitated it, and, while her experience is different from my own, I can use my writer's imagination to sympathize. However, many of the people arguing most strongly in the film's favor, and seeing it repeatedly, are Protestants and evangelicals. And I think that it would be silly for me to pretend to discuss any rasa in the film without having actually seen it. Otherwise, anything I say about how the drama is developed and what sort of relationships the depiction of those twelve hours is meant to evoke is all guessing based on second- and third-hand accounts.

I do find the discussion of ethics and mystic experience in Gaudiya vaishnavism much more interesting. And I do indeed suspect the dichotomy many see there. I believe that Bhaktivinoda's writings--especially many of the earlier work--also reflect such as suspicion. I think that he tried to show his audience, who Shukavak believes was primarily the bhadraloka, more cultured, educated Bengalis influenced by modern, "Western" thinking, to gain a greater appreciation for Mahaprabhu's teachings. He hoped to show the relevance of Krishna consciousness. And I think that Bhaktisiddhanta and his followers extended that project to establish Krishna consciousness as a religion as well as a mystical experience. The goal in doing so was, I feel, to broaden its appeal and spread the teachings in a more organized, systematic way. This perhaps accounts for the greater emphasis on vaidhi sadahana than in more "orthodox" approaches, and for institutions such as Gaudiya Math and its offspring.

Now, some find this a very Protestant approach, and I think it's plain to see that the "desire-then-deserve" approach added to institutional hierarchy has complicated any calculations of what it means to deserve to the extent that for many devotees, Krishna consciousness is nothing more than a religion ("our religion"). But I don't trust such dichotomies (read too much Kenneth Burke in grad school), and I think there are ample signs that we may easily bridge them. For all his advice for caution, I think Sridhar Maharaja's frequent discussion of subjective experience indicates this. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarsvati said on at least one occasion that considerable serious practice should move devotees beyond anartha nivritti to artha pravritti.

Nowadays, I see considerable possibility for a "third" approach in the attitude of Tripurari Maharaja. His own practice is, from what I've seen, conservative, even traditional, while his preaching quite liberal. As someone who has taught argument in college, I'm aware that there are approaches to asserting one's convictions other than the dualistic, agonistic approaches we see in the popular Western media (Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Crossfire, etc.) whose stock in trade is conflict. While I have great affection and respect for Narasingha Maharaja, I have to admit that I find Tripurari Mahraja's approach more appealing.

But I've gone on much too long, and I should be chanting.

Obviously Mel Gibson is some kind of fifth column by which he is using cinema to insinuate Papism into unsuspecting adherents of the True Gospel. Has no one spoken up about this?

Mel Gibson is a member of an extremely conservative Catholic splinter group that does not recognize the Pope and is not recognized by the Pope. They are so narrow that Mel even questions whether his wife will be saved since she is an Episcopalian. They still practice the Latin mass hence the use of Latin in the film even though Greek is what would have been spoken. Recently, a group of Tibetian Budhists were scheduled to chant at a local Catholic church. A large group from a church associated with Mel's group came and prevented the chanting by loudly chanting some prayers of their own. The police were called and the Budhists had to move to the basement. I think the only rasa Mel wants to ignite with this film other than making money is to inflame a bunch of zealot, religious fanatics.

I had not been giving much serious consideration to these rumors about anti-Semitism, etc., but it appears that Subal is right:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/gibson.asp

I haven't seen the film either, and as I saw Braveheart, I figured I saw where he was coming from. Only surprised he did not cast himself as Jesus.

I was simply speculating about rasa, some of which I think is still valid, regardless of whether I have seen the film.

Me too: I haven’t seen this movie and I don’t care to. I have already made up my mind about the director and financer of this project. I think Mr. Gibson is just a contemporary man with an agenda; an agenda which I would not like to support. Thus, from now on, I will boycott all of his movies. My conclusion about “his” Jesus Christ is that he, Mr. Gibson, as a businessman, is trying to compete with Jews for the marketing of pain. This competition he will inevitably loose, (if not lost already). Mr. Gibson is making a lot of money with this project, for his idea of rasa is just plain bloody.

I am not a movie goer, but sometimes enjoy watching a DVD/Video at home. For the reason given by Subal above is why I have my strong reservations about watching a movie like 'The Passion'. I was traumatized for weeks after seeing the ending of 'Braveheart'.

Generallly within a play or movie there is a battle between good and evil. For aesthetic purposes we feel good when the hero or heroine come out victorious. It is a great letdown when the hero or heroine are the losers, a tragedy.

Although his movie has probably has not made much success in Europe, it is still hot here in the States. By the time Good Friday roles in he would have made a hefty profit. He already made 200 million a couple of weeks ago.

Jingle coins, jingle coins, jingle all the way... Probably 'till Christmas.

Welcome to the discussions, Subal Ji.

I was originally planning to sit this one out. I have followed Gibson's career ever since I went to see Road Warrior with Nitai. (I still remember discussing with him what rasas were prominent in that film in 1981 as we left the theater). Well, I have to confess that I could not stay away after hearing all of the critics heaping praise on Mel as a director. I will warn anyone that is planning on seeing it - it is extremely graphic and disturbing. It took me a couple of days to get the violent images out of my head. I just thought it would be cathartic to start this discussion with others that have already seen the movie. It is kind of silly for those who have not seen it to jump in and do a critique of it, as some of you have already pointed out.

There have been a number of unexpected and pleasant surprises from the participants here - and I thank you for those.

I just watched another moving film on satellite last night: The Rabbit Proof Fence

Perhaps those that have seen that one would like to comment on the rasas therein?

Radhapada,

I suspect that, like me, you are of the opinion that Europe is ahead of the US in many fronts. The relative flopping of the Passion there scores another one for the Old World, in my opinion. Anyone with a passion for films should not miss the old classic, Scarface (the Alpacino newer version is ok), originally highly condemned here at home for its glorification and glamorization of Chicago gangster life. “It was the American dream turned upside down”, said one critic.

Never saw it. I see it is now out in DVD.

Too much to say, if I start into this subject.

If you ever get a chance to see this other movie you will be amazed:
One Night The Moon
http://www.sbs.com.au/movieshow/reviews.php3?id=792

I moved the discussion of proselytization and zeal to a new thread.

http://www.gaudiyadiscussions.com/index.php?showtopic=1407

Congratulations to all for a great thread. I am closing it here, but obviously we will return to these themes again. Anyone who has anything to add on any of the subjects found here should start a new thread, perhaps including a link refering back to this one.

Many thanks to all contributors.

Jagat