No attraction for raganuga - vaidhi, then? -

In light of this forum, I have become much more aware of the validity if not prominence of raga over vaidhi in our tradition. However I cannot help but honestly say that I don't feel one drop of attraction towards the path of raga. This leads me to consider that the path of vaidhi is for me.

In other words, just to get some regular sadhana going again would be a first for me (I'm in process at the moment), but that just seems so far from raganuga. I mean raganuga really seems like quite an elevated stage. Then again, maybe that is just the ISKCON programing in my head.

In addition it seems in Madhurya Kadambini that Visvanath makes the point that one goes through all the stages mentioned in that book in the same way whether one is a vaidhi bhakta or raga bhakta. Any comments on this? If so, what is the difference between a beginning raga bhakta and a vaidhi bhakta - just a choice or is it ones attraction?

Vaidhi doesn't mean just regularly doing things. The point is in the "why" of doing. If you're doing regularly things without sparkling inspiration and greed at every moment of it, and you're aspiring to serve Sri Krishna in Vraja, you're on the raganuga-highway, albeit in the section where ruci hasn't yet arisen. However if you're doing those things because the scriptures order you so, and because otherwise you would go to hell and all that jazz, you're in the vaidhi-department, on your way to Vaikuntha. That's the basic difference.

But you know, I'm pretty sure Vaikuntha ain't all that bad. Sri Hari likes Vaikuntha and Vraj both it seems. hehe

Is not Vaidhi bhakti, vedantic bhakti?

Very lucid and helpful explanation, dear Madhava. It leads me to wonder which highway I was on when I followed the Vaisnava sadhana. I was certainly not aspiring to serve Sri Krsna in Vrndavan (other than accepting that apparently I am His servant because the scriptures say so). But I wasn't trying to avoid going to hell, that's for sure. In fact, before I became an aspiring devotee, I had quite some contacts with Christians and if anything turned me away from them, it was their "avoid hell" argument.

My motive to do sadhana was that it was presented as a process of coming closer to one's original identity. I wanted to get in touch with my real self and see the world as it really is.

Which highway is that?

Dhyana (presently trekking rather erratically through the landscape away from highways and making frequent stops to look around)

I'd say neither of the two, really. Perhaps a stage of preliminary interest, akin to standing at crossroads and looking around. Once you get a clue of the original identity, you can then engage in practices that lead you towards the realm in which this original identity prevails. That would be sAdhana in the precise sense of the term. For example, you might understand that you are an associate in Vaikuntha, or a friend in Vraja, and begin to head towards that goal.

If by "original identity" one thinks of "self-realization", or realization that we are spiritual sparks, and not this body, without due concern for a particular form of Bhagavan we'd serve or any particular kind of specific positive identification, then this would be the sAdhana akin to jñAna-mArga, heading towards monistic brahman-realization. Since that isn't exactly bhakti-sAdhana really, it can't be classified under either of the two within the Gaudiya context. Otherwise, it would certainly be a vidhi-mArga of sorts.