Madhura Bhakti

Bhagavan Baba in His discourse for Krishnashtami spoke about Radha and her various qualities and her love for Lord Krishna.

Radha

The [river] Yamuna’s bank: Calm…. charm…. inspiration… thrill. The cool breeze brings soft and sweet to the ear the strains of Divine Music from the flute that Krishna plays on. Radha comes down from the high sand dune toward the waterline with a big pot on her hip. Halfway through, she stands stiff for she hears her name being wafted by the wind from where Krishna was…. “Radha”, “Radha”. With wide open eyes, she looked on all the four sides. No one could be seen anywhere. Absolutely uninhabited area. Krishna was ever thus.

She fell on the sands in a faint. The pot was still in the fold of her hands. Radha awoke to the reality. “There is no place where you are not. The call arose from you alone; no one else can be so soft and sweet, so sincere, and so true. But let me ask you just for this boon. You made us all act our roles; we played our parts as best we could. You urged us to laugh and to weep. You enjoyed both to your heart’s content. I have had enough. Please, please let me go back to where I belong.

I dressed myself in desire and in disappointment, in anger and anticipation, an­xiety and aspiration. I bedecked myself with the garlands of sensual reactions—melo­dious sound, smooth touch, ambrosial taste, bewitching sights, and bewildering fragrance. I had on my ankles the jingle of illusion. I have won the applause and the jeering of the world. When I sang, delusion marked time and played on the tabla [drums] to spur me on. The tamasic and rajasic natures in me encouraged me to dance, providing the background music. Now my limbs fail; I am sick of the whole affair; may the play end, so far as I am concerned. Please, please agree to this prayer.”

Dhara

But Krishna did not agree. He approa­ched nearer and nearer. The Lord is a clear mirror where the pure heart is reflected clear. Radha was His image, the embodi­ment of His ecstasy. Radha is the Aahlaa­dini Shakti [the pleasure potency] of Krishna and so they are inseparable, indivisible. That is the very reason why Krishna called `Radha’ `Radha’ when she made her appearance on the [river] Yamuna bank.

Radha continued, “This is the best chance for me to lay this gem at Thy feet. Alas, it is still uncut and dull. I was misled so long into the belief that the world is sweet, but it is bitter, of astringent taste, unpleasant, and I have had enough. I am, as you know, prakriti, dhara, pronounced as Radha. So, I am burdened with the three gunas—­the satwa, rajas, and tamas.Since Prakriti is feminine, I am perforce femi­nine, too.”

Stri

This is the truth. Prakriti is feminine and so its representative, Radha, is also a Stri or Woman. The Sanskrit word Stri has three component consonants—sa, ta, and ra. These consonants signify the three gunas in that order—sa meaning the Satwaguna, ta meaning the Tamoguna, and ra meaning the Rajoguna. Women have the satwaguna in ample measure. They are by nature helpful, tender, compassionate, humble, and trustful. Next, they have also a good mea­sure of tamoguna. They are timid, shy, and unenterprising. It is good that women are such. They have been endowed by nature with only a small dose of rajoguna. Of course, this is the general truth; there may be exceptions where the rajogunapredomi­nates and the tamoguna recedes into the background. Rajoguna makes women aggressively bold, adventurous, and pur­suing freedom from restraint. The day when rajoguna is accepted as a mark of woman­hood, that day will mark the beginning of the end of femininity.

Man has only one home; but woman has two that she must guard from ill-fame—the home where she was born and brought up and the home of the husband she has chosen to live with for life. When she breaks all rules and runs unbridled into freedom, she becomes dangerous to the reputation and good name of both families—that of her parents and that of her parents‑in‑law. Indian culture and spiritual traditions awar­ded a high place to woman, since upon her rested the strength of the entire social fabric. She is the companion and guide of her hus­band, the earliest teacher of the children, the example for their social attitudes, the model for their speech, the guardian of their health and mental happiness. She is called the ardhangi of the husband—the ‘half body’. There are many temples where God is worshipped as Ardha‑narishwara, half woman and half man (the right half being male and the left half female). The honor and glory of a country were held to be in the hands of the women.

Abala

Whenever a religious rite was performed, or the Gods or manes propitiated by some ritual, the husband must have by his side the wife, too. Or else, the rite or ritual was ineffectual. That was the status given to the wedded wife in the religious scriptures in India. No charitable gift can be valid until the wife indicated her agreement by sanctifying the gift at the time it was made. Of course, she had no authority to perform these rites by herself, as she likes. Hence, she was called abala, ‘without power’. The power meant here is ‘spiritual power over rites’. Unfortunately, the use of this word has become so widespread that women, too, had come to believe that they were funda­mentally weak and powerless in all fields. This is a big mistake; only authorization to perform rituals was denied.

When Rama decided on performing an Ashwamedha sacri­fice, the objection was raised that Sita was away as an exile in the forest, and so without his spouse he was not entitled to perform the Ashwamedha. Some sages discovered that there was a provision to have a golden idol of the absent wife by the side of the principal officiator, and so a golden idol of Sita was made and placed in position by the side of Rama before the Yajna began. Abala does not mean lack of physical or mental strength. The wife makes the home of her husband a temple, a school, a council­ chamber, and a hermitage.

Madhura

Radha lived the life of an ideal woman as per the standards set by the Sanathana Dharma, and fixing her thoughts all the time on the Lord in pure un-bargaining devotion she secured the bliss of merging with Him. Hers was the type of bhakti [devotion] called, in the scriptures, Madhura. There are six streams of bhakti, all flowing toward the Lord and characteristic of six different types of spiritual attitudes. They are shanta (serene), sakhya (friendly), dasya (servitude), vatsalya (parental love), anuraga (deep attachment to Krishna), and madhura (sweet). Madhura is the highest among all the six, since it gives the maximum bliss. Milk is curdled, churned, butter produced and clari­fied into ghee [clarified butter]. Ghee is the end, the ultimum. So, too, madhura bhakti is the last word, so far as the experience of the mergence in the Lord is concerned. The journey ends and the feet stop when the goal is reached. When the madhura experience is achieved, there is nowhere else to go; nothing more to do. The totality of God is experienced in ma­dhura bhakti, His poorna aspect, His prema aspect.

Shanta

In shanta bhakti, the aspirant practices equanimity and considers all that happens to him as the gift of the grace of God. There­fore, he is unaffected by success or failure; he is ever grateful for whatever God grants him. In sakhya bhakti, the aspirant takes God as his incessant counsellor, confidante, companion, and mate. He feels the constant presence of the Lord and is never unaware of Him. In dasya bhakti, the aspirant feels that he is the servant, the instrument of the Lord, and revels in the role that God gives him on the stage of life. In the vatsalya bhakti, the aspirant loves the Lord as the mother loves her Child—with tenderness, anxiety, compassion, vigilance etc. In anu­raga bhakti, the aspirant is deeply attach­ed to the manifestations of the Lord, to whatever he deems as emanations of Divinity and he is highly pleased when he gets the chance to serve as such.

Prema

Since man has as his essential characteristic the quality of Love, he has only to foster it and tend it so that he might love the Lord to the fullest, that is to say, love the Lord’s Creation as much as the Lord Himself is loved. Then, the tree of Life will yield the sweet fruit of madhura bhakti. The fruit will have the bitter skin of I‑ness and My‑ness. This has to be removed. Certain egoistic desires and attributes might persist as ‘seeds’; these, too, must be removed before the sweet pulp of love is offered to the Lord. When Radha said that she had the vesture of desire and anger, she meant that she was unaffected by them. When she said that she was wearing the five elements contacted by the five senses in five distinct ways—sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound—as a `garland’ round her neck, she meant that she was not contaminated by the contacts. Naturally, the Lord knew that all of her was dedicated to Divinity. This is the sign of madhura bhakti. The Lord said, this prema has no alloy, it is free from blemish, it is full, it is free. So, He granted the final consummation to Radha.

Source: Sanathana Sarathi, August 1978