Establishing the CV brand

[Ramdas]

And to be successful, infrastructure is required. And that takes money. There is no good reason anyone should have to travel to India to get diksha, and they could be putting their health at risk in doing so, and likely would be. There has to be a pool of qualified gurus that are non-Indian, and both male and female ones. There has to be education at all levels: Primary, secondary and higher. Degree programs need to be there. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi University in Iowa offers BA, MA and PhD degrees in software engineering, for example. Not that we have to necessarily offer anything outside of Doctor of Divinity degrees ourselves.

What is the point of the handful of people that left IGM and were reinitiated, and then it just stops there without any further propagation? Yes, it is a good thing, undoubtedly, in and of itself. But it should extend beyond that if CV is to really expand globally. Some of the sishyas Srivatsa Goswami has in the West may already be building the infrastructure on their own as we speak, and we don't have a clue as to how many there are out there.

[Ramdas]

And then there is the whole global infrastructure of ISKCON. If they were to somehow come back into the fold of mainstream CV, consider the possibilities. Considering all of their problems over the decades, they may wake up to the fact that such a move is their best option. It would take some steps to gradually absorb them, and would probably not happen overnight. They just have to resolve to do so.

[Ramdas]

But there is still a recalcitrant dilemma: The aspects of religion and religious institutions that run counter to the aims of sadhana. Society has been evolving over the centuries, but technology has been instrumental in keeping the wheels of progress turning. For 99.9% of people just a few centuries ago, sadhana was not even possible to any significant degree given the basic struggles of daily life. Literacy itself was extremely rare.

[JD33]

Mar 2, 2020 16:44:09 GMT -6 Ramdas said:

But there is still a recalcitrant dilemma: The aspects of religion and religious institutions that run counter to the aims of sadhana. Society has been evolving over the centuries, but technology has been instrumental in keeping the wheels of progress turning. For 99.9% of people just a few centuries ago, sadhana was not even possible to any significant degree given the basic struggles of daily life. Literacy itself was extremely rare.

Ram Dassji,

There seem to always be obstacles to bhaktas performing Bhajan Sadhana. I think this is true especially at this present time. But may be true at all times. If people KNEW the experiential out-come of Bhajan Sadhana, then all would do it. It is the anarthas that come up and blind us, discourage us, lead us away. This is where Shankar's thoughts might help and the Truths from the Bhagavat holistically is helpful. Bhedabhed - understanding it all - and then enter into the acintya part experientially.

If we want to make-happier RK, Gurudev, etc and lovingly inter-act with them - then we need to dive deep into Bhajan and go through the levels of Realization that Shankar and the Bhagavat talks about. This involves letting go of ourselves - who we identify as - completely. When we approach this it is very scary for many people and their (our) stuff comes up and we get stuck, or worse we regress.

The audience here is ex-IGM, except for Ed, and so you might not understand what I am saying. Nitai Dassji is a wide read scholar - he understands.

[Ramdas]

Good to see you back here Jagadish. All points taken and thanks for that. Still, I stand by my assertion that our modern society today via technology makes for more leisure time for bhajan/sadhana, even if someone has a day job and is raising a family.

[Ramdas]

On the subject of acintya, you might be in intested in this title: Something Deeply Hidden by Sean Carroll

[Ramdas]

I think it would be difficult to find anyone more widely read on our texts than Nitaiji. He and I sat with the late Ed Dimock in Bengali class at University of Chicago grad school going through texts such as Manjari-svarup-nirupana.

You mention the levels of realization in BP. Beyond that is the meditation not mentioned therein, i.e. the sadhaka's siddha deha specifics as transmitted by the guru, in the context of lila smaranam.

This thread was created as just a musing about any potential appeal at all for westerners that might have some interest in CV, rather than IGM, which currently is all they know about.

[JD33]

Nitai-Gaur, Radhey-Shyam; Hare Krsna, Hare Ram. Jai Nitai !

Thx for your input Ram Dassji.
Was ED Dimock actually into the text? In what way?


This is CV speciality - the Siddha Deha. One important thing to note is that one does need to do Lila Smaranam - (which is a 2 year everyday training with a qualified Guru). The two paths of entrance into RK Lila is by the Maha-Mantra alone or by Maha-Mantra combined with Lila Smaranam practice.

[Ramdas]

I wish I could edit posts in guest mode, but alas that is not possible. I would have to be signed in when I posted. Maybe Pandit Nitaidas Ji can do that?

A little history: When I was in the Sanksrit department at BBT circa 1977, we were going through BP commentaries with Shukavak Das, who had received his Masters in Sanskrit from University of Toronto having studied with an eminent Indian scholar there. Also at U of C, I sat in on some of Nitai's Sanskrit classes on texts by Sri Sanatana Goswami, and in my own Sanskrit classes went through texts on Navya-nyaya (nyaya or logic being an important philosophical system of the sad-darshana or the 6 systems). Also, I read through the original with translation of Baladev's Govinda-bhasya (achintya-bhedabheda-vada) on the Brahma-sutra. So, I guess not the typical ex-IGM person.

[JD33]

Nitai-Gaur, Radhey-Shyam; Hare Krsna, Hare Ram.

Yes, I am so glad !!! What a great commitment !!

[Ramdas]

My BA is in Philosophy, and specifically the philosophy of science. When it comes to unraveling the mystery of consciousness, there have been many new discoveries in neurology over the past several decades in understanding the human brain. It behooves us to take everything in context, not just look at some centuries old Sanskrit texts.

For my Master's thesis I was considering the life of Sri Nityananda Prabhu, but had trouble finding much in the historical Bengali texts on the subject. From what I remember, there were a few relatively small sections in Chaitanya Bhgavata, and maybe a few other sources. It was so many years ago now.

[meeno8]

I can't speak for Professor Dimock. Based on his reactions to the text, I would have say he was into it beyond just letting us use it for the class. I guess you had to be there to know what I mean. In his role as siksha guru with respect to the Bengali language, we were his sishyas. That role is different from the diksha guru, and I suppose it can be applied to any teacher in any subject, such as someone giving guitar lessons. Sundarananda Vidyavinode discusses the different types of guru in his book on the guru. For example, there is the patha-pradarshika guru, who shows one the path.

Bottom line: He was very knowledgable of Bengali, but also was a great guy overall.

[JD33]

Nitai-Gaur, Radhey-Shyam; Hare Krsna, Hare Ram.

I hope there are some people who want to focus as a group on practice and create a center for people to get a taste of CV Rasik Tradition. I have worked hard for a number of years and spent alot of money on projects that only some manifested. It takes committed people and money - where are the people? Is it YOU who want this? Kindly respond.