Day 7: Giriraj Dandavat Parikrama Musings
- missing a day felt like weeks! Am I falling for Girirāja’s sevā?
- A friend said I might be missing the dopamine, I suppose akin to a runners high? That may be a (inadequate imho) phenomenal explanation of a spiritual causal event. I prefer to think it’s something more in the domain of how Vrtrasura has sung: “O lotus-eyed Lord, as baby birds that have not yet developed their wings always look for their mother to return and feed them, as small calves tied with ropes await anxiously the time of milking, when they will be allowed to drink the milk of their mothers, or as a morose wife whose husband is away from home always longs for him to return and satisfy her in all respects, I always yearn for the opportunity to render direct service unto You.”—SB 6.11.26
- This (mis/re)interpretation of spiritual causal affects in terms of material causal events reminded me of my prayer coach’s re-interpretation of the so-called evolutionary imperative of “survival of the fittest” in terms of its spiritual causal underpinning: “Before receiving connection to the higher world and thus awakening comprehension of atemporal reality the jiva invests mightily in her latest role [the current material body-mind complex] dramatically acting out its pleasures and pains, hopes and dreams, cultural and ideological views of life, etc., with compulsive hope that ‘this will be the one!’ The Muse inspiring her masterful method acting is denial of death. She would toil forever to satisfy a constitutionally insatiable body-mind if it could at least be permanent. Deep down, the fear of failing to attain lasting identity is what motivates the fight for survival; not biological instinct to live, but intense spiritual necessity to have a permanent personality.”—Śrī Gaura Yuga: A Reformation Manifesto for the Global Gaudiya Mission and Call to Prayer
- Material phenomena, being contingent forces, are not grounded in themselves. They are grounded in a Necessary, self-existent (ie not contingent on anything outside of itself) Reality, viz (in our language) the advaya-jnana-tattva—Brahman-Paramatma-Bhagavan—ultimately svayam-Bhagavan vrajendranandana Śrī Krsna.
- It’s wise and deep to investigate experience up to the point of the mystery (etāvad eva jijñāsyaṁ tattva-jijñāsunātmanaḥ SB 2.9.36) that allows us to see the unity of the dependent realities (aśrita-tattva) with the Independent Reality (aśraya-tattva) and in the inner-sanctum of that mystery experience life for the wonder and miracle that it is, including the possibility that what we feel when offering ourselves on the alter of God-communion is more than just dopamine, albeit the somatic system may register it as such!
- Shea has two more weeks before leaving Govardhan. In consideration of the triangle symbol — death-sacrifice-hope w/ bhāva in the center as our target — Shea offers a meditation that sees her only having two weeks to live! And how should that time be spent? In sacrifice (full namaskāra of body-voice-mind) carrying the hope that the chrysalis of a life given fully is dissolved and transfigured into the butterfly of a bhāva informed existence.
- It’s interesting how denial of death sabotages the intensity of the self-giving life, practically cutting us off from the sense that the actualization of our deepest most necessary hope is a realizable potential in the hear and now.
- Shea shares another gem from our prayer coach “Move slowly, step by step, but with urgency.” When we move too fast we tend to end up in artifice due to lack of sufficient integration of information, knowledge, experience (I guess kinda like not chewing the food enough and just swallowing it). This explains the fake everything of the postmodern world! If there’s no urgency we tend towards laziness and corruption.
- So it was today, we moved slowly, but intentionally and it was an ecstatic day! Plus our third “teammate“ (air quotes b/c we’re ultimately alone with the Alone) caught up with us today!
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