Bipinchandra Pal

[subaldas]

I was just thinking about this as I sat on the lanai doing my brahma muhurta meditation. Just as Advaita brought about the incarnation of Chaitanya, I feel we are called to bring about a new expression of God-dess, Radha Krishna, for the West. If this religion is to do any lasting good in the West, it has to become more than an Indian religion, it needs to be a universal religion. The symbols and myths need a radical make-over. It's the scholars and intellectuals who need to do this, just as they created the religion in the first place. One cannot simply create symbols and myths intellectually, but one can create a spiritual community which allows such symbols and myths to emerge from our collective unconscious. I would very much like to see this forum be such a community.

[Nitaidas]

subaldas said:

I was just thinking about this as I sat on the lanai doing my brahma muhurta meditation. Just as Advaita brought about the incarnation of Chaitanya, I feel we are called to bring about a new expression of God-dess, Radha Krishna, for the West. If this religion is to do any lasting good in the West, it has to become more than an Indian religion, it needs to be a universal religion. The symbols and myths need a radical make-over. It's the scholars and intellectuals who need to do this, just as they created the religion in the first place. One cannot simply create symbols and myths intellectually, but one can create a spiritual community which allows such symbols and myths to emerge from our collective unconscious. I would very much like to see this forum be such a community.

I would, too. I also think that CV must move beyond India while still maintaining a strong connection, both genetic and experiential, with the roots of the tradition. The question is how do we do this? I think such a reinvention of the tradition requires a deep understanding of the tradition as it has come down to us and a firm commitment to practice. I'm not sure any of us are there yet. Some of us have the practice and some of us have the understanding, but none of us have both nor, I believe, and I may be wrong here, do any of us really have enough of either. If we try to reinvent too soon, we will just make a mess of things. We will be tearing down a palatial structure we don't really understand and building in it place something that may be architecturally unsound, not to mention hideous.

We have at least one thing in our favor: we, or at least many of us do, have a common goal in mind, the reinvigoration, reincarnation, of the CV tradition as a worldwide religio-scientific world view. That is something to start with.

[Nitaidas]

[next piece. I will bind this all together once I get a considerable amount done. It will be available as a pdf eventually.]

Bijayakrishna had been of a peculiarly pious and spiritual turn of mind from his infancy. Faith in the supernatural is universally the root of all religion. It is in this form that man's first consciousness of the Unseen awakens. This faith is in some found to be an original element of their very nature and constitution. They seem to be born with this overpowering instinct. Bijayakrishna belonged to this class. They had an image of Shree Krishna in the family temple of the Goswamis of Santipore where Bijayakrishna was born. It was called Shyama-Sundara. When a mere boy Bijayakrishna used to go to this family sanctuary and if there were no one present there, he would try to drag this image out of its pedestal saying that he must come out and play with him. The boy Bijayakrishna could not think that this image of Shyama-Sundara was not like himself a living, moving human child. Though naturally with advancing age and expanding experience the illusion that this image was a living thing or person like himself was dispelled, the original spiritual intuitions of which this was an early uncritical manifestation remained. And these roused in the boy Bijayakrishna his first conscious spiritual questionings when he was only about twelve years of age, at the death of a dear playmate. Bijayakrishna writes in a short autobiography of his that when after the death of his friend he went out to the gardens and fields where he had so often walked and played with him, and saw the trees and the creepers there, he asked, could it be possible that while these inanimate objects were still there, the friend whom he so dearly loved could alone pass out of existence forever. He found it impossible to believe this. And this bereavement only brought him into direct inner contact with the world that lies on the other side of the grave or the cremation ground.

[more later]

[Nitaidas]

[next piece]

The direct awakening of Bijayakrishna's Conscience or Reason or Soul came later, when as a young man. He went about among the disciples of his family administering the traditional mantra to them. One day an old woman came and fell at his feet, crying for salvation. And this at once led Bijayakrishna seriously to ask himself if he was himself a saved soul. "Have I attained this mukti or salvation? And, if not, how can I help another to get this mukti or salvation?" This was the beginning of that searching after mukti or salvation, or God which ended in Bijayakrishna's final illumination and liberation that established his great and unique spiritual influence over the whole of Bengal.

The immediate result of this query was that Bijayakrishna renounced his hereditary profession as a Guru or spiritual guide of his ancestral flock. He commenced to search for God and salvation. His first attempt of enquiry was along the old Vedantic line. He had already studied Sanskrit and now he applied himself to the study of the Vedanta under a renouned Pandit of the locality. His Vedantic studies made him an ardent Vedantin of the Sankara school. He imbibed the popular Vedantic belief that all was Brahman and he himself was none other than the Absolute. There was no room for worship or Bhakti in this Vedantic thought and culture. Bijayakrishna thus found himself driven into a kind of agnosticism or deism about this time. Having renounced his family vocation, Bijayakrishna resolved to earn his living by entering the medical profession and with that object coming to Calcutta he joined the Vernacular Department of the Calcutta Medical College.

[end Chapter II. more tomorrow]

[Nitaidas]

[Next chapter]

III

From Loneliness to Spiritual Comradeship

In the meantime Bijayakrishna was passing through a lonely moral and spiritual desert. With the awakening of his conscience following upon the incident in the house of one of his disciples, Bijayakrishna commenced to lose his belief in his ancestral faith. The attempt to follow his old family vocation became impossible. His sensitive regard for truth and honesty openly rebelled against the practice of what he had found out to be a huge lie. The help that he sought from the study of the Vedanta while entirely demolishing the remnant of his old faith and driving him away from the worship of popular Hindu gods and goddesses, gave little or no solace to his struggling soul. For a time he tried to cultivate the Samkara Vedantic idea of his essential unity with Brahman, but in this he found no room for that loving communion with his Maker for which his soul had been thirsting. Worship was to Bijayakrishna the very breath of life. Denied this privilege, he became exceedingly restless. He did not know which way to turn. He could not go back to the fancies and falsehoods of popular Hindu devotional exercises. He did not believe in the truth of the popular Hindu gods and goddesses. There was no place for these in that Vedantic thought and discipline which now appealed to him as the highest and indeed the only Truth. For a time Bijayakrishna spent his days and even his nights in this torment of his soul that constantly yearned for communion and worship, which, however, had been declared as "avidyavadvishayanee" or mere illusion by the new philosophy of life which he imbibed from his Vedantic studies. His companions in the Sanskrit College first, and in the Medical College next, felt no inner need of communion with their God. They were fully satisfied with the life of the general run of people, eating, drinking and being pleased with the pleasant things of the flesh or at the most with the pleasures that came from their intellectual pursuits and exercises.

[more tomorrow]

[Nitaidas]

[more of this]

In course of his earlier goings about among his 'flock' in North Bengal, Bijayakrishna had met a small group of Brahmos whose life and conversation had by their truthfulness and purity drawn him very much to them. He could not as yet agree with their theology, much less could he appreciate the protest against current social usages of these people, however true and good they might be. But he was struck by their regard for the truth; they never uttered an untruth, not even in joke, such really was the keen regard for veracity among that early generation not only of Brahmos but also of the general body of our new English-educated classes. And he was further struck by the absolute purity of their life and their fidelity to their nuptial vow. That was more remarkable. Because in those days sexual morality was very lax among the higher and educated middle class of Bengalee society. Notwithstanding theological and social differences, Bijayakrishna had been very powerfully drawn to these Brahmo youngmen of Bogra. They too felt drawn by the honesty and piety of this scion of the most respected of our Vaishnava families. They perhaps saw that such transparent honesty and fervent piety could not possibly accommodate itself to the current beliefs and practices of his own people. They therefore kept themselves in touch with this young seeker after God as they already found him to be. On learning that Bijayakrishna had gone to Calcutta, and was passing through a somewhat keen spiritual crisis, they wrote to him to try and meet Maharshi Devendra Nath Tagore, and if he felt so inclined occasionally attend the weekly Divine Service of the Brahmo Samaj at Jorasanko, over which the Maharshi presided. The sermons which he preached at this time in these weekly services were being published regularly in the Tattvabodhini Patrika, which had a fairly large circulation among the new generation of cultured and educated Bengalees. His friends at Bogra referred to these sermons also in their correspondence with Bijayakrishna.

Bijayakrishna's first visit to the Brahmo Samaj gave a new turn to his life. Maharshi Devendra Nath was the head of the theistic movement of Raja Ram Mohun Roy at this time. Keshub had just about the same time discovered the close affinity of his own faith and ideal with those of the Brahmo Samaj and had joined it. The day when Bijayakrishna went to the weekly prayer meeting of the Samaj, Devendra Nath was himself in the pulpit. The sermon which he preached at once made a very strong appeal to Bijayakrishna. Here he found a new solace to his troubled spirit. The prayer of the Maharshi touched Bijayakrishna very deeply. In the Brahmo Samaj he found a religion that while being essentially Vedantic, was yet inspired by a spirit of devotion to the Brahman and which pursued a liturgy wherein there was great room for the cultivation of that love and real worship of the Lord for which Bijayakrishna's soul had been panting, "as the hart panteth for the brook." And thus in his first participation in the devotional exercises of the Brahmo Samaj, Bijayakrishna found for the first time in his new life and awakened soul consciousness, that peace which he had been vainly seeking in the arid philosophy of the Samkara-Vedanta.

[end chapter III, more tomorrow]

[Nitaidas]

IV

Struggle Between Truth and Tradition

From this time forward Bijayakrishna found himself forced into a soul-trying struggle between what he believed to be right and true and what the sanctified traditions of his family, his caste and his community prescribed for the discipline and conduct of the life of his people. The first conflict was with the laws of caste. As a Brahmin, Bijayakrishna had to put on the sacred thread. One day in his village home Bijayakrishna was holding forth to a company of his neighbors on the "Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man," which was at that time a very prominent ideal in the Brahmo Samaj; and as a logical proposition following that Ideal, he entered his protest strongly against the system of caste current in the Hindu society. Bijayakrishna, though not believing in these caste distinctions, still mechanically observed the rules enjoined upon him as a Brahmin by this institution, in the matter of eating and drinking, and he still sported in the same unthinking way, his sacred thread. A little boy listening to his talk, asked him, after he had finished his discourse, if he did not believe in caste, and indeed, thought it to be a sin against man and God, how was it that he had his sacred thread on him which was the essential sign of caste? This roused Bijayakrishna's conscience to the sin of his conduct, and he immediately took out his Brahminical thread and threw it away, thus very definitely putting himself out of the pale of the Brahminical hierarchy. This was a very serious thing in those days, and any Brahmin seen without this sign of his caste immediately found himself excommunicated. The Brahmin who gives up his thread becomes by that one act immediately a Sudra or even worse, a Candala; for not even non-Brahmins like, for instance, the Kayasthas and Vaidyas of Bengal, would touch him or take water from his hands, not to mention cooked food. It is not so now. Nobody cares to look for the sacred thread on the body of the Brahmin, and as this sacred thread was called for the performance of the Brahmin's daily devotions, which few care to observe now, it has practically lost its ancient use and sanctity. it was not so when Bijayakrishna first threw it away.

His mother, the only surviving parent of his, was so overwhelmed with fear and grief at this outrage against the family laws by her son, that she literally fell at his feet and threatened to kill herself unless he put on the sacred thread again. Filial piety and affection won over his moral conviction, but only for the time being, Bijayakrishna resumed his Brahminical thread out of regard for his mother's feelings. His love for his mother was in fact part of his religion; filial duty was as sacred to him as religious duty. Bijayakrishna never for a moment throughout his life neglected it. But this resumption of his sacred thread however made literally a hell out of his inner life. He found no peace. He could hardly carry on his daily devotions in the face of this flagrant violation of his conscience. When he resolved for the second time to throw away his sacred thread, a friend who had himself little faith in these caste observances, asked him, "if this inoffensive piece of soft twine stung him." Bijayakrishna replied with the intense candour characteristic of his inner constitution that this sacred thread literally stung him like a scorpion. Having determined upon throwing it away, he went to his mother, and told her that unless she permitted him to do it, he could not throw his sacred thread away; but the alternative of his keeping it on would be his death. He would surely die if this struggle continued for long. This frightened his mother, who now gave her permission to Bijayakrishna, to follow loyally what his conscience commanded.

But though his mother somehow reconciled herself to the heresy of her dear son, his family and community could not put up with it. Bijayakrishna was put out of caste. The present generation of our educated people can hardly realise what this social ostracism meant sixty or seventy years ago. It not only meant the breakup of tender relations of love and service with one's own flesh and blood, but also refusal of necessary social services like those of domestics and barbers and washermen. But the generation to which Bijayakrishna belonged gladly faced all these persecutions for their conscience's sake, and indeed found a pleasure and peace in braving these privations and sufferings which nothing else could give.

[End Chapter IV]

[Nitaidas]

[Next Chapter]

V

Through Sufferings and Sacrifices

On Bijayakrishna's joining the Brahmo Samaj first as a mere worshipper in Maharshi Devendra Nath's congregation, and later on as a missionary of the Samaj along with Keshub Chunder Sen and one or two others, commenced a life of severe and continued sufferings and sacrifices. On giving up his hereditary vocation of a Vaishnava Guru that had placed his family in a state of comparative affluence, due to fairly large contributions made by their flock, Bijayakrishna had started preparing himself for the medical profession from the dual motive of acquiring financial independence for himself and his family and also as a means of rendering much-needed service to the poor and the sick of the community. But when the call came for devoting himself to the mission work of the Samaj, he had to give up the idea of adopting the medical profession also. And hencefoward he threw himself completely upon Providence for the support of himself and his family. And Providence put him under a very severe discipline at this time. For weeks he had hardly enough to keep body and soul together. His wife and other members of the family were forced to live upon the barest doles of rice and salt, while Bijayakrishna going about preaching the new religion wherein he had found peace and spiritual inspiration and strength, had sometimes to go absolutely without any food from morning to night, and was even driven by the gnawing hunger of healthy youth, to eat clay taken up from the bed of some of the public tanks of Calcutta.

Paramahamsa Ramakrishna had followed the old and mediaeval way for the training of his mind and body. Living upon remnants of the offerings to the Goddess Kali whose priest he was. Ramakrishna placed himself under mediaeval physical and psychological disciplines, and taking in one hand a silver coin and on the other a clod of earth, he used to transfer these from one hand to the other, mentally crying out silver is dust, dust is silver. It was really an application of the Samkara Vedantic formula of Brahma Satyam Jaganmithya, to acquire absolute indifference to the temptations of worldly wealth. Similarly, with a view to kill the lust of the flesh Ramakrishna used to get public prostitutes from the bazar and set them in the complete nakedness of their flesh before him, with a noose placed round his neck, and the moment he felt the least little quickening of the desire for carnal gratification, he used to tighten the noose and fall into a swoon groaning with mortal pain. By these means he acquired absolute mastery over both his flesh and his mind.

[more tomorrow]

[Nitaidas]

[rest of chapter]

Bijayakrishna did not follow these methods. In fact these had no sanction for the purification of the flesh and the mind in the Vaishnavite culture of Bengal. Not the absolute suppression of all so-called carnal desires, but their complete idealization and spiritualization, has been the objective of our Vaishnavic culture. Though he had been married early in life, like Bijayakrishna, Ramakrishna lived from his early youth as a celibate. But celibacy had no place in our Vaishnavic disciplines, specially those initiated by Shri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, because the goal of Vaishnavic Bhakti is the realization of God in and through the natural affections and emotions of human relations. This was also more or less the ideal of the Shakti cult of Bengal: with this difference, however, that while the Shaktas sought to realize their Deity in and through the sanctified enjoyment of only one human relation or affection, namely, filial or the child's love for its mother, the Vaishnavas sought to realize the Lord in and through all the beatitudes of the soul resulting from the supreme romance of every human relation and affection. But still even in our Tantric cult and culture the pursuit of the normal methods of disciplines through regulated exercise of all the human affections had been distinctly enjoined. The Mahanirvana Tantra which is really the scripture of Brahma-Jnana or Gnosticism enjoins that:

brahmaniSTha gRhastha syAt tattvajJAnapArAyaNa|
yadyad karma prakUrvIta tad brahmaNi samarpayet||

It is really a translation of the Karma-yoga of the Bhagavad-gita. Raja Ram Mohun Roy, in our age, sought to revive this Gita doctrine and ideal in combating the mediaeval traditions of his people which sanctioned the pursuit of Brahmajnana or the way of gnosis only to those who had renounced the world and had entered the order of Sannyasin or the roving mendicant. Maharshi Devendra Nath followed the ideal of the Raja in this respect and in his Brahmo teachings always held forth in favour of the life of the honest and dutiful householder as the fittest field for the cultivation of true Brahmajnana and the realization of Brahman. Bijayakrishna, while accepting this highest rule of life of a Brahmo, added to it the cultivation of the human affections and the selfless service of family and society as necessary disciplines for that purification of the flesh and the illumination of the mind which constitute an essential pre-condition for the realization of Brahman.

[more later]

[Nitaidas]

[I've been meaning to complete this. Here is the end of the chapter. I have bound all these sections together into a pdf that I will post at some point. We want to present more materials on Vijaya Krsna Goswami. He was a very significant Vaisnava leader and saint who is largely forgotten nowadays.]

And in the pursuit of this ideal, without taking the mendicant's bowl, or affecting the garb of the popular Hindu SannyAsin, he practically adopted the main rule of the order of the SannyAsin, namely, literally living upon whatever came unasked and unsought., for meeting the needs of himself and his family. The life of the Hindu SannyAsin is characterized by what is called---AkAzavRtti. It means the pursuit of the vocation of the AkAza, which depends upon the passing breeze of heaven for its clouds and its rain and shine; so does the wild vegetation; even so must the SannyAsin do, depend upon whatever comes unasked and unsought for his physical subsistence. This finds for the SannyAsin a rigid discipline of both flesh and mind. While pursuing this AkAzavRtti the SannyAsin is however not to spend his time in idleness but to engage himself unceasingly in the cultivation of the religious and spiritual life, in the study of scripture and meditation, on the one side, and on the other in the consecrated service of humanity. Bijayakrishna followed the same rule. On the one hand he devoted himself to the worship of his God and on the other in preaching the new religion that had brought him such enlightenment and peace. And without following the mediaeval method of the Paramahamsa, Bijayakrishna reached gradually the same goal and through the regulated and consecrated use of all his appetites and endowments, he attained that perfect purity of both flesh and spirit, without which no one may "see God." And it was this direct God-realization that made him as powerful a spiritual influence among his people as was Paramahamsa Ramakrishna; with this fundamental difference, however, that while the Paramahamsa's influence was Vedantic and mediaeval, Bijayakrishna's was Vaishnavic and strictly modern.

[End Chapter Five]

[Ekantin]

admin said:

We want to present more materials on Vijaya Krsna Goswami. He was a very significant Vaisnava leader and saint who is largely forgotten nowadays.

Hi Nitaiji,

in case you didn't already know, there is a significant amount of information on Vijaykrishna Gosvami's interactions with Ramakrishna in the 'The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna', the famous book written by 'M'. Do you have it, or would you find it of interest?

[Nitaidas]

ekantin said:

admin said:

We want to present more materials on Vijaya Krsna Goswami. He was a very significant Vaisnava leader and saint who is largely forgotten nowadays.

Hi Nitaiji,

in case you didn't already know, there is a significant amount of information on Vijaykrishna Gosvami's interactions with Ramakrishna in the 'The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna', the famous book written by 'M'. Do you have it, or would you find it of interest?

Thanks. I guess I had forgotten that. It has been years since I read that book. Picked up a used copy recently. I'll see what it has to say. There are several good sources for Vijayakrsna Goswami in Bengali, but few in English.