There is one funny thing. In a spiritual tradition, religion of emotion, many try to think themselves intellectually towards the goal of ultimate emotion. In iskcon, if you show emotion, you are considered less intelligent. so if emotion is the goal, it is forbidden on the way. One can wonder how that can work, and of course it does not. Instead we see emotionally starved men finally succumb to their inner thirst for emotion and become falling down celibate monks. Mystic spiritual ecstacy is a function of emotion, not of intellect. It is a state where you feel, but not exactly understand. You walk that path by developing your ability to feel, and make it subtler and subtler. You turn back the ability to feel from the senses and inwards. You feel in meditation, not from external sensual stimuli. Similar to mystic yoga you withdraw from the external senses pratyahara, but continue to feel. Emotion in its nature is already independent from the senses. Only that we let our emotions be triggered, lock to, what comes from the senses. That is the path of hedonism, material society. If you instead turn your emotions inwards, you get spiritual development. Bhakti yoga is the pinnacle of that spirituality. It is the destillation of pure spiritual emotion, and the only role of the intellect is to guide and then let go. In the higher states, you even abandon intellect and ego, and only rely on transcendental emotion, pure emotion, bhava. gopi-bhava is a pure emotion, not something that you can figure out in your head, or even reach by intellectual contemplation. It is an emotional gift that is given to you by grace, when you crave for it intensly enough. The only entrence ticket is the intense overwhelming craving, hunger, called lobha. Nothing else, no religious practices, no complicated meditation, only the intense overwhelming hunger for that emotion.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 06:34:24 +0000
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