#радха_кришна #читаем_паттанаика #индийская_мифология

На тему Вишну-Кришны и его особенностей в отношении к долгу, привязанности и отстраненности.

Цитирую из книги Паттанаика, а тот цитирует из разных пуран:


Vishnu enchants. He also liberates. But Vishnu’s yoga is different from Shiva’s yoga. Shiva’s yoga is based on vairagya, or renunciation. Vishnu’s yoga is based on bhakti, or devotion. While Shiva’s yoga involves bridling the senses and controlling the mind to turn away from worldly pleasures, Vishnu’s yoga demands disciplining the mind not to seek the fruit of labor. Shiva’s yoga suits the ascetic. Vishnu’s yoga is ideal for the worldly man. It allows him to be part of samsara while working toward liberation.

Bhakti redirects desire toward the spirit and takes this self-defeating emotion out of man’s relationship with the material world. Dharma, or duty, not desire, becomes the motivating factor in man’s association with samsara. Man participates in worldly life not to indulge the senses or inflate the ego but out of a sense of obligation to the cycle of life. His actions rotate the wheel of life but do not generate the karma that fetters the soul to the flesh. Thus is worldly order maintained and salvation guaranteed. This path is known as karma yoga.

When Shiva dances on Mount Kailas, he dances alone, detached from the wheel of existence that rotates around him. When Vishnu dances as Krishna, he interacts with the souls of all creatures, playing his flute, beckoning them to dance to the tune of this music. His tune is the tune of dharma:





Brahmavaivarta Purana ©


Radha comes into being because Krishna wills it so. She is fair; he is dark. She contains all colors; he is beyond the spectrum. Without Radha, Krishna is cheerless. Without Krishna, Radha is directionless. Krishna, the embodiment of spiritual reality, defies the law of space and hence is present at various places at the same time. He also defies the law of time and does not transform. Radha personifies matter. Over time her energy is parceled out into a multitude of individual manifestations—the gopis. Though born of the same Radha, ego makes every milkmaid think she is different from the other gopis. Ego also deludes them into believing that Krishna is theirs alone. As each form claims exclusive attention, there is discord and despair. Krishna disappears. Gopis are lost. Samsara is in disarray. When bhakti, selfless love for Krishna, resurfaces, Krishna reappears, harmony returns, and the drumbeat of desire is heard again.

Krishna’s approach causes rasa to flow. When he departs, rasa ebbs. As rasa rises and falls, the cycle of seasons known as ritu appears in Nature. Ritu transforms Nature into a creature alive with many forms, a cosmic woman with many faces, each warm with passion, yielding her charms to her beloved who is lonely until she writhes in his arms. Krishna is the centripetal force, binding the women with his music. So long as all souls respect dharma, follow the tune, and stay in the circle, worldly delight and otherworldly bliss coexist.

Krishna in the center of the circle is paramatma, the universal soul, while Krishna with each of the milkmaids is jiva-atma, the individual soul. The two become one only when the milkmaids shed their egos and become one with Radha. This dance of Krishna in the circle of milkmaids is described as rasa-leela, the play of life.

Worshippers of Krishna identified themselves as diminutive doubles of Radha and, like her, they seek union with the lord. Longing was seen as a feminine emotion. In some bhakti subcultures, men even took to wearing female attire to get in touch with the feminine principle. They called themselves sakhis, or handmaidens of Radha. They crushed their masculine identities to become one with Radha and thus earn the eternal affection of Krishna.

As Krishna, Vishnu imbibed all the positive qualities of the love-god Kama while shedding the negative ones. Like Kama, Krishna is charming and delightful. The music of his flute, like the darts of Kama, rouses love and longing. Krishna enjoys the passion of moonlit nights and rain-drenched days. But while Kama inspires unrestrained pleasures, Krishna becomes the focus of ecstatic devotion. Carnal urges are elevated to spiritual longings. Affection is tempered with detachment:




Mahabharata, Harivamsa,
Bhagvata Purana ©


Krishna loves Radha but leaves her when duty calls. He fights, he loves, he wins, he loses without getting enmeshed in the tangle of emotions. Unlike Shiva, who rejects samsara totally, Vishnu participates with detachment. He is neither erotic nor ascetic; he is romantic yet pragmatic, charming yet serene.