Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

At evening, arrange the articles of service, excellent offerings, music, and the taste of rasa.
For four ghaṭīs, practise supreme love daily, knowing the proper hour.
The companions and excellent attendants perform ārati in many ways.
Supreme joy, auspicious wonder, and delighted commotion yield the essence of happiness.
The excellent, sweet recreation filled with rasa occurs in the blissful bower of the rāsa.
Fixing one’s attachment, meditate upon it until half the night, gathering the mind inward.
Arrange clear, expansive, and playful delights of many kinds.
Fashion the bedchamber bower and spread it with strange and varied flowers.
Singing auspiciously of the intimate virtues, lay Sita and her Beloved down to rest.
Then return to one’s own dwelling, the mind remaining within the graceful mystery.
During the remainder of the night, the pure happiness of rasa-play becomes accessible in experience.
Overcome by grace, only a rare rasika obtains it; others find no pleasure there.

In this way remain intoxicated through all eight periods, sustaining contemplative worship.
Sacrifice the conventions and fruits promised by worldly custom and the Veda.
Merely speaking or having others speak is not rasa without meditation upon the essence of beauty.
Therefore abandon every other tie and worship the generous Couple.
This is the clear yet hidden contemplation of the radiant mystery of rasa.
Meditate upon it forever within the heart, the pure mind’s eagerness growing fourfold.
Repeating the excellent Name Sita-Rama, one attains supreme joy.
How can the indescribable mystery be described, when realised ones forbid every limiting statement?

Sita-Rama is the transcendent Name that awakens love.
It is discipline, goal, and essential form, removing fatigue through its circling virtues.
Let the mind wander wherever it will, but the tongue must not cease moving in the Name.
The compassionate Lord will show mercy, and the heat of awareness will be pacified.

The splendour of the Form

Stainless lotus hands touch one another and reveal love.
Yugalananya’s companion sees mind after mind blossom in response.
Blessed, passionate rasikas dwell within playful delight,
repeatedly beholding and tasting the rasa of the Form and the beauty adorning the cheeks.