Seventh Period of Devotional Practice (7th Yama Sadhana)

Devotional spiritual practice at Dusk ‘Prema’—Divine Love in separation

7th Verse of Sri Shikshastaka Internal symptoms of realized state or highest objective—‘Premabhakti’

yugāyitaṁ nimeṣeṇa cakṣuṣā prāvṛṣāyitam
śūnyāyitaṁ jagat sarvaṁ govinda-viraheṇa me

Symptoms of separation grief—even a moment’s separation from Govinda will be considered as an epoch, tears will roll down from the eyes like rainfall, realization of the voidness of the whole world.

udvege divasa nā yāya, ‘kṣaṇa’ haila ‘yuga’-sama
varṣāra megha-prāya aśru variṣe nayana
govinda-virahe śūnya ha-ila tribhuvana
tuṣānale poḍe,—yena nā yāya jīvana
(Chaitanya Charitamrita Antya-lila, 40-41)

Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s writing: Due to separation grief, these symptoms will be manifested— every day is spent with anxiety, one moment of separation is equal to an epoch, tears are rolling down from the eyes like the clouds of rainy season, voidness of three worlds, due to extreme separation grief from Govinda burning sensation like inextinguishable fire made with husk yet life is not collapsing.

When there is actual separation grief from Govinda, even a moment will seem equal to an epoch. When there is that sort of indifference to the worldly things of the world, there is no question of taking all these prohibited things, one will give up even the good vegetables which are not prohibited to eat. As separation grief will be immense one will give up everything like Raghunath Das Goswami and others.

Indication of pastimes of RadhaKrishna at dusk

radhaṁ sālīgaṇāntām asitasitaniśā-yogya-veśāṁ pradoṣe
dutyā vṛndā-padeśādabhisṛta-yamunā-tīra-kalpāga-kuṣjām
kṛṣṇaṁ gopaiḥ sabhāyāṁ vihita-guṇi kalālokanaṁ snigdha mātrā
yatnādānīya saṁśāyitam atha nibhṛtaṁ prāpta-kuṣjaṁ smarāmi
(Govinda-lila-amritam 21/1)

Srimati Radhika, as per advice of Vrinda Devi, at dusk wearing garments of black and white colour, suitable to dark fortnight and bright fortnight respectively (with the desire to hide herself from the detection of others), in the company of sakhis (confidantes), with female messenger (gopi), goes to Sanket Kunja (particular suggested grove) under wish-yielding tree, saturated by beautiful sacred surroundings at the bank of the Yamuna to meet beloved Krishna at the appointed time and place.

On the other side, Krishna’s pastimes at dusk—Krishna has satisfied all His personal associates except gopas (milkmen). The gopas are disheartened not to get scope to serve Krishna, but as Sri Krishna is Omniscient, He knows the minds of the milkmen. When milkmen want to exhibit some interesting games and sports with skillfulness and Krishna is invited to come to the special meeting place to see the sports, Krishna immediately accepts the proposal and goes to the meeting place to see nice skillfulness of the gopas and the sports and wrestling activities. Krishna is so much attracted by seeing the sports, He is requesting to demonstrate different sports, one after another. Affectionate mother Yashoda Devi is very much worried on seeing the son not coming from the meeting and going to bed. Yashoda Devi is repeatedly calling the son for going to bed to sleep, but the son is not coming. Such is the nature of restless children. Yashoda Devi goes herself to ‘Krishna’ to pacify the child and to ask the wrestlers to stop showing wrestling and their skillfulness. She brings the child to bed and sings songs to make the child sleep. When Krishna has sound sleep, Nanda Maharaj and Yashoda Devi are happy. They also go to bed for sleep but what happens—Krishna being attracted by pure devotion of Radha, secretly leaves the bed and goes to Sanket Kunja (the said particular grove) to meet Radharani at dusk. I remember such Radha and Krishna.

We are not eligible to think about this now. When we shall have tears rolling down like rainfall and the whole world feels void, then we are entitled to contemplate on this pastime otherwise not. At first our Param Gurudeva introduced remembering Shikshastaka only in the Kartika-vrata and not the pastimes. Afterwards remembering of the pastimes has been introduced. Our Guruvarga have introduced this so that we have some sort of inquisitiveness; some sort of longing and desire to know about the transcendental realm. If anybody hankers and has extreme longing to get the eligibility then remembering these pastimes will take him to that place. For that reason this has been introduced. But we are not eligible now. At present, we do not think that our house is nothing or our family is nothing. We do not have the separation grief.