Radha's Prem

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The life of Sri Krishna and the love of Sri Radha are a famous lofty tradition come down to us as beckoners to a superhuman form of spiritual longing quite unknown to the mind lodged in physical matter or the bodily encasement. Through the pages of this book will be revealed eminently the forms of Godly love and its ways which are an eminently multifarious variety. The Rasa Panchadhyayi of the Srimad Bhagavata is supposed to be the quintessential narration of the dramatic enactment through which Divine Love manifest itself in action and ecstasy. The author, a great saint and sage, caters through these pages and excellent treat for the benefit of all devotes throughout the world.

The publication titled "Radha's Prem" by Gurudev Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj is a dramatic presentation of the various stages and phases of Supreme Divine Love, as illustrated in the life of the exemplary symbol of devotion, Sri Radha Ji of Brindavan, in Her love for Lord Krishna. The conversational depiction of the dramatis personae is eminently suited to present a histrionic effect on the minds of the readers. The intention of the work is to highlight the supremacy of divine love or devotion as a pre-eminent way to God realisation.

Usually, love, in common parlance, is construed as the medium employed by feeling by which the lover and the beloved are brought in contact with each other in an experience of communion, though normally two individuals cannot commune with each other by any amount of mutual affection on account of the fact that individualities maintain their formal self-identity and the one does not lose oneself in the other. Thus, mortal love, human affection, is an artificial mechanism, which promises a union of the lover and the loved one but never does really fulfil the promise. Earthly love thus ends in sorrow, bereavement and death, since the principle of separation in permanently at the back of even the attempted union through sensory and mental acts of mutual contact.

Divine Love is not a different nature altogether. Persons who are enmeshed in thinking through their physical body and the senses cannot arise to the level of a state of love which does not require an object outside itself and therefore obviates the necessity for any endeavour for external contact. Divine love is the soul pouring itself on soul, the infinite colliding with the Infinite in the forms of perception and objects of cognition.

Born on the 8th September, 1887, in the illustrious family of sage Appayya Dikshitar and several other renowned saints and savants, Sri Swami Sivananda had a natural flair for a life devoted to the study and practice of Vedanta. Added to this was an inborn eagerness to serve all and an innate feeling of unity with all mankind.

His passion for service drew him to the medical career, and soon he gravitated to where he thought that his service was most needed. Malaya claimed him. He had earlier been editing a health journal and wrote extensively on heath problem. He discovered that people needed right knowledge most of all; dissemination of that knowledge he espoused as his own mission.

It was divine dispensation and the blessing of God upon mankind that the doctor of body and mind renounced his career and took to life of renunciation to qualify for ministering to the soul of man. He settled down at Rishikesh in 1924, practised intense austerities and shone as a great Yogi, saint, sage and Jivanmukta.

In 1932 Swami Sivananda started the Sivanandashram. In 1936 was born The Divine Life Society. In 1948 the Yoga-Vedanta Forest Academy was organized. Dissemination of Spiritual knowledge and training of people in Yoga and Vedanta were their aim and object. In 1950 Swamiji undertook a lightning tour on India and Ceylon. In 1953 Swamiji convened a 'World Parliament of Religions'. Swamiji is the author of cover 300 volumes and has disciples all over the world, belonging to all nationalities, religious and creeds. To read Swamiji's works is no drink at the Fountain of Wisdom Supreme. On 14th July 1953 Swamiji entered Mahasamadhi.

Civilized society is afflicted with a number of diseases. Some of them are disreputable and some fashionable. Amongst the latter, scepticism and irreligion are two widely prevalent afflictions. The modern man takes pride in his fashionable maladies. In their negative aspect the complaint remains in the form of a general disbelief. In this stage it is not so dangerous. In a more virulent stage it assumes the form of criticizing and attacking religion, traditional belief, long-cherished ideas and time-honoured truths. In this form it is a serious and complicated combination of Asuric blasphemy, obstinate egoism and aggressive agnosticism. The purblind vision of the patient then perceives defects in divinity, dark carbon in the dazzling diamond and base passions in the in the very perfection of spiritual purity add divine love. The counteract these dire maladies, a new technique of divine ray-therapy is necessary. There is no other method. Treat him with divine rays of spiritual knowledge and let him absorb the light emanating fro the Jnana Surya of the spiritual realm and the patient will be affected and the Jaundiced vision of disbelief will give place to a true insight and understanding of the real nature of the divine frame, the Radha-Krishna Tattva and the glory of the divine nature, the devotee' love and potency of the Divine Name.

This brilliant little play form such ha course of spiritual treatment. This revealing light ray will surely penetrate into the diseased system of those that fail to see the glory of divine love in its proper light and open their inner vision, bestowing devotion and faith unto them.

The absolute purity of the Gopis 'hearts by far surpasses the Himalayan snow. Become pure. Then you may understand just a little of the grandeur of divine love.

Salutation to Sri Radha, the World-mother, who took her birth at Barsana, near Vrindavan and who is an embodiment of Sri Krishna Prem!

The supreme emotion, Mahabhava, is the quintessence of Prem. Radha is the personification of this supreme Emotion. The play of Radha with Sri Krishna is extremely deep; it cannot be learnt from the Dasya, Vatsalya and other Bhavas. The Sakhis alone hare qualified for it. Tey alone relish this Leela in full. Sakhis or those who worship Sri Krishna in the spirit of his Sakhis, have a right to this Leela.

A Sakhis does not yearn to play with Krishna all by herself. She feels a keener delight in contriving Krishna's dalliance with Radha. Radha is indeed the wish-yielding Creeper, Kalpalata, of the love of Krishna. The Sakhis are the leaves flowers, and shoots of the creeper. If the nectar of dalliance with Krishna waters the creeper, the leaves, etc., take delight in it million times more than if they themselves had been watered.

The Sakhis do not long for Sri Krishna's embrace, but they exert themselves to make Sri Krishna embrace Radha. They send Krishna to her for this purpose under various pretexts. They attain thereby a bliss million times sweeter then that of selfish enjoyment. The unselfish devotion of these towards each other strengthens the deliciousness. Rasa. The sight of such unselfish, pure Prem pleasers Lord Krishna. The love felt by the Gopis is not really earthly lust. Earthly lust seeks sensual gratification for one's own self. The Gopis abandon all idea of self and seek Krishna's enjoyment. They do not yearn for their own pleasure. They embrace Krishna only to please him.

You cannot attain Krishna, however much you worship Him, if you only meditate on him as a Divinity and not serve Him as a Gopi. See how Lakshmi adored him, but could not attain him in Vraja.

Radha is Devi. She is the queen of lustrous beauties and the abode of Sri Krishna's love-sports and worship. She beholds Lord Krishna in anything and everything she sets her love-lit eyes upon. Lord Krishna is the supreme matchless lover and Sri Radha is identical with Krishna. She is part and parcel of Krishna and His love-energy. Her sole object of existence and devout prayers is to fulfil the wishes of Sri Krishna. Hence she is named Krishnamayi by the Krishna is the charmer of all. Radha is Krishna's charmer and therefore the supreme Goddess.

She is the worshipped of all the worshipped deities. She is the fosterer and mother of the worlds. She is the presiding deity of the Lakshmis of Vaikuntha or of the six divine attributes of Lord Krishna. She is the chief of Krishna's divine energies. She is the seat of concentrated beauties or the source and centre from which the Lakshmis draw their beauties.

Lord Krishna is the embodiment of bliss. He is the source and centre of real happiness. Bliss is divine elixir that bestows immortality. Sensual pleasure is a poison which causes diseases and death. Lord Krishna has a certain energy called Antaranga or Svarupa Shakti. This Shakti, which ha the power of giving delight to Krishna and his Devotees, is called Hladini is Pram or selfless Krishna's Prem. This selfless love is called Ananda-Chinmaya-Rasa. The quintessence of this Rasa or Mahabhava is Radha.

Radha is the embodiment of Mahabhava. The word Radha etymologically means a devotee. Radha is the chief of Krishna's sweethearts. All the Lakshmis of Vaikuntha are her Vilasa-Murtis. The queens of Dwaraka are her reflections. Lalita and other Gopis of Vrindavan are her manifold forms. She pervades the Gopis in her subtle form in order to contribute to Krishna's enjoyment. Radha is Krishna 's delighter, charmer and life's all. She is the queen of all the lovely maidens of Vraja. She is the Crest-Gem of all celestial beauties. Radha and Krishna are inseparable as fire and its heat, ice and its coolness, the flower and its fragrance.

The body of Radha is made up of sweet tenderness and loveliness for Sri Krishna. The substance of her subtle form as Mahabhava is Krishna Prem. Ardent passion for Sri Krishna is her dress. Her sweet radiant smile is the camphor. All good qualities are her garlands. All the Bhavas form the ornaments, her limbs. Lord Krishna's name and qualities flow out in a stream from her tongue. She serves Krishna with the drink of Premarasa of Shyama-rasa.

The culmination of Bhakti is reached in Madhurya-Bhava. The Lover and the Beloved become one through the intensity of love. Radha had this type of Lover and the beloved become one through the intensity of love. Radha had this type of love. In Madhurya-Bhava there is the closest relationship between the devotee and the lord. There is no sensuality in Madhurya-Bhava. There is no tings of carnality in it. Passionate people cannot understand this Bhava a their minds are saturated with passion and lower sexual appetite, in the secular sphere the only "love" which approaches this Bhava to an appreciable nearness is the love a grown-up son has to his mother. Here, there is not even a semblance of the sex-element prevalent. Is there the least carnality in the love a son has for his mother? Sufistic saints also have the Bhava of lover and the beloved (Madhurya-Bhava). Gita Govinda written by Jaya Deva is full of Madhurya-Rasa. The language of love which the mystic uses cannot be comprehended by worldly persons. Only Gopis, Radha, Mira, Tukkaram, Narada, Hafiz can understand the language.

Glory to Radha the consort of Lord Krishna! Glory, glory to Lord Krishna, the joy of Devaki, the goal of Yogis, the refuge of devotes, and the delight of Yasoda and Nanda. May their blessings be upon you all!

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