In Jessamyn Stanley’s 2021 collection of autobiographical essays, Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance, she recalls taking a class with a popular white yoga teacher in North Carolina and feeling uneasy. His arms were tattooed with Sanskrit, the ancient Indo-European language of classic yoga texts like the Yoga Sutras. She found herself increasingly uncomfortable as he encouraged his students to see themselves as part of a South Asian lineage of Classical yoga.

Stanley’s first book, Every Body Yoga, had just come out. She had made a name for herself as a “fat, Black, queer yoga teacher in a predominantly thin, White, and very straight yoga industry.” And she was growing increasingly uncomfortable with how white Americans—including the tattooed man leading this workshop—had taken up yoga.

Stanley found the courage to raise her hand. She knew she would likely be the sole dissenting voice in the room. When she had called out cultural appropriation and the lack of South Asian representation in her earlier yoga teacher training, none of the other trainees saw it as a problem. Stanley told the group she did not see herself as a Classical yoga practitioner. The teacher smirked and told her that if she did not feel a connection to Classical yoga, it was because she did not know enough about the practice.

As Stanley writes in Yoke, “Classical yoga, the Vedas, and Sanskrit are rooted in South Asian culture, with particular connective tissue in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, among many other faiths.” For her, the teacher’s approach to yoga not only appropriated South Asian traditions, it also erased Stanley’s Black American lineage: “it made me feel as though I was being told to steal someone else’s cultural identity and nullify my own.”

When she walked out of the workshop, Stanley broke from what she calls the white American “yoga-industrial-complex.” For her, yoga in the U.S. is inextricably bound up in the country’s history of racism, capitalism, and settler colonialism. In Yoke, she grapples with the contradictions of practicing a South Asian tradition on U.S. soil, and she creates a spiritual practice of yoga that is uniquely her own.

The title of Stanley’s book, Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance, references two things: 1) yoke, a Sanskrit word that connotes union, and 2) a typo in her first book. Following the publication of Every Body Yoga, a reader wrote to inform her that “yoke” appears erroneously as “yolk,” conjuring images of a runny egg rather than divine union. This typo sent Stanley into a tailspin of self-doubt and insecurity. She questioned her legitimacy as a public voice in yoga, a relatively new practitioner who rose to popularity as she chronicled her yoga poses on social media.

Stanley’s self-doubt resonated strongly with me. I used to perform kirtan, a South Asian devotional musical tradition. The band I worked with often performed in yoga studios and ashrams, leading call-and-response Hindu devotional songs with primarily-white audiences. Like Stanley, I encountered many white yoga practitioners who took on Indian names, wore South Asian fashion like saris and bindis, and adopted India as a spiritual homeland. And like Stanley, I felt insecure about my own legitimacy to call attention to the white entitlement that drives this behavior (in my case, I am half-Indian, born and raised in the U.S., and cannot neatly claim a “South Asian” identity).

By claiming South Asian practices as their own, Stanley argues, white Americans avoid dealing with the shame of their ancestors’ racist legacies. Rather than argue that people of color should feel as empowered as white people to adopt Classical yoga, Yoke contends that a deep practice of yoga can bring each of us closer to our own cultural and spiritual traditions. Some Black yogis, for example, practice Kemetic yoga, which traces its roots to Egypt. For Stanley, however, the practice of yoga has facilitated a process of personal reflection on her “very Black, very Southern, and exceedingly American” roots.

In Yoke, we learn what this lineage means to Stanley. She is a third-generation Bahá’í who left the religious tradition when she came out as queer and started to question the tradition of celibacy before marriage. In the years that followed, she carved out her own spiritual tradition. Along with yoga and meditation, her amalgam of spiritual touchstones has included tarot, marijuana, astrology, crystals, and the writings of James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Gary Zukav, Don Miguel Ruiz, Henry David Thoreau, Swami Vivekananda, Dr. Maya Angelou, and Kendrick Lamar, whose album good kid, m.A.A.d city is her favorite yoga soundtrack: “He and I don’t have the same story, but in his authentic truth I hear my own. And when I hear his music during my practice, I find my way back to myself.”

Stanley locates the problem of white yoga appropriation in American yoga’s hyper-focus on asana, or physical postures. Anyone who has attended a yoga class in the U.S. is familiar with asana, which may include sun salutations, body-pretzeling twists, and head stands. American yoga classes also typically touch on pranayama, or breathwork, though the focus is primarily on asana. In Classical yoga, asana is done in tandem with pranayama to prepare the body for meditation.

The American yoga market’s focus on asana has influenced Stanley’s career as a yoga teacher. She offers an important representation for those who felt alienated in majority-thin, white, straight yoga classes. And her physical strength and dexterity inspire those who were also trying to practice yoga at home, outside the “yoga-industrial-complex.” When I started following her account in 2016, I took screen-shots of her headstands as inspiration for my own practice.

Stanley aspired to be on the cover of Yoga Journal, one of the longest-running American yoga magazines. When she was invited to pose for the cover, it taught her that Yoga Journal was actually part of the “yoga-industrial-complex,” and her goal of being on the cover was tied to her desire for “mainstream acceptance (aka white acceptance).” In the end, Yoga Journal ran two covers—one featuring Stanley, the other featuring thin, light-skinned Yoga Works founder Maty Ezraty. Stanley felt her body had been tokenized, and that the magazine had run a double-cover because they were worried hers would not sell.

Stanley sees these spaces of profit-driven hyper-visibility—from Instagram to Yoga Journal—as contradicting the deeper spiritual lessons of yoga: to transcend mind/body dualism on a path towards spiritual enlightenment. Transcending mind/body dualism, for Stanley, means letting go of how the world encourages us to see ourselves. “Who are we,” she asks us, “when our definitions of who we are fall away?” Stanley refers to the yogic sense of selfhood as a “subtle body” that encompasses our full, spiritual selves. In other words, yoga can help us connect with a sense of selfhood that is not bound by worldly definition.

For Stanley, accessing the “subtle body” has helped her heal from trauma. In Yoke, she bravely chronicles experiences with sexual assault, and how meditation has allowed her to feel a difficult range of emotions: “my shame and my anger and my sadness and my frustration and my guilt and my malice and my vindictiveness and my hatred and my bloodlust and my grief.”

Unfortunately, in the “yoga-industrial-complex,” Stanley argues that this spiritual sense of selfhood becomes a tool to avoid difficult questions about oppression. If our definitions of who we are fall away, then what happens to race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, and size? Stanley’s writing reminds us that the rhetoric of connection and spiritual transcendence in American yoga studios too often masks the straightness, whiteness, and gender normativity of these spaces.

The context of the “yoga-industrial-complex” shapes not only how Black yoga practitioners interface with white American yoga spaces, but also how Black and South Asian people engage each other around questions of cultural appropriation and social justice.

In Yoke, Stanley recounts participating on a panel on cultural appropriation alongside a South Asian DJ who blends bhangra and hip hop. Stanley was prepared for the DJ to accuse her of cultural appropriating yoga from its South Asian roots. Instead, the conversation was a generative one, and it led Stanley to reflect on how both Black and South Asian people are “permanently affected by our collective history of white supremacy.”

Debates about yoga in recent years have focused not only on white supremacy, but also on the role of yoga in upholding caste discrimination. For example, at the height of the summer 2020 anti-racist protests, I joined a march in New York City and walked alongside a Black abolitionist activist. She recounted how her organization had tried to make yoga mats and classes accessible to incarcerated women. South Asian activists criticized the Black and Latinx organizers and drew attention to yoga’s complicity in caste and religious oppression in South Asia.

In recent years, the ruling Hindu party in India has taken up yoga as a way to push for global legitimacy through celebrations like “International Yoga Day,” which was formally adopted by the United Nations in 2015. South Asian organizers have drawn attention to the fact that dominant-caste Brahmins claim Sanskrit as a holy language that should not be spoken by those in marginalized castes. The language’s widespread use in white yoga spaces is thus not solely cultural appropriation, but also a replication of caste oppression.

This South Asian activism has shaped Stanley’s perspective on Sanskrit, even since the book’s release. In Yoke, she argues that we should “Respect the books. . . . Respect the history of Sanskrit. Respect South Asian culture.” However, in an interview following the book’s publication, she reports grappling with the language: “Sanskrit has been used in South Asia to control people and that it has become this whole issue of class and caste. It’s so deeply wrapped up in South Asian heritage and culture.”

The people who have pushed Stanley to rethink the politics of Sanskrit have done so out of an awareness of the economic links between the way yoga impacts marginalized people in both the U.S. and India. Yoga studios are often harbingers of gentrification that displace working-class and communities of color in the U.S. Likewise, in India, the government expropriates land from indigenous peoples for yogic leaders. The “yoga-industrial-complex,” in other words, is a transnational phenomenon that extends beyond American yoga.

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This article was originally published by The Revealer and is partially reproduced here without the permission of the author, who is not affiliated with this website or its views.

—everyone experiences some solitude in life

Sincerity in solitude
is water’s purity
pouring from the sky,
flowing in the creeks,
and sitting on a leaf.

Sincerity in solitude
is a continual drawing
of dedicated days devoid of rigidity—
and doing that.

Sincerity in solitude
is ongoing deep and intuitive communion
with self, Krsna,
and everything in between.

Sincerity in solitude
is light enough to fall in love,
and heavy enough not to fall out.

Sincerity in solitude
is soft-hearted, familial words
with the cows, trees, and river streams;
and trying to forgive the insects.

Sincerity in solitude
is grounded, honest, and kind,
for loneliness hits hardest
when you show two faces.

Sincerity in solitude
is knowing when to turn off the screen,
and knowing when to not even turn it on,
because everything is meant to be felt.

Sincerity in solitude
is early morning japa,
and shuddering at the thought
of a life without.

Sincerity in solitude
is preparation like a plant,
slowly churning the sun and rain
into a coming bloom.

Sincerity in solitude
is finding identity amidst change,
“at once the fascination of a strange town
and the comfort and honour of being our own town.”1

Sincerity in solitude
is the responsibility of grace,
real commitment welling
not for a gift but a life—
the mercy of Sri Guru.

Sincerity in solitude is
the anticipation of a festival:
sadhu, kirtan, and katha,
O my!

Sincerity in solitude
is learning how to transition
from solitude to sangha,
and from sangha back to solitude.

Sincerity in solitude
is unsettled times,
sitting patiently with oneself—
and finding some solace in being.

Sincerity in solitude
is an art learned
through 108 failures,
and counting.

Sincerity in solitude
is routine like a cow,
because a cow is a friend,
and the mind can be too.

Sincerity in solitude
is the merging of mornings, afternoons, and nights
into one long, eternal day—
and finding rhythm in that.

Sincerity in solitude
is momentum like a slow-rising hum,
building and building,
more and more encompassing.

Sincerity in solitude
is the world standing still
on the next name of Krsna—
and so you chant,
and so you are enchanted.

Sincerity in solitude
is wanting to embrace Baladeva tightly,
his affectionate, outstretched arms
so ready to console your weary heart.

Sincerity in solitude
is empathetic well-wishing
for the friendly and the inimical,
because life is raw, trying, and sweet,
and you feel it all right now.

Sincerity in solitude
is a vivid subconscious
with affective memories,
some not so conducive—
waiting out the attachment,
and humbly carrying on.

Sincerity in solitude
is devastated, ashamed, and prayerful,
because you see patterns
of compartmentalized bhakti.

Sincerity in solitude
is the echo of a bhajan,
permeating every fear and doubt
as it resounds through the forest.

Sincerity in solitude
is momentously dislodged—
forgetting who and where you are,
and the moment just begging for surrender.

Sincerity in solitude
is not putting down the beads
once the daily vow is reached,
yearning to offer something real
to Dauji Gopal today.

Sincerity in solitude
is part of you immersed in gratitude
for the light in this room,
and part of you not remembering
anything before.

Sincerity in solitude
is melodious grace,
and absolutely speechless—
but your tears and eye movements
express something to Krsna.

Sincerity in solitude
is seva,
and truly feeling it is accepted
by Guru and Gauranga.

Sincerity in solitude
I am humbly praying for,
because it is part of the path
that lays before me—
and I can’t walk it alone.

1. G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (London: John Lane Company, 1908), 15.

Srila Sanatana Goswami has given us what he received from Mahaprabhu directly. Mahaprabhu infused his wealth into Sanatana for two months in Benares, and thereafter Sanatana gave that wealth to us. Who is Sanatana? Who is Mahaprabhu? What is Vrndavan? Who are Radha and Krishna? We can understand all of these things through Sanatana Goswami.

Sanatana lived with Mahaprabhu in Benares for two months, and Mahaprabhu taught him sambandha-jnana. Thereafter, Mahaprabhu gave Sanatana four directions as to how he should serve the purpose of Sri Krishna-sankirtan: (1) “You must discover the old places of Krishna’s Pastimes in Vrndavan, (2) install Deities to be worshipped there, (3–4) compile scriptures to establish bhakti-siddhanta [the principles of pure devotion] and Vaisanva-achar, the regular practices of a pure Vaisnava. I request you to make these four things ready for the coming sampradaya. Also, look after and protect the persons who accept this creed.” In this way Mahaprabhu sent Sanatana, and Sanatana wandered throughout the length and breadth of the Vraja Mandal performing his service.

Raghunath Das Goswami has written a pranam to Sanatana Goswami.

vairagya-yug-bhakti-rasam prayatnair
apayayan mam anabhipsum andham
krpambudhir yah para-duhkha-duhkhi
sanatanas tam prabhum asrayami

“With great care, Sanatana made me drink me—forced me to drink—vairagya-yug-bhakti-rasam: the juice of divine love and affection mixed with a tinge of indifference [to the world]. I was blind and also unwilling to drink it. I was not qualified, I did not know what was what, and my propensity was to avoid it. Yet he managed to force me to drink the sweetness of the Lord’s loving service mixed with a tinge of indifference. So I offer my obeisance to Sanatana Prabhu, the great well-wisher of mankind.”

Baladeva Vidyabhusan also wrote:

govindabhidham indirasrita-padam hastastha-ratnadivat
tattvam tattvavid-uttamau ksiti-tale yau darsayan chakratu

“I offer my obeisance to Sri Rupa and Sri Sanatana. Who are they? They have shown Govinda, whom Laksmi Devi carefully serves, to this world as though He is a jewel within their hands. They have shown this side, that side, above, and below—everything about him. As though he is a jewel within their palms, they have shown the public he whom all resources and majesty seek to serve, he who is unavailable, unknown, and unknowable. So clearly they have described he who is indescribable. They have made everyone understand He who is unknowable. They have dealt that the highest principle as though he is an ordinary thing. That is the position of Rupa and Sanatana. Virachitascharyau: what they have done is simply wonderful, and thus I bow down to them.”

The six goswamis, lead by Sri Rupa and Sri Sanatana, did so much for the propagation of Sri Chaitanyadev’s divine cult of love. They revealed true love. And they did not do so for any mundane purpose. They did so for the highest gain and the Absolute Master. They revealed the Krishna conception in full and all five rasas—madhurya, vatsalya, sakhya, dasya, and santa—in a new color. They elaborately depicted the highest Lord in a new color, in a new land, and in a new hue.

Once, a gentleman said that twenty-four-hour engagement with the Supreme Lord cannot be imagined within any of the existing conceptions of religion in the world. Nowhere can the possibility of twenty-four-hour engagement in service to divinity be imagined. The most comprehensive divine service, in which every atom of one’s existence is utilized in the service of every corresponding atom within the Lord, such wholesale, inconceivable service has been given by Rupa, Sanatana, and their group. So we pray for their mercy.

aradhananam sarvesam visnor aradhanam param
tasmat parataram devi tadiyanam samarchanam

Of all sorts of worship, the worship of Visnu is the highest. Yet more important than Visnu’s worship is the worship of his servants. So, if we can show our sincere, heartfelt appreciation for Sanatana Goswami, Rupa Goswami, and the direct associates of Mahaprabhu, Mahaprabhu will be more pleased than if we try to offer our obeisance to him.

We are needy in every respect, but our hope, our prospect in life, is this: that our masters are so gracious, so magnanimous, and so high. Somehow we have fortunately come in connection with such great masters. This is our wealth. This is our fortune. This is our everything.

Traditional Buddhist literature says little about abortion. Scholars parse the few words offered carefully. How, when, and what makes a human being? Is an embryo a human or an “intermediate being?” Is it between a human and an animal? Is a human determined by the development of limbs, the emergence of sexual organs, or the ability to breathe? Giulio Agostini, a scholar of the Vinaya, or Buddhist code of ethics, notes in the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies that various Buddhist sources say a human is formed at conception, in the fifth week, during the second month, the seventh week, eleventh week, third month, fifth month, and nineteenth week of pregnancy. Nevertheless, the conclusion of orthodox Buddhist scholars has long been that a human being appears at the moment of conception. Because human birth is a rare and precious gift, to deprive a being of the opportunity is a grave mistake. Therefore, a one-day-old embryo must be accorded the same protection as living human beings.

I confess to a degree of impatience with such a conclusion. The arguments are sometimes circular and often dogmatic. Traditional Buddhism is anti-birth, based in a celibate and solitary life outside the family. Sexual desire is said to turn the wheel of samsara, and procreative sex is a greater transgression for a monastic than nonprocreative sex. The uterus is a disgusting place and babies begin to decay at birth, yet women are told to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the embryo. Above all, this fundamentalist view is bloodless, aloof, far from the complications and dilemmas of daily life. A human body is so rare and precious that we must protect it from the day of conception? So why aren’t these scholars making babies? Wouldn’t the highest form of practice be to create more opportunities for human birth? 

Modern Western and Mahayana Buddhist views of abortion are somewhat more flexible. They tend to combine utilitarianism—creating the greatest good for the greatest number—and virtue ethics—basing action on a set of moral virtues. I can find myself in the utilitarian camp sometimes. From any relative view, keeping abortion safe and legal reduces harm and allows for the most good. (I try not to forget that doing good is one of the slipperiest of slopes.) I want to make choices from a morally defensible position, one based in justice, autonomy, kindness toward others. Again, keeping abortion safe and legal seems to support these values.

But there is dogmatism here, too. In common Mahayana arguments, abortion may be the lesser of evils, but it is still an evil. All involved must accept long-standing negative karmic consequences. The person choosing an abortion can be viewed with compassion, but it is compassion tinged with judgment. 

In the introduction to the often-cited 1999 volume, Buddhism and Abortion, the editor, Daniel Keown, notes that “the views of women are quite well represented” in the book. Eight out of ten chapters were written by men. Even today, much of what is written about abortion and Buddhism is by men, reflecting a widespread imbalance in scholarship and cultural power, and in Buddhist scholarship and authority in particular. The irony, of course, is all this effort by men is on a topic directly affecting the ability of women to engage equally in scholarship, culture, and authority. The Dalai Lama once said, “I think abortion should be approved or disapproved according to each circumstance.” But he didn’t say who should do the approving. Amy Paris Langenberg, a Southeast Asian Buddhist scholar, writes on the Institute of Buddhist Studies’s blog, Ten Thousand Things, “To neglect the issue of gender is to assume that all stakeholders approach the issue of abortion with the same vital concerns and existential pressures.” They do not. The Buddha said that we need to rely on our own experience to know what is true, that it is proper to doubt what we are told. “Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing,” he says in the Kalama Sutta (AN 3.65) . “Nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning.” We must investigate the words of dharma, and test them against our lives. Here are some of the tests I’ve taken: I have been pregnant twice, given birth once and had a miscarriage, adopted two children, and worked in an abortion clinic. 

I liked working at the clinic. It was intellectually challenging and emotionally satisfying. Every day I was able to help people through a difficult time. No one danced in. No one danced out. But every day I was able to relieve suffering. I saw women struggling with addiction, carrying fetuses with profound defects, living in poverty. I saw women in menopause and girls pregnant before they had regular periods. We cared for people whose health was at risk from a pregnancy, who had been abandoned or raped. I met people who were ignorant of their own biology, in denial about a pregnancy and in denial about terminating a pregnancy. But mostly I met people who were sad—a little sad or a lot—and clear-eyed about the rightness of their choice. 

Killing is an act that is always wrong, according to the precepts. But the precept is not merely about physical killing. It is a precept of ahimsa, non-harming. At the clinic, I was reminded on a daily basis that people don’t “get pregnant.” People are impregnated, by accident, by intent, and sometimes through violence. Forced pregnancy kills spirit, joy, freedom, opportunity, and hope. Abortion can be a rescue. 

I believe that reproductive choice for all people is fundamental to the Buddhist view, that supporting safe, legal abortion is a dharmic stand. Equality must be among the highest of our values—not only the equality of all to realize enlightenment, but to have equal chances to enter the practice. Human birth is precious because it allows us to meet the dharma consciously and engage in the discipline freely. A human life is the opportunity to confront suffering and karma, and change the course of both. If we condemn slavery because it denies the equal personhood of a being, we have to condemn forcing people to give birth. 

Senate Bill 8, recently passed in Texas, indulges in the delusion that pregnancy and pregnant people exist in a vacuum. Buddhism teaches interrelationship, the conditioned and dependent nature of all things. Nothing exists in a vacuum. We can’t talk about abortion without talking about racism, poverty, addiction, misogyny, climate change, and overpopulation. I am not saying that abortion has no moral or karmic consequences because every act has consequences. So does choosing not to act. Systemic failures abound in our society. If you are uncomfortable with abortion, what are you doing to alleviate the burdens that lead people to make that choice? What are you actually doing to reduce this suffering? 

Michael Barnhart, a scholar of Buddhist philosophy, examined the traditional arguments about when a human being comes into existence, and concluded that “rebirth is only the rebirth of elements, not of individuals.” This assertion (which appears in The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics) neatly encapsulates my experience. Pregnancy is the fluid process of becoming. A pregnancy is not separate; it is part of the body. What is developing is as incapable of survival away from that body as a severed ear or foot would be. The embryo may contain all the parts of a sentient being, as an ear and foot contains all the DNA of the larger body. But neither is a whole being. 

We must always rely on our own investigation to know what is true. Every human life will require difficult, ambiguous choices. Abortion is not a special case. I know that abortion can be undertaken with all the compassion, love, and generosity with which we welcome a wanted baby. It is an act that can increase happiness even as it decreases future suffering, and allow a person to be healthier, stronger, more whole. Abortion is health care, and people’s suffering will only be compounded as long as it is anything short of safe and legal.

This article was originally published by Tricycle and is reproduced here without the permission of the author, who is not affiliated with this website or its views.

The meaning of Hera Pancami is as follows. On the fifth day of the Chariot Festival, Laksmi Devi becomes very worried and thinks, “Where has my husband gone? He told me, ‘I am going for a change of environment for some days, and I will return very soon.’ It has been five days now, and still, he has not come back.” Unable to tolerate this, she becomes very angry and gives orders to all her associates as though they had to fight with the enemy: “Take up your weapons!” Then she becomes the commander-in-chief of her “army,” and goes to “attack” her husband.

During the Ratha-yatra Festival, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu wanted to taste the mellows of Hera Pancami. In the early morning, he went to Sundaracala along with his associates and took darsana of Jagannatha, Baladeva, and Subhadra in the Gundica Mandira. Whenever he went to Jagannatha’s temple, he used to see Jagannatha as Krishna, Vrajendra-nandana Syamasundara, with a peacock feather in his crown, a flute in his hands, very beautiful lotus eyes, and all the other attributes of Krishna when he is with the gopis in Vrndavana. Mahaprabhu never saw Baladeva, Subhadra, or Sudarsana chakra, because Krishna never carries Sudarsana in Vrndavana. Mahaprabhu never prayed to Baladeva or to Subhadra in the temple. He saw them both during the Chariot Festival, but otherwise, he saw only Jagannatha. This was all very wonderful.

Jagannatha had gone to Sundaracala (which represents Vrndavana) from his temple in Nilacala (which represents Dvaraka) and, on the evening of the fifth day, Laksmi arrived at Sundaracala with all her associates.1 She was decorated with many precious ornaments made of gold and jewels, and she wore very beautiful and opulent garments. The previous day, Kasi Misra, who was the guru of King Prataparudra, had advised the King, “Bring Laksmi Devi very valuable gold and jeweled ornaments and decorate her with them. Make such a beautiful festival for her that everyone will be struck with wonder. They should think they have never seen anything like this before. Caitanya Mahaprabhu wants to taste all the mellows of this festival.” Accordingly, Laksmi was decorated with gold and jeweled ornaments, opulent garments, and other paraphernalia.

At the Simhadvara (lion gate) in front of the Jagannatha Temple, Kasi Misra gave very beautiful seats to Mahaprabhu and his associates such as Srivasa Pandita, Sri Svarupa Damodara, and Sri Raya Ramananda. Soon after they were seated, Laksmi arrived with all her associates and opulence, as if she was coming to attack Jagannatha. First she “attacked” Jagannatha’s associates, who were actually Mahaprabhu’s associates, like Sikhi Mahiti, Vakresvara Pandita, and so on, and then she tied them up and bound them like prisoners. Her associates then punished them all by striking them with “whips” made of soft cloth, and she accused them, “Oh, you should admit your guilt and pay something. You have taken my husband. Where are you keeping Him? Bring Him here right now.”

Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu was extremely happy to see this pastime and, tasting its mellows, he said, “I have heard that when Satyabhama used to exhibit mana, She would remove all her golden ornaments. Then she would enter a dark, private room, put on dirty garments, scratch the ground with her nails, and weep continually. But here I see another kind of mana in Laksmi. She is like a commander-in-chief going to attack with many soldiers. I have never seen anything like this, nor have I ever even heard of such a thing.”

Svarupa Damodara then explained that there are many kinds of mana, and that this mana of Dvaraka is very different from that of the gopis in Vrndavana. Mahaprabhu told Svarupa Damodara:

yadyapi jagannatha karena dvarakaya vihara
sahaja prakata kare parama udara
tathapi vatsara-madhye haya eka-bara
vrndavana dekhite tanra utkanha apara

Although Lord Jagannatha enjoys his pastimes in Dvaraka-dhama and naturally manifests sublime liberality there, still, once a year he becomes unlimitedly eager to see Vrndavana.

Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Madhya-lila 14.117–18

Why did Krishna leave Vrndavana? Ultimately he did so to please and pacify the gopis. It is said that he leaves Vrndavana and comes to Mathura and Dvaraka because he cannot forget the devotees there – or anywhere else. He must support and nourish them. The next question would then be: after leaving why did he not return, at least for a visit. One answer is that there is no fort in Vrndavana. If Krishna had returned to Vrndavana, and Jarasandha had come to know that he was really the son of Nanda and Yasoda rather than that of Vasudeva and Devaki, Jarasandha would have attacked Vrndavana and it would have been ruined. Nanda Baba was a cowherd, a gopa, not a warrior, and there were no soldiers in Vrndavana. Jarasandha would therefore have destroyed all of Vrndavana and then imprisoned Yasoda and Nanda Baba, as Kamsa had imprisoned Vasudeva and Devaki.

This is a reason, but it is external. Someone may say, “At least Krishna should go to Vrndavana from time to time, and then he should return quickly.” But Krishna has so many enemies, and all of them would come to know that he has many friends in Vrndavana. They would think, “They should be attacked, and they should be finished.” This is another reason he did not return there, but it is also external.

Someone may say, “Krishna was able to take all his associates of Mathurapuri to Dvaraka in one night, in just a minute. He had abundant grand palaces built there, not only for each of his queens but also for all his associates such as Akrura and Uddhava, as well as for Vasudeva and Devaki. There were so many thousands and millions of Mathuravasis. They went to sleep in Mathura, and in the morning they saw that they were in Dvaraka. This was very wonderful, and it shows that Krishna can do anything he likes. Similarly, in one night he can take to Dvaraka all his associates from Vrndavana, such as Radhika, Lalita, Visakha, and all the other sakhis, as well as all cowherd boys like Sridama, Stoka-krsna, Lavanga, and Arjuna. He can take his mother and father, Yasoda-maiya and Nanda Baba, and all the other Vrajavasis as well. Is there any harm in that? If all the Mathuravasis can be there, the Vrajavasis can be there as well.”

But how will Vrnda-devi go there? Will Govardhana go there? This is a very confidential topic. There will be a conflict between aisvarya-bhava and madhurya-bhava. What will Krishna say? Will he say, “I am the son of Vasudeva and Devaki,” or “I am the son of Nanda and Yasoda”? This contradiction of mellows would create a very difficult situation for Krishna. Will he play his flute? Will he wear his peacock feather there? Will he go cow-herding with his friends in Dvaraka? Can he tell others, “I am the son of Nanda Baba and Yasoda”?

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1. In this Hera Pancami festival, a drama was enacted for the pleasure of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and his associates. In that drama, male devotees dressed in saris and ornaments and portrayed Laksmi and her attendants.

The yoga tradition of Sri Caitanya with its emphasis on shakti, the feminine power, among other things, played a major role in uplifting the position of women in what was a largely patriarchal society. No doubt this social upliftment was fueled in part by the role of the feminine in transcendence envisioned by Sri Caitanya. Women in today’s society may thus be encouraged both in their social struggle for equality and in their spiritual struggle for enlightenment to learn of his ideal, even when gender distinctions in transcendence are categorically different from our material gender distinctions.

While material gender distinctions are based upon the soul’s misidentification with matter, causing one to misconstrue one’s self to be a woman or man, the spiritual gender distinction of Sri Caitanya lies in acknowledging the subtle difference between that which constitutes power (shakti) and that which constitutes the powerful (shaktiman). The two are experienced as simultaneously one and different, an experience that transcends logic. When viewed through the philosophical eye of yoga they are one, but when viewed through the yogic eyes of devotional ecstasy they are two, Radha and Krishna. They are one soul in two bodies dancing in divine play. Radha is the personified feminine aspect of Sri Caitanya’s deity and Krishna is the personified male aspect.

In one sense the feminine aspect of this divine dyad is more important to us, closer to us. In the Vaishnava schools of devotional yoga where devotion is not only the means but the goal as well, materially embodied souls like ourselves are considered feminine in nature regardless of the bodily dress we wear in this world. We are, that is, an expression of the shakti aspect of the divine couple. In this sense, we are closer in constitution to Radha than we are to Krishna. She is our source.

Whereas Krishna is the deity of divine love—perfect love’s object—Radha personifies perfect love itself. Thus she is not only our deity, being one aspect of the divine dyad, but moreover, she is also our ideal of devotion. Without an example of the ideal, a role model to follow, theory alone is not that helpful. Yogeshvara, “Master of Yoga,” as Krishna is addressed in the Bhagavad-gita, only teaches the theory of bhakti-yoga, but it is Radha who teaches it by her example and personifies the perfection of devotion. She does so within the divine lila, play, and furthermore it is her shakti that empowers our earthly teacher and example, the guru.

Thus relative to the bhakti-yoga practitioner, Radha’s position is more important than Krishna’s. However, even if we view her position from the absolute vantage point—through the lotus eyes of Krishna—her position is hardly diminished. After all, in Sri Caitanya’s vision, Krishna has fallen in love with Radha, and while the greater yogic world bends its knees to Krishna, Krishna has become weak in the knees at the mere mention of Radha’s name! While the yogic community idolizes Krishna for good reason, the bhakti-yoga of Sri Caitanya is preoccupied with Krishna’s idol—Radha. Welcome to the land of love that knows no reason.

This realm is represented in the widely celebrated Hare Krishna mantra that Sri Caitanya asked his devotees to chant. A mantra that appears first in the Upanishads, the Hare Krishna mantra is a mantra of divine names recommended for the present age of strife and discord. It consists of three names Hare, Krishna, and Rama, all of which are in the vocative case. The names Krishna and Rama are uttered four times each, while the name Hare is uttered eight times: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

Krishna means “irresistible.” Rama the immediate other self Balarama, Krishna’s elder brother in his pastoral lila. Hare is the vocative for Hari, which means “he who takes away.” All of these are names for Krishna, to whom the mantra calls out—“O Hari, O Krishna, O Rama! However, Hare is also the vocative of Hara, a name for Krishna’s shakti, Radha. Understood in this way, Hare means she who steals away the heart of he who is irresistible, the connoisseur of divine romantic love, and in this conceptual orientation to the maha-mantra, the Rama is taken as another name of Krsna: “one expert in divine romantic love.” Thus this simple mantra of divine names takes one deep within the yogic world of divine love where shakti rules over shaktiman. It seeks to unite Radha and Krishna in love within their divine play, and in doing so facilitates the chanter’s prospect for following Radha and falling in love with Krishna, who has fallen in love with her.

We live in paradoxical times. Although modern society has more access to resources, technology, and scientific achievements than in any previous era, we see an increase in anxiety, depression, chronic stress, and burnout. We have exceptional conditions and amenities, but we do not have satisfaction or inner peace. 

What are we missing? The real-life example of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu can give us the answer. His whole life and psychology (mind and behavior) are a representation of the preferable mode of being for achieving lasting happiness. 

The Imperative for Self-actualization and Self-transcendence

Who is Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu? From the perspective of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, he is Krishna himself, entering this world as a devotee. Once (a term used here only for the sake of convenience), Krishna, bewildered by the devotion of his devotees, fell into an “existential crisis”. He started to ask himself: Who am I to provoke such love? What do they see in me? What is this extraordinary love that they are experiencing? He found out that he was missing something. This transcendental scenario also has its psychological implications. God, the Ultimate Truth, is engaged in a constant process of self-actualization and self-transcendence towards grasping his own depths and the depths of the love of his devotees. This also contains a message about our own nature: inherently, we, too, have this constant impulse for growth and self-improvement – an imperative to actualize our understanding of ourselves and the world, to go beyond, to discover more and more. 

This psychological message resonates with the zeitgeist and with our cultural contexts. As was said in the beginning, we are currently facing a paradox that cannot be explained by our external circumstances. In such situations, to go within is the most meaningful and rewarding direction we can choose. We see that people start to develop an interest in philosophy, spirituality, and personal development as means of finding a solution and counteracting the pandemic of anxiety, depression, loneliness, and nihilism, all of which are on the rise. When we feel that our life is in a state of crisis, we need to go within, as God himself does when he initiates a process of what we might consider as a kind of auto-psychoanalysis in order to go deeper and explore his own personality. This theological idea can be found in psychological theories. In one of the most famous models of human needs and values, Abraham Maslow places self-actualization at the apex of the pyramid and in his latest works further expands it by adding the concept of self-transcendence. 

Love, the Highest Ideal

The culmination of this transcendental moment “gives birth” to Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the most attractive Lord who tries to reach new dimensions of love and who tries to measure the depths of his own self by way of accepting the mood of his topmost devotee, Sri Radha. By doing so, he shows, humbly, that it is not He but rather Love that stands on the top of the universal hierarchy. The Supreme thus bows down to the supremacy of Love herself. This teaches us that our quest for meaning and our search for answers will lead us to find out that self-discovery and growth should be in service of love.

Caitanya Mahaprabhu is a student of love and constantly strives to reach for new depths and heights and to expand his consciousness. In his striving to experience the highest love, we can see a roadmap for our own transformation. In his example, we find confirmation of the proper mode of being for achieving lasting happiness and combating our distress. In this sense, we can say that he teaches us that the culmination of human experience is self-transcendence in the pursuit of love. This is on the top of our ethical structure. Common sense and modern-day research confirm that. Fulfillment comes from love – love, in regard to our biological makeup, provides a sense of safety, and it nurtures our brain and bodily systems. On the psycho-emotional level, it gives serenity and strength and helps foster resilience. On the social level, it provides the basis for satisfying relationships. When we feel loved, we are able to strive, grow, be resilient, and express our authentic selves. The longest Harvard study shows that having loving relationships with others and loving what you do is the key to lasting happiness. But love is inevitably associated with overcoming oneself, stepping out of one’s comfort zone, and growing up. Relationships challenge us to learn and develop our qualities and character. We cannot be self-centered and look for personal comfort.

The Value of Sacrifice 

The ultimate Truth is a servant of Love, the best version of reality. This is the most desirable model of the world. It is true on all levels – biological, psychological, social, and spiritual. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu shows us that, if we want to achieve it, we need to both transcend and sacrifice ourselves for this highest ideal. The idea of sacrifice may sound a bit strange to people in the modern world, but ancient philosophies state that human life is meant to be lived by making constant sacrifices. From the viewpoint of evolutionary psychology, this paradoxical statement is true. The concept of sacrifice is one of the primary factors that separate and distinguish human beings from animals. Committing to something and making sacrifices to attain it is a general pattern of human behavior. We can let go of something we value in the present in order to gain something we value even more in the future. This becomes possible due to our ability to sacrifice instant gratification – to delay the pleasure of here and now for something in the future. 

If we go even further back in time, we will see that it was said five thousand years ago in ancient Vedic texts that human life is meant for self-sacrifice. The word for sacrifice, ‘yagya’, consists of two words, ‘yaj‘ and ‘ya‘. ‘Yaj‘ means ‘worshiping’ or ‘rendering service’, and ‘ya‘ means ‘whom’. But what kind of sacrifice is worthy of our efforts? To sacrifice for the sake of our highest ideal. We must choose our sacrifice and choose our suffering. This choice will determine the depths and heights we can reach. There is suffering that could broaden the field of our consciousness, but there is also suffering that could narrow it. The thing that makes the difference is the meaning we attribute to it. In the words of Victor Frankl, “pain is suffering without meaning.”

As the recent pandemic has shown, our world is a vulnerable place. We cannot escape this reality. Even if we try, neuroscience confirms that attempting to numb negative emotions also numbs the positive ones. Further, trying to indulge only in pleasure leads to a lower baseline level of dopamine (one of our feel-good neurotransmitters) which practically means a decrease in our level of happiness. Through the example of his lifelong quest for developing love for God, Sri Caitanya provides a solution – sacrifice mundane suffering for the sake of transcendental suffering. This transcendental suffering comes as a result of trying to reach the highest ideal. When we find meaning in this goal and put effort into achieving it, we transform our inner world.

New Meaning and Identity

If we follow in the footsteps of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, we will be led to the doorstep of our highest ideal and inner transformation. It is said that what we focus our attention on is what we will get. He concentrated his consciousness on the highest ideal by being absorbed in kirtan and by chanting the maha-mantra, which contains the names of the Divine. To be always concentrated on Divine love means that we accept the sacred narrative: we are more than our physical bodies, and this world is not meaningless and random. Spirituality is based on this narrative. Research done by one of the most famous speakers in the world, Brené Brown, has shown that spirituality is a core factor for resilience. Based on her research, she defines the term spirituality as recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Such spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose to our lives. It gives us a new sense of identity in which we develop a more helpful attitude towards the obstacles and calamities in our lives. We establish an ethical structure and a belief system that contribute to our resilience. By being emotionally attached to something that transcends the things in life that are conditioned by time and space, we gain a greater sense of inner peace and more stability. 

By having faith in this higher ideal, we develop a transcendental identity that reveals new layers, new dimensions of our own being such as patience, humility, and compassion. The manifestation of this sense of identity can be seen in the Siksastakam, an eight-verse prayer written by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, where he moves from despair to hope, from bewilderment to full surrender. 

Sacred Rituals 

From this new meaning and identity, new ways of behaving and acting emerge. In our secularized Western world, we have stripped this meaning from our lives, considering it superficial or too abstract. But by doing so we have created a vacuum not only inside of us but also outside, in our daily lives. We have lost the meaning-creating rituals of the past. Modern man is anxious because we have taken away the rituals that connect us to each other, that ground us in empathy, compassion, and togetherness. Instead, we have many routines. They may look similar, but, as psychologist Esther Perel points out, there is a big difference. She explains that routines get us through the day, but rituals guide us through life. Routines can help us develop skills while creating continuity and order. As a result, we can be productive, but we lose touch with our transcendental identity. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu teaches us to revive the rituals that elevate our consciousness, that are performed with pure intention, and that are imbued with meaning. When we do not take the time to nurture this part of ourselves, we will not succeed in reaching the goal of love and we will then find substitutes in vicarious pleasure. As a result, we get lost in consumerism and exploitation, which can ultimately only bring more anxiety and depression. As Viktor Frankl stated, “when a man cannot find meaning he numbs himself with pleasure.” 

Our need for meaning is fulfilled by fixing our mind on the highest ideal. This is the best ritual for steering the processes of self-actualization and self-transcendence. This highest ideal of selfless love is also the means to achieve happiness because happiness is directly connected to the quality of our goals and our sense of identity. Chanting the names of God means bowing down to and recognizing the sacred narrative – the idea that our consciousness is superior to matter. We go from the quantitative world to the qualitative world. This endows us with resilience and also with an identity that is more stable, one situated beyond the constraints of passing time and that is connected to the ideal world, the world of value and meaning, of faith and hope, which give us an existential anchor, a shelter that is more solid and that is not limited by external circumstances.

Inspired by the Example

Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu sets for us an example of how in his quest for reaching the highest ideal he found awe, meaning, ecstatic feeling, and aesthetic rapture. His life is an apogee of divine ecstasy. Using Maslow’s terms, his life represents the ideal for self-actualization and self-transcendence. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is one of the historical figures who manifest and embody the highest ideal in such a graceful and tremendous way that they transformed the society they were part of. He teaches that if we want to live a truly fulfilling life we need to elevate our consciousness. The best way in which we can do this is by pursuing the highest ideal and engaging in sacred rituals that cultivate new meaning and sense of identity. 

People who come in touch with his teachings and philosophy through the widening ripples that spread from his dancing in the lake of this Divine ecstasy continue to experience inner change. The life of such a personality provides not only a real example but one that we can call hyperreal: a fact is merely a fact, but the example of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu uncovers an existential pattern that is striking in terms of its universal applicability. 

This is the suicidal plane, the discordant plane where we cannot live without devouring our environment. That is the law of this land. If you want to live here then you must devour your environment, otherwise, you cannot survive. So it is the suicidal plane. One is eating another and only then can he live, that too is only for the time being. So is this a proper land to live in?

Prasada—that is the highest solution! The principal necessities of any life here in this world are to preserve and to propagate. Our first priority is to preserve, and for self-preservation, we create havoc in the environment by exploitation. The first principle of exploitation begins from the urge for self-preservation, and that means eating. We are to adjust our dealings with the environment in our most primitive necessity which we can’t avoid in order to keep body and soul together. So if we can solve this one difficulty, we can almost solve the whole problem.

Prasada-seva korite hoya, sakala prapanca jaya—Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur says that the key to the solution of the whole problem of this mundane life is in prasada. The first necessity of life is eating, and if we can solve that problem, we have solved the whole thing. The most important thing is to learn how we should take prasadam to maintain ourselves. Our life depends mainly on that.

To live here we cannot but consume, and we cannot but create devastation in the environment by our eating. If we go to consume anything, even plants, grasses or seeds, then microscopic creatures are being killed. So the question is how to get rid of this reaction? It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita that we shall get relief from that reaction only if we can successfully connect everything with the supreme satisfaction, with him whose pleasure all existence is meant to fulfill (3.9). So, in the taking of food, really we are to be conscious that we are collecting the ingredients for his satisfaction, and then cooking and offering to him for his satisfaction—that should be our real purpose. And then, because our whole life and energy is for serving him, we need energy and must take something out of that. But the main point, the real substance of the transaction will be to collect, cook, and offer to him according to his will expressed in the scriptures. That is the first step, and only after the foodstuffs have been offered to him shall we take anything ourselves. This will help to make us always conscious of why we are eating. We are eating because we want only to serve him. Furthermore, whatever has been accepted by God, the ‘poison,’ the bad reaction, will have been absorbed and digested by him just as in the case of Mahadeva who drank the poison generated from the ocean of milk.

Krishna is absolute and can digest anything. Not only that, but those things that have been consumed in his connection also receive promotion, so actually there is no himsa, violence. What appears to be himsa is not really so, because those who are apparently violently treated actually receive a high promotion through connection with the supreme. In addition, whoever has been instrumental in fulfilling that connection will also receive some reward. So the devotee must think, “What shall I take? I won’t take anything from the world, I shall take only from my master, as his grace. It is his grace, his free grace to me—prasada.”

The word “prasada” means ‘kindness’, ‘grace’. The devotee will feel, “Whatever service I do, I am not expecting anything to be paid to me in return. It is a free transaction. And whatever I receive is only his grace. So I shall take prasada, then I shall be free from all entanglement of action and reaction even though I am in the midst of it. Because it is a fact that with every action I must disturb the environment, then if all my actions are meant for him, the Supreme, there will be no bad reaction coming to me, but rather the opposite reaction will occur and help not only me but those that were offered also. Through me, through myself as a center, such waves will emanate that will help others to progress in their path of purification.”

So, through the godliness in their heart, all must become purifying agents. God is on the throne of the heart, and from there he will emanate such a fine ray that will purify not only that person’s heart but also the environment. “Vaishnava” means a purifying agent who emanates goodness, absolute goodness, everywhere—through movements, words, actions, everything; deed, thought, and word, kaya, mana, and vakya. A Vaishnava is an agent of auspiciousness; te vaisnavah bhuvanamasu pavitrayanti. There are so many Vaishnavas, and by their chanting the holy name, by all their practices and by their whole lives, they are like so many purifying agents.

By proper knowledge, proper dealings and proper conduct, they set everything in its proper position and create adjustment in the domain of maladjustment. This world is maladjusted, and the balancing agents, the unifying factors, are the Vaishnavas. Just as there is a germ, a virus which spreads a particular contagious disease, so there must be the opposite of that, something which emanates only a pure and healthy atmosphere, and that is the Vaishnava.