Sri Caitanya and Raganuga Bhakti - Kapoor on the unity of Radha-Krsna, an introduction.

The portion bellow is from Sri Caitanya and Raganuga Bhakti by O.B.L. Kapoor, chapter one, Reasons For the Appearance of Sri Caitanya - I. The logical Reason: The Dialectic of Rasa.
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The Taittriya Upanisad describes Para-brahma as Rasa: raso vai sah (Taittriya, Ananda Valli.,7). Rasa is concentrated ananda or bliss. Ananda in its concentrated form assumes a figure. The figure is the figure of Sri Krsna. Ananda-brahma is the formless expansive glow of Para-brahma, just as moon-light is the formless expansive glow of moon. In Ananda-brahma, rasa is dormant, still and motionless. it is not rasa in the real sense. In Rasa-brahma or Sri Krsna, rasa is dynamic, restless, effulgent, ever-flowing and ever-growing. It is astonishingly new and relishable, passing every moment beyond itself to new levels of rasa-consciousness.

Krsna is both rasa and rasika. As rasa He is the highest thing to be relished, as rasika He is the greatest enjoyer of rasa. Rasa is dynamic, because it is the essence of love or prema. Love is never satisfied with itself. The more the love the more the longing for love. The dynamism of love makes Krsna lilamaya, which means that He desires to revel more and more in beatific pastimes of love. But this is not possible if Krsna remains the Supreme Being, Who enjoys His own rasa. Therefore he unity of rasa and rasika in Him bursts forth and blooms into the duality of Krsna and Radha. Krsna is personalized rasa, Radha is personalized bhava or pure and selfless love (prema) at its highest. Loving communion between the two generates higher and higher dimensions of rasa.

The development of unity into duality, however, is not a process in time. It is a logical development, a development that is indicative of a necessary and integral relationship between rasa and bhava. There is no rasa without bhava. Krsna as rasa is always qualified by bhava. Bhava or prema is the essence (sara-vrtti) of the Hladini-sakti or the bliss potency of Krsna. Halidini-sakti resides in Krsna in an abstract form and is responsible for His svarupananda or the bliss that is integral to His Self. it also assumes a form and resides outside in the shape of Radha to make Him realize yet higher dimensions of bliss. Krsna enjoys the bliss caused by Her prema a thousand times more than the bliss natural to His Self.

The duality of Radha and Krsna implies the duality of asraya (lover) and visaya (the object of love). Radha is the ideal asraya or lover and Krsna the ideal visaya or the sweetest object of love. The sweetness of madhurya of Krsna cannot be realized except through the eyes of love. Since Radha's love is the highest, Krsna in the sweetest form is realized by Radha. But both the love of Radha and the madhurya of Krsna are evergrowing. The intensity of the love of Radha sublimates the madhurya of Krsna and the madhurya of Krsna sublimates the love of Radha. There is, as it were, a race between the two. The race continues until both love and madhurya reach the highest stage. At this stage the highest type of bliss is experienced. the bliss is so sweet and intense that it obliterates the subject-object relationship. Both asraya and visaya lose consciousness of Themselves. Only the bliss conscousness remains. The bliss is svaramvedya, that is, it experiences itself.

Rupa Gosvami says that in this state love melts the minds of Radha and Krsna to such and extent that They virtually become one and perception of difference is not possible. This state of love relationship between Radha and Krsna is called prema-vilasa-vivarta. It is from the standpoint of this ecstatic state of Radha and Krsna that the ultimate reality Para-brahma is called rasa.

This union in love between Radha and Krsna, however, does not imply a monistic union, as does the Advaitic conception of formless Brahma or the Neo-Platonic concept of God as an experience, in which the loss of individuality of the devotee is complete and irrevocable. It is, as Jiva Gosvami explains, like the union between fire and a piece of iron. A piece of iron, when put ifor a long time in fire, becomes red hot like fire. Every part of it is animated by fire and acquires the characteristics of fire. Still iron remains iron and fire remains fire. Similarly both Krsna and Radha retain Their identity. They are so abosrbed in each other's love and lost in each other's thought that there is hardly any room in Their hearts for the thought of Themselves or anything else. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is the personalized form of this union.

The dialiectic that leads to the emergency of Sri Caitanya is obvious. In Hegelian terminology it may be expressed thus: The rasa-brahma, or Krsna, as the unity of rasa and rasika is the thesis. The unity veers round to its opposite, the duality of Krsna and Radha as a necessary consequence of the dynamism inherent in it. Thus unity is negated by duality. But duality or difference is repugnant to the essential unity of Radha and Krsna. Therefore, both unity and difference are necessarily transcended and reconciled in a higher synthesis, which is neither unity nor difference, but an inconceivable unity in difference. This is Sri Caitanya.

Continuing with Kapoor's text:

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This is the logical process, which automatically leads to the emergence of Sri Krsna as Sri Caitanya. The process is accelerated by Krsna's desire to unie with Radha in order to taste the highest rasa She enjoys. The logical process is the philosphical (tattvika) aspect of the appearance of Sri Caitanya. Krsna's craving for the rasa enjoyed by Radha, which leads to His union with Her is the lila aspect. Philosphy (siddhanta) and lila go together. Siddhanta is the structural background on which lila is based. Siddhanta is dry, but for that reason it cannot be neglected. Krsnadasa Kaviraja says that we should not be indifferent towards siddhanta, because it strengthens our faith. But siddhanta should not be mixed with lila, because it undermines the madhurya (sweetness) of lila.

FIRST DESIRE

Krsna says, "I am the Ultimate Reality, the Supreme Being, perfect in all respecs, and the custodian of all rasa, nay, rasa itself in all its perfection. There is no limit to the bliss eternally enjoyed by Me. I am therefore always self-contented and self-satisfied. There is nothing to disturb My poise. But I do not know what is there in Radha's love that makes Me restless and on account of which She makes Me dance as She pleases. My heart yearns to have a taste of Her love."

Sri Krsna is the Supreme Controller of the universe. Brahma, Visnu, Mahesa, the infinite Brahmandas and the sun, moon and stars all dance at His will; yet Radha's prema so maddens Him that He dances at Her will and cannot for even a moment remain without Her. He sits for hours together on Her way to the Yamuna River or on its bank so that He may be blessed with Her darsana. If She is angry with Him, He goes to the extent of placing His head over Her feet to mollify Her, or praying with folded hands to Her sakhis or manjaris to help Him win Her favour.

Radha's love is so powerful that even the omnipotence and asvarya of Krsna fades into insignificance before Her and He is compelled to cringe and cower before Her. This is beautifully exemplified by a game of hide and seek He was once playing with Radha and the gopis. He found it difficult to hide Himself because of the sweet smell of His body, whcih easily drew them to the place of hiding. He thought of using His aisvarya to dodge them. He assumed the form of the four-armed Visnu and sat quiet and complacent, thinking that they would not be able to recognize Him. The gopis, who saw Him in course of their serach, thought that He was Visnu, not Krsna. They bowed to Him in reverence and passed by. But when Radha came there, it became impossible for Him to retain His four-armed Visnu form. In spite of all His efforts it disappeared and left Him exposed in His two-armed form as Krsna. It is not unnatural, therefore, for Krsna as the Supreme Enjoyer of rasa to crave for the taste of the love of Radha, which is so powerful, so maddening.

But Radha is after all the Hladini-Sakti of Sri Krsna, Who is the reservoir of all kinds of rasa. Is it not surprising that Krsna should crave for the rasa in Radha's love? It is not. This may be explained by means of an anedocte:

The mountain of ice once said to the stream of water of which it was the source, "My good stream! Give me water to drink. I am thirsty." The stream replied, "Sire! you are yurself the source of my water. Why jest with me by asking me for water?"

The mountain said, "Look, I am not jesting. My water is frozen on account of the cold of the hight on which I live. Your water is liquid on account of the heat of the plains. When I see your water flowing and its waves dancing with joy, it awakens my thirst." Similarly the heat of separation in the heart of the devotee makes his Krsna-prema more enjoyable to Krsna than the prema residing in His heart as His sakti, which is comparatively cold and still.

Very nice...

where is it (the book) available from?

I bought this book in some unknown shop in Vrindavana. Maybe Braja sells it at his Loi Bazar online?

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So here is more. I will go a little further through the Second and Third Desires:

SECOND DESIRE

Krsna is sweet (madhura) beyond limit. He is sweetness (madhurya) personified. His sweetness manifests itself prominently in His beautiful form (rupa), His pastimes (lila), His flute (venu) and His prema. Each of these is perfect and wonderful and is manifested in that form only in Krsna and no other incarnation. One peculiarity of Krsna's sweetness, which makes it even more wonderful, is that although it is perfeect in all respects and there is no possibility of its increasing further, yet it increases every moment. Every moment Krsna is more charming and beautiful than before. Every moment He is new.

Krsna's sweetness charms not only the gods and goddesses, but Himself. Because He is eternally new, He cannot sometimes recognize Himself. Once He happened to see His reflection in a pillar studded with gems. He stood aghast looking at it for some time and thinking, "Who is this person, so charming and beautiful?! I never saw such beauty before. I never even heard or imagined anything like it." As He bent His head to have a closer look at it, He saw that person doing the same. "Oh! This is My own refleciton!" He said. "I never kenw that I was so beautiful. Oh! How much I wish I could enjoy Myself, hug and kiss Myself. But how can I!? I cannot hug my reflection. In order to enjoy Myself I have to be other than Myself. I am the visaya or the object of enjoyment, not the asraya or the person who enjoys. I must become the asraya, if I want to enjoy Myself, not the ordinary asraya, such as any devotee is, but the Supreme, the Highest asraya, the asraya of all asrayas, that is, Radharani Herself. For though each devotee enjoys My sweetness, he enjoys it only in the measure that corresponds to his prema. My sweetness can be enjoyed only through the eyes of prema. The higher the prema, the higher the enjoyment. Radharani's prema is the highest and the most perfect. Therefore She alone enjoys My sweetness wholly and enjoys it eternally."

We have said that Krsna's sweetness is limitless and ever-growing. Is there not a contradiction involved in Krsna's sweetness being limitless and ever-growing and Radha enjoying it wholly and eternally? Cannot the contradiction be resolved? It can be resolved. The solution lies in the nature of Krsna's sweetness and Radha's prema and the nature of relationship between the two.

Sweetness of Krsna is relative to the prema of the devotee. It is not something that exists wholly by itself. Just as sweetness of sugar is neither in the sugar, nor in the tongue, but in the union of the two; the sweetness of Krsna lies in the perception of Krsna by the devotee. It is only in the mirror of the heart of the devotee purified by prema that the sweetness of Krsna is reflected. The more the heart is purified by prema, the sweeter is the reflection. To a man whose heart is impure Krsna does not appear to be so sweet, just as to the tongue of a man suffering from jaundice, sugar does not taste sweet. Radha's prema is the highest and in every respect perfet. Therefore the mirror of Her heart is the cleanest and the reflection of Krsn'a sweetness in Her heart is perfect.

But though Radha's prema is perfect in all respects and infinite (vibhu) and there is no possibility of its increasing further, yet it increases every moment. Thus is wonderful and inconceivable, yet it is true.

We have already said that love by its very nature is dissatisfied with itself. The more the love, the greater the dissatisfaction and the greater and the more passionate the longing for love. Radha's love is infinite, therefore Her longing (utkantha) for love is also infinite and ceaseless. It is the inifinite and ceaseless longing for love that makes it grow ceaselessly.

Since Radha's love, though perfect in all respects, grows ever and ever more, the mirror of Her heart, though perfectly clean, grows ever and ever more in cleanliness and the refleciton of Krsn'a beauty in it though perfectly sweet grows ever and ever more in sweetness.

Krsna's sweetness is conditioned by Radh'as love. Krsna's sweetness is perfect because Radha's love is perfect. Radha's love is perfect yet, ever-growing. Therefore Krsna's sweetness is perfect yet ever-growing. Both are perfect and both are ever-growing. Therefore there is no contradiction involved in Radha enjoying the sweetness of Krsna wholly and eternally.

It is therefore natural that Krsna should yearn to enjoy His sweetness wholly and eternally as Radha does. This is possible only if somehow He becomes Radha and loves Himself as Radha does.

In review, Krsna's three desires that caused Him to appear as Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu are presented by the author. He lists these as: 1. The desire to know by experience the nature and sweetness of Radha's love for Himself. 2. The desire to know by experience the nature of His own madhurya (sweetness) as experienced by Radha. 3. The desire to know by experience the kind of happiness Radha feels while enjoying His madhurya.

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THIRD DESIRE

Sri Krsna knows that His sweetness as experienced by Radha is unparalleled. Therefore He desires to enjoy His sweetness as experienced by Radha. He also knows that the rasa Radha experiences simoultaneously with the enjoyment of His sweetness is unequaled. Although He is Himself the embodiment of rasa, the rasa experienced by Him fades into insignificance before the rasa enjoyed by Radha.

How is it that Radha's rasa is superior to even that of Sri Krsna? One reason is that Krsna cannot enjoy His own ever-new and ever-growing madhurya, which Radha enjoys wholly. The other reason is that Her love is the purest and the highest. The purer the love the higher the rasa.

It is not only Radha Who enjoys higher rasa than Krsna, but all the gopis of Vraja. Krsna does not enjoy as much rasa on seeing the gopi as the gopi enjoys on seeing Krsna. The gopi's enjoyment is a million times superior to that of Krsna.

One of the most peculiar characteristics of gopi-prema is that though she desires only Krsna's happiness and does not have the least desire for her own happiness, happines comes to her in abundance. We know that happiness of any particular kind is conditioned by the desire or likening for that kind of happiness. We get satisfaction from food only when we have hunger. But the gopis neither desire their happines nor have any liking for it. They do not desire anything except the happiness of Krsna. For the sake of Krsna they sacrifice everything. When Krsna's flute calls them to the forest at dead of night, they dart towards Him like an arrow, ignoring the norms of society, the injunctions of the Vedas, the commands of the elders, the wild animals of the forest and the thorns and bushes that lie on the way. They do so not for their own pleasure, but for the service and happiness of Krsna. If in the service of Krsna they feel any pleasure, which is an obstacle to service, they curse it.

The reason why the gopis feel happiness even though they do not desire it, is that their love, which by its very nature seeks the happiness of Krsna, not its own, makes them identify their happiness with the happiness of Krsna. Their happiness is not independent of the happiness of Krsna, it is dependent on it.

The gopis dress beautifully and decorate themselves, not for their own pleasure, but for the pleasure of Krsna. They desire pleasure form such activities because they please Krsna. Even their amorous activites like kissing or hugging, which appear to be full of kama (lust) outwardly, are nothing but the manifestation of prema and the desire to cause happiness to Krsna. Kama cannot touch them, because it is opposed ot prema. Kama is darkness, prema is light. Kama is the function (vrtti) of Maya-sakti, prema the funciton of Svarupa-sakti. Maya cannot touch Svarupa-sakti, just as darkness cannot touch light.

Krsna always feels indbeted to the gopis on account of their single-minded and selfless devotion to Him. He does not know how to clear their debt. There is nothing He can give to them in return for their love and service, because they do not desire anything except the service of Krsna. If He gives them greater opportunity for service, the debt increases instead of diminishing.

He has promised that He will reciprocate the bhava of the devotee - ye yatha mam prapadyante tamstathaiva bhajmyaham. But He cannot fulfil His promise in the case of the gopis. If He could He would have cleared His debt. He cannot, because He is the sole visaya or the object of devotion, while the devotees are many. He must satisfy each one of the devotees. His devotion towards any gopi cannot be as single-minded as her devotion towards Him. He, therefore, finds Himself in a predicament. In utter helplesness He declares Himself insolvent by saying: "My dearest gopis! You have for My sake cut asunder all ties of home, etc., which even the yogis find it difficult to cut, and have come to meet Me. Your love for Me is so pure and selfless, that I find it impossible to return it. I shall always remain indebted to you. You can absolve Me from the debt only by your gentleness and love for Me". - Bh. 10.32.22

The declaration has been made in reference to the gopis in general, but it refers to Radha in a sense in which it does not refer to any other gopi. In case of the gopis Krsna tries to reciprocate their love howsoever imperfectly He can. Altough He is the visaya of love He assumes the role of asraya and tries to love and serve them in the same manner in which they love and serve Him, that is, in accoradance with their bhava, called mahabhava. But with respect of Radha He cannot do this, because Her mahabhava is different from the mahabhava of the gopis. It is madanakhya mahabhava, which is peculiar to Her alone. It can neither be reciprocated nor imitated. It is the acme of love, the highest point to which love can reach. Therefore its rasa is also the highest. This rasa is beyond the reach of Krsna. His limitation, with reagard to it is two-fold: 1. He is visaya, not asraya, 2. He lacks in madnakhya mahabhava.

The first of these He may try to overcome by superimposing the role of asraya upon His basic Self as visaya, but the second He cannot, unless He begs, borrows or steals the madhanakhya mahabhava or Radha, which characterizes Her and no one else. But He is so infatuated by the unique rasa which Radha enjoys, that there is no length to which He cannot stoop down, if He only gets an opportunity to relish it. Therefore as Rupa Gosvami says in the language of the rasikas, kutuki, (inquisitive and ingenious), Krsna steals it - "kutuki rasotomam hrtva."

He does not beg or borrow, because He is not so accustomed. He is accustomed to stealing, because He is Himself a rasika and the rasa He relishes in stealing, He cannot find in begging. He started stealing small things like butter and the clothes of the gopis. When He became throughly practised in the art of stealing, He thought of stealing more valuable things. There was nothing more valuable than the bhava of Radha. He thought that the only way by which He could fulfil His three desires was by stealing the bhava of Radha and thus becoming one with Radha, because Radha is nothing except Her bhava. So He stole the bhava of Radha and became one with Her. Since Radha's gaura kanti (golden luster) is a necessary adjunct of Her bhava, He became gaura (golden) from blue. Since Her bhava is the bhava of a bhakta (devotee) He became a bhakta from Bhagavan. He became Mahaprabhu Sri Krsna Caitanya.

The rasikas think that one more reason why Krsna stole the bhava of Radha instead of begging or borrowing it from Her, was that He knew Radha would not oblige Him. Radha knew that His desire to enjoy Her bhava was like crying for the moon. He was not competent to hold or assimilate it and was bound to come to grief if She granted His prayer. This is borne out by the strange and unheard of sattvika bhavas in the shape of convulsions of the body, from which He suffered during the last years of His life, when He was totally aborbed in enjoying the bhava of Radha in the seclusion of Gambhira, His favorite resort in Puri. His joints became loose and hands and feet sometimes lengthned, sometimes contracted and entered the body like the limbs of a tortoise. This indicated that He could not assimilate or absorb in His system the bhava of Radha and His effort to enjoy Radha's bhava, even after stealing it, came to nought. Also, if by stealing Her bhava, He wanted to return Her love by loving Her in the manner in which She loved Him, He could not, and therefore remains Her debtor forever.

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Refering to himself in the third person and as the "young man", in his popular Saints of Bengal[I], Kapoor wrote:
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It was August 1931. A young man, working as reserch scholar in the philosophy department of the University of Allahabad, who had studied along with other systems of Indian and Western, the Advaitic philosophy of Sankaracarya, had come to believe that the philosophy of Sankaracaya was the best, that the formless, attributeless Brahma alone was real and everything else was false. Rama, Krsna, Nrsingha, and the other incarnations, the finite self and the world did not exist. They were all the products of Maya or ignorance. They finite self was Brahma, but regarded itself as jiva only on account of ignorance.

The yound man happened to meet a Vaisnava sannyasi, named Sri Giri Maharaja. Giri Maharaja tried to explain to him that the Advaitavada, which regarded the Sri Vigraha of Bhagavan as illusion, was itself a big illusion. But the Svami coiuld not for long hold his own before the sharp arguments of the young man who was well versed in Sankara Vedanta. He had to acknowledge that he could not satisfactorily counter his arguments. But he said that if he met his Guru Maharaja, who was well versed in the sastras and a siddha saint, he would certainly be able to pull him out of what he called the 'mire of Mayavada'. He also said that the Guru Maharaja lived in Calcutta but was about to come to Allahabad in connection with the opening ceremony of a Matha.

The young man waited anxiously for his arrival, not so much because he wanted to reexamine his stance in respect of Advaitism in the light of what he said, but because he took it as an opportunity to prove, by defeating a famous theologian like him in argument, that Sankara's philosoophy was impregnable, and also, subconsciously perhaps, to fan his own vanity that he could not be vanquished in argument, at least in so far as Advaitism was concerned.

The saint arrived. He stayed in the house of one Mr. De in the New Bairana Colony. Giri Maharaja fixed an appointment with him for the young man.

When the young man arrived, he was first introduced to a band of Tridandi sannyasis who had come with the saint - Bon Maharaja, Puri Maharaja, Nemi Maharaja, Bharati Maharaja and others. Bharati Maharaja had a tall and bulky figure and an imposing personality. He took the young man aside and quoting slokas from the sastras, impressed upon him that in his talks with the saint he should have an open mind but a submissive attitude. The yound man thought that perhaps Giri Maharaja had told everyone about his argumentative nature and they thought that he needed that kind of advice before his meeting with the saint.

The young man was then asked to wait in a room, adjoining the one in which the saint lived. There was a door between the two. After some time the door opnened and the young man saw a mahapurusa with a tall figure and a divine lustre on his face, appearing before him and looking at him with compassionate eyes.

The young man made obeisance to him. He said, "Daso'smi" (I am your servant) and sat down. The young man had come prepared to ask him a number of questions regarding the nature of Brahma, the jiva and the relationship between them. But without giving him a chance to speak, the mahapurusa began to answer his questions. He was grave and his speech was forceful. He went on speaking. During his speech on philosophical subjects he slipped into subjects like Krsna, His form, attibutes, lila and dhama. While speaking on these subjects he got so inspired and overwhelmed with bhava that the young man could not remain unaffected. He listened like one spellbound. He felt that he was transported into the celestial Vraja-dhama and was enjoying the beauty of the dhama and Krsna-lila, as it was being unfolded to him. This was to him a new experience. It was so delilghtful and captivanting that he forgot all about himself and his philosophy. His thought was stilled, his eyes were closed and he was drinking deep on the ambrosia that was being poured into his ears. Suddenly the ambrosial talks ceased and the drama ended. He opened his eyes and saw tha the saint was not there. The saint was so ecstasised that he could not speak further. He sprang up, went into his room and closed the door.

The young man remained sitting, mystified and dumb-founded. On reaching home he came to his own. He began to wonder why he did not ask him all the questions he had thought of asking. But the image of the mahapurusa repeatedly appeared in his mind along with the image of Vraja and Vraja-lila and drove the thoughts away.
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About ten years ago my friend Gaura Purnima dasi was residing in Vrindavana and was at the time involved in assisting Dr. Kapoor in publishing [I]Saints of Bengal. She would speak of him as fondly and reverentially as Kapoor himself, in his brief autobigraphical account, spoke of his mahapurusa, his saint. I asked her what with the superlatives in the text - didn't this risk a distraction on account of their eyepopping ascertiveness? She said she thought language can be adequate as it can be awkwards but readers of this kind of material are able to read beyond the fuss. Therefore she typed the text but did not offer suggestions regarding the incidental colorfulnes of some of the terms.

GP lives in Alachua nowadays and still regards Dr. Kapoor as one of her very dear saints. She found in his sanga a similar sense of wonder and opportunity described by him in his encounter with the saints of his days. She said she was tremendously captivated by the opportunity he presented for her to get acquainted with a world beyond the Iskcon walls - her husband was, at the time, temple president of Krsna Balarama Mandir. She was a charismatic first lady herself, and children duly attending Bhaktivednata Vrindavana Gurukula. Dr. Kapoor's sanga was then a bridge through which she began her sneaking out into question and answers, or bhajan sections with the exciting camp of the babajis.

With her and other friends as well I have had the pleasure of finding that we all agree these books are all, essentially, about one single thing: The supremacy of Srimati Radharani.

Kapoor points out that Krishna as Gauranga Mahaprabhu, did not accomplish His first desire. Some of my friends agree with me that consequently the second desire, that of extending the mercy to the jivas through the sankirtana way, is then the accomplished desire, and the one which consequently takes the throne. We also like to see that the Supremacy of Srimati Radharani is irrevocable and indisputable and the defeat of Mahaprabhu was due to the Krsna half in Him. Thus, we conclude, the nagari people are our cousins but our sisterhood is in the manjari twist. But how can talks like this be more than the indulgence permitted to each other by friends, abandoned in memories while making appointments with future possibilites?

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correction: Gaura Purnima's husband wasn't temple president at Krisna Balarama mandir but vice temple president.