Nitai's World

[Nitaidas]

Here is a great passage from Sri Krishna Prem, a learned member of our sampradaya by the way [vide Kapoor's treatment of his life in Experiences in Bhakti:

One of the greatest obstacles to the finding of Truth is the belief current among religious people that Truth is written down in some book or books which constitute the "sacred scripture" for them. The orthodox Christians consider the Bible to be the inspired word of God in spite of its making a number of statements of fact which are quite certainly incorrect, and orthodox Hindus say that the Vedas are apaurusheya, which presumably means that they have no human authors, in spite of the fact that they are quite obviously the compositions of certain rishis. Similarly, every religion and sect has its holy books which are taken on trust without question although a great deal of ingenuity has to be expended upon attempts to make their statements square with knowledge derived from other sources.

[Opening paragraph of his Initiation into Yoga, p 31]

Why are there no such sane and reasonable voices in CV these days? This "taking on trust without question" is where Fundamentalism gets its nourishment.

[gerard]

Yes, Krishna Prem wrote some good stuff, I read most of his books but does anyone know what his gaudiya vaisnava writings, if any, are?
All I've seen are theosophical writings. More or less theosophical.

[JD33]

I have never found any thus far.

[Nitaidas]

Sept 10, 2010 17:04:41 GMT -6 gerard said:

Yes, Krishna Prem wrote some good stuff, I read most of his books but does anyone know what his gaudiya vaisnava writings, if any, are?
All I've seen are theosophical writings. More or less theosophical.

I don't know if he wrote anything directly on CV. I am finally reading his Initiation into Yoga, and I just got his Yoga of the Bhagavad-gita. His Yoga of the Kathopanisad is on the way. I don't understand his relationship with Theosophy and Madam Blavatsky. Talk about fictional mystics. Anyway, his disciple Madhav Ashish seems to have respected her work and maybe he did, too. They wrote a book together called Man, the Measure of All Things that is a commentary on stanzas supposedly "revealed" to the good madam by some ascended master. There seem to be some collections of Sri Krishna Prem's letters that I would like to look at and Madhav Ashish was writing a biography of Sri Krishna Prem when he died (1997). Perhaps that will come out sometime and clear up some of these questions. His guru was a Bengali woman named Yasoda Mai who was initiated by one of the Radharaman Goswamis, I believe. It would be great to turn up something clearly influenced by CV in his work, but perhaps he kept that to himself.

[gerard]

As far as I know Mrs Chakravarti took sannyasa in 1928 from her husband, who was the theosophist dr Gyanendra Nath Chakravarti, the first vice-chancellor of Lucknow University (prof Nixon taught there) and Secretary of the Theosophical Society. She received the name Yashoda Ma. Prof. Nixon took sannyasa from her and received the name Sri Krishna Prem.

Sri Krishna Prem served his Radha-Krishna murtis faithfully all his life in the ashram Almora, but from what I read he only mentions once or twice Sri Caitanya very briefly. His outlook is theosophical. Also in his books on the Gita and the Kathopanishad.

I only have an abridged version of his 1938 "The Search For Truth" in Narendra Nath Kaul's 1980 "Writings of Sri Krishna Prem, an Introduction" and, again, no mention of Mahaprabhu.

In his correspondence with Dilip Kumar Roy which Roy quotes in his "Sri Aurobindo Came To Me" there is no mention of CV either.

Roy also wrote a biography of Krishna Prem called "Yogi Sri Krishnaprem" but I have never seen that.

Ramana Maharshi called him "a rare combination of a jnani and a bhakta", so perhaps to the world he was a jnani and with his murtis he was a bhakta.

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother were also very impressed by him.

[Nitaidas]

Sept 11, 2010 14:02:04 GMT -6 gerard said:

As far as I know Mrs Chakravarti took sannyasa in 1928 from her husband, who was the theosophist dr Gyanendra Nath Chakravarti, the first vice-chancellor of Lucknow University (prof Nixon taught there) and Secretary of the Theosophical Society. She received the name Yashoda Ma. Prof. Nixon took sannyasa from her and received the name Sri Krishna Prem.

Sri Krishna Prem served his Radha-Krishna murtis faithfully all his life in the ashram Almora, but from what I read he only mentions once or twice Sri Caitanya very briefly. His outlook is theosophical. Also in his books on the Gita and the Kathopanishad.

I only have an abridged version of his 1938 "The Search For Truth" in Narendra Nath Kaul's 1980 "Writings of Sri Krishna Prem, an Introduction" and, again, no mention of Mahaprabhu.

In his correspondence with Dilip Kumar Roy which Roy quotes in his "Sri Aurobindo Came To Me" there is no mention of CV either.

Roy also wrote a biography of Krishna Prem called "Yogi Sri Krishnaprem" but I have never seen that.

Ramana Maharshi called him "a rare combination of a jnani and a bhakta", so perhaps to the world he was a jnani and with his murtis he was a bhakta.

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother were also very impressed by him.

Kapoor says this in his The Saints of Vraja:

She [Manika Devi, later Yasoda Mai] added [speaking to Ronald Nixon, later Sri Krishna Prem]: "You know that my husband is not only an educationist, but also a philosopher and a leading theosophist. I was also interested in theosophy. But theosophy did not satisfy us. Then both of us turned to Vaisnavism. I went to Vrndavana and took initiation from Acarya Sri Balakrsna Goswami of the Radharamana temple. Since then I have been absorbed in Krsna-prema-sadhana. I want to keep my sadhana a very closely guarded secret. But Krsna is so naughty that time or no time, He pulls me near Him whenever he wishes. At that time a light emanates from his feet, which makes me unconscious of my body and the world outside. I do not do anything. It is He who pulls me and drowns me in the ocean of His ambrosial presence and company." (SV, pp. 296-7)

Kapoor doesn't cite a source and I wish he did. He is usually pretty good at that. Anyway, that is how he presents their relationship to CV.

I also have a copy of Roy's book Yogi Sri Krishnaprem coming through interlibrary loan. I will report on it when it arrives. I have never seen his Search for Truth.

[Deleted]

Jay Nitai,

More information can be found on Pathbari website which I built . Here is an encounter of Sri KrishnaPremJi with Sripad Ram Das Babaji Maharaja which I published as part of english biography of Babaji Maharaja.

In 1339 ( 1932-1933) BABAJI MAHASAYA was in Munger to attend a conference of Vaishnavas. The conference started on 12 Poush, Thursday ( 29th Dec, 1932 ) BABAJI MAHASAYA was here on invitation from Maharaja Raghunanadan Prasad Singh. Also present was Krishnaprema Maharaj, originally from Scotland. Prior to his DIKSHA he was known as Ronal H. Nixon, M.A (Oxford). In India he came in contact with Sri Jnanendra Nath Chakraborty, Vice Chancellor of Allahabad University and his wife Jasoda Mai. It was from Jasoda Mai that he got DIKSHA and direction of the path to Bhakti. On 29th Dec 1932 at around 12 noon, Sri Krishnapremaji delivered a lecture on “SIKSHA-ASTAKA” in the presence of about 10,000 devotees. The next day he called upon BABAJI MAHASAYA for darshan. Mahatma Gauranga Das Babaji ( Disciple of Babaji MAHASAYA and DIKSHA GURUDEV of Sri O.B.L Kapoor ) , who was at the side of BABAJI MAHASAYA remarked “This is my BABA MAHARAJ”. Instantly Krishnapremaji fell at  BABAJI MAHASAYA’s feet- his face was flushed red for some time.

After spending couple of days in a divine association of BABAJI MAHARAJA, at the time of departure Krishnapremaji fell at BABAJI MAHASAYA’s feet like a felled tree. BABAJI MAHASAYA did an encore. He then told all around him that, much could not be expected from the people of our country. People would believe foreigners. One must be born in a foreign land. This is HIS wish, otherwise how could such things happen? Then he asked his companion –“What do you imbibe from him?”. BABAJI MAHASAYA himself replied “Seeing him one enjoys the all encompassing mercy of Sri Nitaichand and one is reminded of Mahaprabhu’s Saying – “ Prithibite Jato Achey Nagaradi Gram | Sarbotro prachar hobey more nam”.


Original Website link can be found here on Nitaisundar.com.

www.nitaisundar.com/site/Main.html?pagename=BabajiMahasaya-Bio3.html

Jay Nitai

[Nitaidas]

I just got Dilip Kumar Roy's Yogi Sri Krishnaprem in and have thumbed through it. It looks good. It has some nice pictures in it of Sri Krishna Prem at various ages and one of his guru, Yazoda Mai. There are a number of letters included in the book from Sri Krishna Prem to DKR and some correspondence between him and Sri Aurobindo. In his letters one can really see more clearly the influence of CV on Sri Krishna Prem. He quotes for instance the Siksastaka verse, AzliSya vA padarataM (आश्लिष्य वा पादरतां ) in one letter and says in another letter:

"A learned article I read the other day in the Orient described Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu as 'plunging into the ocean maddened to ecstasy by its beauty.' Hai Hai! (alas!) and I suppose it was the beauty of the muddy puddle of rain-water on the site where now stands Radhakunda that led Sri Caitanya Deva to do the same there? The majesty of the ocean may be a great thing, but it was not that which had intoxicated Sri Caitanya, but the infinitely more maddening sense-destroying beauty of Sri Krsna whom he saw standing in front of him."

I will post more on this as I find more. It seems pretty clear that Sri Krishna Prem was a deeply devoted follower of Mahaprabhu. He even apparently wrote an article on doing japa of the holy names (though none of the pictures of him show him with a bead bag). I will also post some of the pictures.

[Nitaidas]

Wow! There has been a lot of activity on the board over the weekend. It is great to see everyone participating in various ways. I was away for a few days. I went to the South Asia Conference in Madison, Wisconsin last Thursday and got back last night. I heard some interesting papers on various subjects. It is always nice to see what the younger scholars are up to. There wasn't much on Caitanya Vaisnavism but there were papers on topics near by. I heard some interesting papers on the translation of Sanskrit texts into Persian sponsored by the Akbar and by later members of the royal succession. The Akbar had the Mahabharata translated no less than three times. He himself was illiterate and maybe even dislexic. Dara Sikoh was perhaps the most amazing. His sponsored translation of the Upanisads into Persia was translated into Latin and was the first version to reach Europe and was influential on Schopenhauer. Anyway, I learned a lot and got charged up to do more work on Sanksrit studies.

[Nitaidas]

Another great poke at religion from Jesus and Mo.

[Nitaidas]

Hi All. Sorry for my protracted absence. I have been out in Colorado helping my mother move from a big house into a small one. I have not even had a chance to think, much less to read or translate. I have had some interesting and depressing opportunities to meditate on the burdens, both physical and psychological, of possessions, however.

I will be back in K-ville this coming Saturday and then maybe I can get myself back on track. No other trips planned until after Christmas. Thanks to those who have carried on the conversation and posting. I am needless to say way behind, but I will try to get caught up. Hope all are well.

I will try to pick up where I left off when I get back.

Nitai das

[Nitaidas]

Once again I'm back. Sorry for the silence of the last week or so. I had to visit my wife's family in Kentucky, the usual end of year pilgrimage to visit her father who is pushing 100. It was a good trip, but an exhausting one. The food is too rich and too frequent. Plus everyone is always sick with something. I was not feeling too well myself when I arrived back home. A little rest is all I need to restore me, I hope. No more trips for at least two months, I hope.

The semester will be starting next week and that will take a bite out of my time. I will be teaching only one class, but even that will slow my other work down considerably. I am still reading some of the books I will be teaching. Anyway, it should be fun. I have some interesting texts lined up and some ideas for outside projects for my students.

Happy New Year to Everyone. I hope this year will bring everyone more insight and bhakti.

[Nitaidas]

It is kind of quiet here today. I feel like I should try to stir things up, but I rather like the peace. Here we are at the end of the month of January in the year 2011 by the Christian calendar, 5237 years from Krsna's birth and 5112 from his ascension. That is a long time. A lot has happened since then. Our lives are but flashes compared to that and to the whole event of cosmic manifestation. How should we spend the time remaining to us, before we are dragged off into invisibility or otherness? I take criticism of IGM is not the preferred use of our time here. Well what should we do? I can go back to my translation activities. There are billions of things to translate. Do we want lila or more details of sadhana? The latter would be sensible since it would lead to the former. In the theaters of your own hearts the play of Radha and Krsna would unfold. Some of us even with sadhana going well need some prompting from the great visionaries of the past to prime the pumps so to speak. A little lila to start the imaginative visualization moving.

Should we answer questions and doubts that our members have, in so far as we are able (the "we" is not the royal we or the authorial "we;" it the we of us as a group)? I have many projects and I love them all. Plus I love learning. When I read I cannot help myself. Thoughts pop into my head regularly: "humm maybe I should read so-and-so" or "that sounds interesting. Maybe I should look more into that." Most recently the writings of Augustine have sent a siren's call and the life and thought of the martyr for science Giordano Bruno. What do we know about the latter? In this way I am always pulled in dozens of directions. It makes it hard to focus on just one project and one line of thought at a time. I am like an unfortunate child in a candy store, unfortunate because I have so little money (time). As you look around this symposium you will find plenty of evidence my brief and apparently abandoned (at least for the while) flirtations with texts and ideas. Anyway, I am interested in hearing what suggestions you, the members of this forum, may have for how we spend the next few years until the rising wave of time washes over us and scatters us apart like flotsam.

[sita]

Namaskar,
I find the works of Julian of Norwich beautiful and revealing, she is said to be the first women to be printed in the English language, may be you have come across her, if not she is worth looking in to.
When I was searching for information about Baba Premananda Bharati I came across an interesting sujestion, which I think came from the professor Dr Carney. It said that there may have been a link between Premananda Bharati and Bhaktivinoda Thakura in regards to a book called the Kaybalion. I think you must be aware of that book published by the Yogi publication society. Its authors are unnamed, I have been reading it on line and it is very good, to me that is as I have studied a lot of Hermetic astrology and it is along the same lines. Well I just thought you may know something about that connection, between P.B. Baba and Bhaktivinoda Thakur, I could in fact believe it was written by them having read their works and also as there is a third unnamed author who was American. There is another thing which has caught my imagination and that is how similar they are in facial appearance, who knows they could be related, they were both conected to that famous Hindhu college in Calcutta born twenty years apart and wasn't B.T. natal family more in the line of Shivites like Premananda Bharati before he met Lord Jagadbandhu.
Just a few thoughts to share, must run.

[malati]

Hi Nitaidasji

Thank you for this site and for sharing your translations.

Because you asked, I will tell you that I am very interested in the translations of the commentaries by the GV acharyas. Which ones, I dont know, somehow I have a feeling that there are some that have not been translated into english.

I know that they sometimes come as very voluminous and the translations therefore would take much time, would require deeper engagement on the texts and thus hard work.

Although, at present, your realizations might be somewhat novel, I still trust that your translations would be neutral, not be bias, not like those of IGM which render their translations in support of their ideologies.

BTW, please convey to Jagadishdas my best wishes for his ashram project. The "trad" lines should have a representation in the U.S. by way of a center because GVism in the U.S. is always thought to be the IGM way.