Chapter Four: The Perfected Body and Entry into Līlā
Through this yoga of feeling, the practitioner unites with the Lord. This is called “inner union,” or mystical union with the Beloved.1 In the intensity of feeling, the practitioner not only beholds Vrindavan līlā, but enters it in the disposition of a sakhī and savours its sportive delight.
The ideal of rāgānugā-bhakti is attainment of the Vraja residents' rāgātmikā devotion. Rāgātmikā appears in several forms: (1) born of desire, as among the gopīs; (2) born of hostility, as with Kamsa; (3) born of fear, as with Shishupala; and (4) born of affection, as among the Yadavas.
In rāgātmikā, one savours eternal līlā in the eternal abode through the perfected body. At initiation, a mañjarī provides entry into the lineage of one of the eight sakhīs. Within rāgātmikā, the mañjarī is the guru. After the perfected body has been attained, the body of a sakhī is received through her. Sri Radha is the arrayed multiplicity of all sakhī bodies.2
Rāgātmikā has two divisions: (1) desire-formed and (2) relationship-formed. Desire-formed devotion means thirst for union. This desire exists solely to give Sri Krishna happiness: “the endeavour is for Krishna's happiness alone.” It culminates in the love of the goddesses of Vraja. The disposition of desire-following devotion is “a wish for union directed wholly toward amorous play.” Kubja's rati is desire-like, not desire-formed.
Footnotes
-
A comparison cited from De diligendo Deo 10 likens mystical union to a drop of water losing its separate taste and colour in wine, iron glowing like fire, or air suffused with sunlight: human feeling is dissolved into holiness and wholly transfused into the divine will. ↩
-
In the Rāga-vartma-candrikā, Vishvanath Chakravarti describes several gopīs said to have appeared with Sri Chaitanya: Rupa Manjari as Rupa Goswami; Lavanya Manjari as Sanatan Goswami; Rati Manjari as Raghunath Das; Guna Manjari as Gopal Bhatt; Vilasa Manjari as Jiva Goswami; and Rasa Manjari as Raghunath Bhatt. ↩