sat cit ananda | The Hare Krishna Movement

Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, Is the Attraction for the All-Attractive / Hlādinī—Pleasure Potency

29 Jun 2014 Leave a comment

by The Hare Krishna Movement in A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Caaitanya-caritamrta, Sri Caitanya-Caritamrta, Srimati Radharani, Vaisnava Vocabulary Tags: A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, ananda, aradhana, blissfulness, cit, devi, gopis The Supreme Personality of Godhead, His devotees, hladini, hladini energy, hladini-shakti, hlādinī—pleasure potency, krsna mayi, Krsna pleasure, lovely abode of Lord Krsna, pleasure potency, Radha Radhika, resplendent and most beautiful, sat, sat cit ananda, worship

click on image to enlarge

This morning there was this nagging voice that kept saying “read Adi-lila chapter 4, of the Sri Caitanya-caritamrta” I haven’t read from the Caitanya-caritamrta for a while because I was re-reading the Bhagavad-gita and Krsna Book and because it is summer, I am busy with work. But today is Sunday and my time is a bit more relaxed. So I responded to the nagging voice…and pulled Vol. 1 from the shelf. As I read I became more and more enlivened and the words jumped out at me…. Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, who is the attraction for the all-attractive. What is attracting the All Attractive? Srimati Radharani!

And the other thing that jumped out at me was the word hlādinī. Here is another word for your vaishnava vocabulary. So today is a two part post from the Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, describing the hladini energy, and the attractiveness of Srimati Radharani.

Lord Kṛṣṇa enchants the world, but Śrī Rādhā enchants even Him. Therefore She is the supreme goddess of all. (Adi 4.95)

Śrī Rādhā is the full power, and Lord Kṛṣṇa is the possessor of full power. The two are not different, as evidenced by the revealed scriptures. (Adi 4.96)

Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī is as fully spiritual as Kṛṣṇa. No one should consider Her to be material. She is definitely not like the conditioned souls, who have material bodies, gross and subtle, covered by material senses. She is all-spiritual, and both Her body and mind are of the same spiritual embodiment. Because Her body is spiritual, Her senses are also spiritual. Thus Her body, mind and senses fully shine in love of Kṛṣṇa. She is the personified hlādinī-śakti (the pleasure-giving energy of the Lord’s internal potency), and therefore She is the only source of enjoyment for Śrī Kṛṣṇa.

Śrī Kṛṣṇa cannot enjoy anything that is internally different from Him. Therefore Rādhā and Śrī Kṛṣṇa are identical. The sandhinī portion of Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s internal potency has manifested the all-attractive form of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and the same internal potency, in the hlādinī feature, has presented Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, who is the attraction for the all-attractive. No one can match Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī in the transcendental pastimes of Śrī Kṛṣṇa. (from purport Adi 4.71)

…All the desires of Lord Kṛṣṇa rest in Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. (from purport)

Some notes on the hlādinī potency More

Sat-cit-ānanda / Eternal, Full of Knowledge, and Bliss

26 Jun 2013 Leave a comment

by The Hare Krishna Movement in A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Sat-cit-ananda, Vaisnava Vocabulary Tags: A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, ananda, eternal, jubilation, knowledge, knowledge and blissful, pleasure, sat cit ananda

This morning while reading I came across the words sat-cit-ānanda. Many of us, we know what the words mean, but have we realized the meaning yet? Do we truly understand what it means to be eternal, full of knowledge and blissfull? I thought I would do a search on the phrase “sac-cid-ānanda” and see how this was explained by Srila Prabhupada.

Cit means knowledge, sat means eternal, and bliss means full of jubilation, ānanda, pleasure. (from lectures)

Because we are spirit soul, our position is ānandamāyā. Ānandamāyā means always blissful. Because we are part and parcel of God… God is blissful, all-good, sac-cid-ānanda…Sat means eternal, and cit means full of knowledge, and ānanda means full of bliss. So we are part and parcel of God. Kṛṣṇa says, mamaivāṁśo jīva bhūtaḥ: BG 15.7 “All these living entities, they are My part and parcel.” So if Kṛṣṇa is sat-cit-ānanda, then we are also sat-cit-ānanda, because we are part. Just like gold and a gold, small particle. That is also gold.

…Part is never equal to the whole. But quality is the same. Therefore we, being part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Lord, we are trying to utilize our original constitutional position. This is going on. But we are doing that without Kṛṣṇa at the present moment. Therefore it is not successful. Part must remain with the whole. I have given this example many times, that a small screw of typewriter or any machine, it must remain with the whole machine. Then it has value. If it is out of the machine, there is no value. A small screw in the motorcar, so long it is with the motorcar, it has got value. And as soon as it is thrown out of the motorcar, it has no value. (Lecture on the Srimad Bhagavatam 1.2.9 given Detroit, August 3, 1975, by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada)

It is interesting to note that Srila Prabhupada used this phrase ‘sat cit ananda’, 41 times in Lectures, 5 times in Letters, and can be found is his books. Some of the usage is as follows: More

Śrī Nārada Muni’s Spiritual Transformation

08 Dec 2012 Leave a comment

by The Hare Krishna Movement in A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Guru & Disciple, Narada Muni, Srimad Bhagavatam Tags: A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, bliss and knowledge, eternal life, perfect stage of life, sad-dharma-prccha, sat cit ananda, spiritual body, spiritual master, Sri Narada Muni, Sri Vyasadeva, Srila Vyasadeva, Suta Goswvami

…Śrī Nārada Muni in his previous life was just an ordinary maidservant’s son, so how he became so perfectly transformed into the spiritual body of eternal life, bliss and knowledge is certainly important. Śrī Vyāsadeva desired him to disclose the facts for everyone’s satisfaction.

Vyāsadeva himself was the disciple of Nāradajī, and therefore it was natural to be anxious to hear what Nārada did after initiation from the spiritual masters. He wanted to follow in Nārada’s footsteps in order to attain to the same perfect stage of life. This desire to inquire from the spiritual master is an essential factor to the progressive path. This process is technically known as sad-dharma-pṛcchā.

The life of a sincere devotee of the Lord is thus explained in a nutshell by Nārada Muni by his personal example. Such a devotee, after his initiation by the Lord or His bona fide representative, takes very seriously chanting of the glories of the Lord and traveling all over the world so that others may also hear the glories of the Lord. Such devotees have no desire for material gain. They are conducted by one single desire: to go back to Godhead. This awaits them in due course on quitting the material body. Because they have the highest aim of life, going back to Godhead, they are never envious of anyone, nor are they proud of being eligible to go back to Godhead. Their only business is to chant and remember the holy name, fame and pastimes of the Lord and, according to personal capacity, to distribute the message for others’ welfare without motive of material gain. (from Purports to 6th chapter)

The following is the Translations from the entire 6th Chapter the First Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam describing Srila Narada Muni’s transformation from a simple and gentle maidservants son to his platform of spiritual perfection and realization.