Detailed Contents

Chapter Two: The Nature and Scope of Madhura-rasa

The material world as a reflection of the conscious world; rasa in the conscious world and activity in the material world; support and object of madhura-rasa; the soul of sweet rasa; wedded and paramour love; the aesthetic excellence of the paramour disposition; eternal Goloka and eternal conscious līlā; the radiant abode of Brahman; classifications of the women of Vraja and of the companions; Vraja rasa; classes of heroes and assistants; why rasa is especially excellent in paramour love.

Stimulating determinants of love for Krishna; the disposition of a Vraja resident; adornment; injustice; expressions of love; enduring emotion; the thirty-three transitory emotions; colours and other features of the principal devotional rasas; secondary devotional rasa; special features of stimulating determinants and consequent expressions; divisions of sweet love according to heroine and according to emotion; “ghee-like” and “honey-like” affection; māna and praṇaya; divisions and development of praṇaya; rāga and its divisions; bhāva or mahābhāva; adhirūḍha; punar-mādana.

The ten conditions of balanced love-before-meeting and six of ordinary love-before-meeting; eternal union within eternal līlā; two forms and further subdivisions of amorous union; classes of līlā; the One becoming Two for the sake of bliss; the wide scope of worship through madhura-rasa; the background of spontaneous disciplines; the state of perfect equipoise; assumptions of esoteric practice; the male and female principles and discipline of the central subtle channel; Shiva and Shakti principles; the Buddhist “sahaja”; Radha-Krishna theology among Vaishnava Sahajiyas; the solar and lunar principles in Nātha worship.

Printed pages 22–37.

Chapter Three: Madhura-bhāva in Indian Esoteric Religious Disciplines

A. Buddhist Sahajiyā

The popularity of Buddhism; Avalokiteshvara, Maitreya, and Manjushri in Buddhist Yogachara; the Hinayana and Vajrayana branches; the councils; the Buddha’s human body; why and how esoteric practice entered Buddhism; Mahayana, Mantrayana, and Vajrayana; psychological causes; the primordial Buddha’s dharmakāya, sambhogakāya, nirmāṇakāya, and sahajakāya; Asanga and Nagarjuna; the antiquity of Tantra.

Three dispositions and seven disciplines: bound, heroic, and divine dispositions; Vedic, Vaishnava, Shaiva, right-hand, left-hand, Siddhanta, and Kaula disciplines; dhāriṇī and its divisions; why and how paired yoga entered Buddhist practice; the secret of the five “M” substances; the spontaneous state as Great Bliss, the state of Sukharaja and Mahamudra; the distinctive nature of the guru’s grace; the state of the cloud of Dharma—