Mantra Mayi Upasana - Meditation with Slokas While Taking Harinam

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Preface With their songs and their favorite scriptural slakes our Raging Canarias share their hearts and confidential moods of love with us, and as practitioners we can share these jewels of the heart with each other. We can reawaken our spiritual consciousness, and connect with the spiritual world in Raja by memorizing these gloats and using them in mantra-mayo up asana - chanting Slakes from the scriptures and meditating on the particular pastime they evoke. Thus we follow the proper traditional sequence for remembering Sri Radar-Krishna's names, forms, qualities and pastimes, and make progress on the path of pure Bhatia.

As beginners we may start with gloats from Sri Upadesamrta, hearing or reading the commentaries and taking Harriman ('chanting japa') along with meditating on these glokas. Then our sadhana-bhajana will gradually evolve as our insights deepen and as we add more lokas to our repertoire. This practice will eventually lead us up to rasika scriptures such as Sri Gopi-gita, Sri Vilapa-kusumarijali and Sri Radha-Rasa-sudhanidhi. Deeper levels of the meanings of these sacred verses will manifest spontaneously in our hearts when it is done according to the traditional method. Srila Bhaktivedanta Narayana Maharaja describes this as follows, "When seidhakas study and learn these verses, deeply meditating within themselves on their meanings while chanting the holy name, they will act as stimuli to fully experience the mood described in these glokas. Then one's mind will not wander here and there. We should not just walk around talking to others while chanting, but taking our chanting beads we should sit in a solitary place and give it our mind and heart. Our previous acdryas chanted all night long, meditating on one verse after another. For half an hour the waves of the bhava of one particular verse would be coming to them: sometimes they would be fully submerged in those waves, sometimes they would rise to the surface and float on those waves, and then they would move on to the next gloka. As they did this more and more the whole night would pass, and where it went, they wouldn't even know. This is the traditional method of performing bhajan." (Bhakti Rasayana, p.1, GVP) Finally, here are some words of our A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, who introduced Krishna consciousness on a grand scale outside India. "...we have forgotten our eternal relationship with the Lord. Every living being out of many, many billions and trillions of living beings has a particular relationship with the Lord eternally. That is called svardpa. By the process of devotional service, one can revive that svardpa, and that stage is called svardpa-siddhi -perfection of one's constitutional position." (Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Introduction, pages 4-5, 1972, BBT)

Sri Caitanya-caritamrita (Madhya 8.229) describes this as well:

siddha-dehe cinti' kare tamari savanna

sakhi-bhave paya radha-krsnera carana siddha-dehe-in that perfected (mentally conceived) spiritual form; cinti'-by meditating; kare-does; tdhaii-in (the kurijas of) Vraja; sevana-service; sakhi-bhave--in mood of the marinara gapes; paya-gets; radha-krsoera-of Radha and Krishna; carana-the lotus feet.

By meditating on one's svardpa (spiritual form) and rendering service (in that spiritual body) to the Divine Couple in the koalas of Vraja, in sakha-bhdva (the mood of a mafijara sash, one gets the lotus feet of Sri Radha and Her beloved Krishna.

Introduction Slakes, the sacred verses of the Gaudily Vaisnava transcendental scriptures, are prominent in our practice of bhakti and provide us with 'cliff hangers' to remember and meditate on the Divine Couple's Radha-Krishna's) pastimes. The glokas are like portals for entering into the confidential realm of pure bhakti and the mood we aspire for in the line of Mahaprabhu and the Six Goswamis (Sri Radha dasyam - malijara behave).

We need to know and be familiar with some glokas in order to perform our bhajan. At first we meditate on a particular pastime through its corresponding gloka and this is called mantra-mail upetsand, 'worshiping through mantra' or 'meditating with glokas'. For instance, the following gloka opens up ever-new possibilities for visualizing this particular pastime on the banks of Sri Radha Kund.

yasyal) kadapi vasanaficala-khelanottha dhanyati-dhanya-pavanena krtartha-mani yogindra-durgama-gatir madhusuidano `pi tasya namo `stu yrsabhanu-bhuvo die 'pi SrT Radha-rasa-sudha-nidhi 2, Srila Prabodhananda Sarasvatt "Let us bow down even to the direction of the land of Vrsabhanu Maharaja (Vraja), for Madhusildana Krsna, who is the rarely attained goal of great yogis, considers that His life is completely fulfilled by the mere touch of that glorious, playful breeze that has touched the tip of Srimati Radhika's sari. He thinks, 'Oh, My life has now returned."'

In his commentary Srila Bhaktivedanta Narayana Maharaja has explained that Srimati Radhika was in a sulky mood (memo) on the bank of Radha kunda and didn't want to meet with Krishna. Krishna was standing on the opposite bank lamenting in separation. The breeze wanted to help bring the Divine Couple together again and so it brushed against the corner of Radhika's sari and wafted across the kunda to brush against Krishna's face, carrying the aroma of Her body to Krishna's nose. Then Krishna felt that Radhika was with Him again in the form of Her bodily fragrance and was encouraged to try and make another attempt to break Her mana.

In addition to rasika glokas one may use to enhance one's bhajan, it is highly inspiring to read the Ocarinas' commentaries on such Slakes. I have chosen to include the commentaries of Srila Ananta Das Babaji here. His commentaries are elucidations and expansions of the previous rasika Oceiryas' commentaries and are the only rasika commentaries on Sri Vilapa-kusumarijali and Sri Radha-Rasa-sudhanidhi available in English.

Finally, it must be stated that I am merely an instrument and all credit should go to my Gurus by whose blessings and inspiration this book has manifested.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages