The Heart of the Sacred Feminine: An Introduction to Bhakti Yoga & the Goddess
About Ashley ElenbaasAshley is the proprietor of sky house herb school and apothecary. She teaches people about plants, lead wellness workshops and retreats, and spend copious amounts of time in the garden.
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Urban Devi Sanga - Meditations on Sri Radha: The Original Sacred Feminine
This month the Urban Devi Sanga explored meditations on Srimati Radharani, the original sacred feminine. To listen to a recording of the sanga please click here or on the video image below. In the sanga, Rukmini Devi references a special recipe said to the a favorite of Sri Radhika, she shares it with us below.
Dear Friends,This afternoon, we had our monthly Urban Devi sanga online. I spoke about Srimati Radharani, and that link will be shared with you here.
Someone asked what is a favorite preparation of Sri Radhika? Just a few days ago, my dear friend from the UK, Varsana Devi Dasi sent me this recipe. I’m happy to share it with you here.The recipe calls for arbi, a starchy vegetable that’s used as a substitute for potatoes, but it’s much more healthy than potatoes. It’s available at Indian or Asian grocery stores. The unusual spices used in this recipe can also be ordered from:pureindianfoods.comIngredients:10-12 arbis1/2 tsp carom seeds (also called ajwain)1/2 tsp tumeric powder1/2 tsp garam masala powder2 Tbsp oil2 Cups watersalt as requiredsome mint and coriander (cilantro) for garnishingFor making the paste:3 medium tomatoes1 green chili1/2 inch ginger1 tsp cumin powderInstructions:
- Wash the arbi well.
- Cook the arbi until tender.
- Drain and let the arbi cool.
- When warm or cook, peel the skin and slice the arbi into 2 or 4 pieces vertically
- Grind all the ingredients mentioned for making the paste into a smooth paste.
- Heat oil.
- Add the carom seeds and fry them.
- Stir and add all the spice powders one by one.
- Fry the tomato paste until the oil separates, this will take about 6-7 minutes.
- Add water, salt and the boiled arbi pieces.
- Simmer for some 6-7 minutes till the gravy becomes smooth and thickens a little bit.
- Garnish with mint or coriander leaves and serve Arbi Curry to Radha and Krsna
Jai Sri Radhe! Jai Sri Krsna!
All the best,Rukmini https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgbvns0spZk&feature=youtu.be
The Holy Appearance Day of Srimati Radharani
Tuesday, August 25th is the holy Appearance Day of Srimati Radharani, the original feminine goddess and internal pleasure potency of Lord Sri Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Together They unite as the original divine feminine and masculine, and we unlimited jiva souls are expanded from Them. We can find joy in excavating our sacred connection with Them in love and service.
Srila Prabhupada explains that if you offer your sincere prayer into the hand of Sri Radha, she will recommend you to Him, saying, “this devotee is better than me, please accept her!”
Here are a few drops from the deep ocean of her qualities:
“Vrndavan’s queen brings limitless pure bliss to He whose face is Vrndavan’s splendid moon risen from the nectar ocean of bliss and love. She fills Vrndavan with nectar and she makes her beautiful friends again and again shed tears, and their bodily hairs stand erect in wonderful ecstatic love like her own.” --Vrndavan Mahimamrita
“I, a distressed soul, belonging to you, beg you with sweet words while rolling on the banks of the Yamuna!
Although I am unfit, an offender with a crooked mind, please bestow on me a fragment of the gift of service to you. This unhappy soul is not fit to be neglected by you, for you have a butter soft heart that melts constantly by the warmth of your compassion.” -- Srila Rupa Goswami, Stava-mala
Happy Radhastami!
All the best,
Rukmini Walker
A Letter To Our Future Selves
This piece is being featured in "The Emergence of Women's Voices in ISKCON" a written documentary of the voices of the first-generation pioneer women of ISKCON. Thirty-three authors speak about their relationships with Srila Prabhupada, what women bring to Krishna consciousness, and the importance of women's voices in ISKCON. My "Letter to our Future Selves" is featured in this book and book launch. Please scroll to bottom of this posting to learn more about this effort. Here is the link to the event on Facebook August 22-23: https://www.facebook.com/
A Letter to our Future Selves
by Rukmini Walker
written on June 20th, 2020
Click here to listen to the audio version of this piece.
[audio m4a="http://www.urbandevi.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/A-Letter-to-Our-Future-Selves.m4a"][/audio]
Dear Vaisnavis of the future,
My deepest respects to you all. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Several years ago I attended a conference in Geneva, sponsored by the Global Peace Initiative of Women. A woman who was a high court judge in India spoke and explained a powerful metaphor.
She said that traditionally in India, most people lived in a joint family home. There was usually a courtyard space in the center facing inward, and a veranda around the perimeter facing out. The men would usually be on the veranda, talking about finance, politics, science, and the problems and affairs of the outside world.
The women would be in the courtyard cooking together, talking together, dealing with domestic problems, and healing the family’s illnesses with herbal remedies.
Some are trying to lead by facing out, looking for solutions from outside; and some are looking to lead, and heal community by facing in…
Of course, today, there are many women in leadership - in government, in finance, in science, and many other fields as well. In ISKCON, in the US today, there are six women temple presidents. In other countries, there are also women leading in different capacities, in different services. It seems that often women and also men who are spiritually advanced, have an ability to lead in a supportive, empathic way, rather than a controlling or domineering way.
It seems to me that this sort of introspective leadership would mean to lead as a sort of path smoother, or servant leader, trying to truly hear others and deeply appreciate each and everyone’s unique and diverse contribution to the whole. This inward-facing community-centered leadership seems to be a formula for developing what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr called, “the beloved community”.
He defined that beloved community, first of all, as one that offers radical hospitality to everyone; an inclusive family rather than an exclusive club; recognizing and honoring the image of God in every human being. Of course, we would extend that to include every living being.
I’m fond of a certain story about Srila Prabhupada. In the early days, a new devotee, who was also very young at the time, had a chance to serve Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada was staying for a few days in a house near New Vrindavan, and this young man was given the task of guarding the house from outside at night. It began to rain outside and the young man came into the attached garage to do his guarding service from there.
In a few moments, he felt a presence behind him in the garage. He turned around, and there was Srila Prabhupada standing behind him. He fell down and offered his obeisances. Then he rose and asked, “Is there any service I can do for you, Srila Prabhupada?”
Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes. You can go where I will not go!” The young man was bewildered. Srila Prabhupada had just come from Chicago; Dallas; Caracas, Venezuela; San Francisco, and before that Tokyo; soon he would be going on to New York, London, Paris, and Germany…
He asked, “But where is it that you will not go, Srila Prabhupada? You are going everywhere!”
Srila Prabhupada replied, “To the future! And by the way you treat the people there, they will know how much Krsna loves them.”
In other words, Krsna cares for us, for all living beings. He patiently travels with us as the Supersoul in our lost wanderings as we try to fulfill our separatist desires in so many species of life. When we feel distress, Krsna feels compassion for our suffering. "Tat te 'nukampam...", "anukampam" means “to tremble with” (SB 10.14.8). And He gives us the understanding by which we can come to Him.
As His aspiring devotees, how can we make our consciousness more like His, in the sense of loving and caring for others? What will enhance our Krsna consciousness and help us go deeper in experience and realization? What parts of ourselves do we want to carry into the future?
What kinds of interactions in our communities and beyond can grow into deep loving exchanges that sustain and build faith and trust?
On the path of Bhakti, we learn that at the center of all existence, there is a love affair, a dance between Radha and Krsna. The divine masculine - Sri Krsna, loving the divine feminine - Sri Radha, who is expanded from Him. She is His own pleasure potency. In effect, this is God loving God. And we are being invited to join that dance, to live and dance in harmony along with Them in eternity. To live in Bhakti, means to live in harmony with this “Rta,” or divine cosmic order.
Once, Srila Prabhupada gave an example: If you’re sitting on the bank of a still lake and you throw a pebble into the center of the lake, then harmonious concentric circles will radiate outward from that center where you threw your pebble. If you throw another pebble, and another one, and yet another one into that same center, they will all create harmonious circles generating out from that center. But if I throw a pebble to this side or that side, and you throw your pebble here or there, then so many interference patterns will form and begin to clash with each other.
In other words, if we act in this world, loving Krsna and serving Him in the core of our hearts, and at the center of our lives, then as many interests, goals or pursuits as we may have, can all be harmonized in peace and sustainability in Krsna. We can have community, family, art, music, intellectual pursuits, environmentalism, or so many other “isms” all offered into the center point of loving Krsna. And if we act out of self-centered ego, then we will clash - within ourselves, between ourselves and others, and in the world.
How does Srila Prabhupada describe the formula for peace? To understand that everything is owned and controlled by Krsna, that everything is meant for His pleasure, and that He is our dearest friend. (BG 5.29)
In his purport to Bhagavad Gita 4.24, Srila Prabhupada explains that,
Everything that exists is situated in the brahmajyoti, but when that jyoti is covered by illusion (maya) or sense gratification, it is called material. The material veil can be removed at once by Krsna consciousness… the Absolute Truth covered by maya is called matter. Matter dovetailed for the cause of the Absolute Truth regains its spiritual quality. Krsna consciousness is the process of converting the illusory consciousness into Brahman, or the Supreme. When the mind is fully absorbed in Krsna consciousness, it is said to be in samadhi, or trance.
How can we bring this mood of harmony into our hearts, into our communities, and into the world? We are eager to preach, but are we eager to appreciate and to truly hear others?
We are members of an institution meant for giving compassion to others, but are we each individually acting with compassion in our personal dealings? Or are we remaining on the neophyte platform judging and criticizing others? Offending others and becoming offended by petty things, making assumptions, taking things personally, and acting out of false ego? Are we trying to grow the seeds of Bhakti but instead getting tangled up in the weeds?
I was recently listening to a lecture given by Srila Prabhupada where he was comparing the practice of beginning or sadhana, vaidhi Bhakti to jumpstarting the engine of a car. We try to give our internal battery a jump by our daily practice. But real Bhakti begins when we develop a spontaneous taste for the practice, or when the car engine kicks in and begins to run on its own power.
If we want to carry these sacred teachings into the future, we must ourselves develop the taste for authentic Krsna consciousness. So many religious communities of different traditions exist on a kanistha, or beginner’s platform… judging or criticizing others over petty differences of understanding, or class or race or practice.
If we remain on this beginner’s platform, how are we any different? Perhaps we have an extraordinary theology, but if we don’t practice it with realization, how are we any better? How will we communicate to them how much Krsna loves them if we are not living and showing that love between ourselves and others?
Recently, we attended a funeral ceremony for a beloved devotee who had taken his own life. It has been a tragedy in this community. In the first days after the suicide, there were naturally many unanswered questions: “Why? How could this happen?” As well as much blame and finger pointing to others in leadership that, sadly, also extended out onto social media.
I feared that this mood of negativity would continue at his memorial ceremony. And yet after those first painful days, there seemed to be a shift. At his ceremony, each person spoke of him with such appreciation, telling stories of how kind, selfless, and lovingly serving he had always been. How he treated everyone of every community, both Indian and Western, young and old, new and seasoned members with such affection.
After the ceremony, there was such a sense of peace, of the community having come together. Afterwards, one older god brother of mine, said to me, “Why did we have to wait until after his death to appreciate him so much? Why didn’t we let him know while he was alive, how much we all loved him? Maybe this tragedy could have been averted, if we had let him know…”
We so often speak about higher levels of rasa, of brava and prema. But this kind of love is impossible to realize without first learning to act with appreciation and gratitude in this world. Our acarya, Srila Prabhupada was always so grateful. Even Lord Krsna is so grateful for any tiny service rendered.
In conclusion, dear Vaisnavis, I suggest that gratitude and appreciation are the two doors to the palace of Bhakti… and there is no back door. Can we be the change that creates the future and show the people there how much Krsna loves them?
Hare Krsna,
Your sister in service,
Rukmini Devi Dasi
The Emergence of Women's Voices in ISKCON is a written documentary of the voices of the first-generation pioneer women of ISKCON. In this anthology they pass the torch of wisdom and lessons learned to future generations. Thirty-three authors speak about their relationships with Srila Prabhupada, what women bring to Krishna consciousness, and the importance of women's voices in ISKCON. They tackle difficult issues with philosophy, reason, common sense, decades of personal experience, and Krishna consciousness.
The essays in this anthology will bring light to ISKCON members around the world. They are as applicable today as they were yesterday and can be used as a road map to move into the future. Many senior devotees have poured out their wise hearts here, having thought deeply about this topic. They knew Srila Prabhupada and lived under his roof."A must-read. Emergence opened a floodgate of emotion and gave me solace and wisdom." --Mathura Mandala devi dasi
Gaura Purnima 2019
March 21st in the holy Appearance Day of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. In the Gaudiya Vaisnava tradition, He is considered to be a combined form of the divine feminine, Sri Radha, and the divine masculine, Sri Krsna.Here is a backstory of how that came to be:One day, Krsna sat beside Radhika in the forest of Vrndavan. Taking one of her hands in His, He pleaded. "Please give me something special today..."Inwardly, Sri Radha's heart melted at His request, but outwardly, she concealed her secret mind with a studied silence. Speaking no words, but by the tilt of her head, her sidelong glance, and the sign language of her lotus hand, she invited Krsna to tell her what he wanted. And Sri Krsna eagerly obliged her silent invitation with an outburst: "Please give me your love!"
Radha smiled and responded playfully. "Aho, but Krsna, this love of mine would be too heavy for You to bear."Just then, the best of Sri Radha's devoted girlfriends, the saucy Lalita, chimed in,"Radha's love would be too heavy for You, Krsna. You should know how intense it is when You are not near, her anxiety knows no limit. And though we try our best, no remedy can be found to assuage her distress. We anoint her body, blazing from the fire of separation, with cooling sandalwood paste, but the sandalwood flies from her limbs like dry leaves of paper. We bid her to lie on a shaded bed we prepared, strewn with dampened lotus petals, but the fragrant petals are in incinerated by the fever of her longing. So, it is true, none but the Queen of Vraja could bear that weight. It would be too heavy for You.Hearing these words, Krsna grabbed hold of Radharani's other hand, and with tears coming from His lotus eyes, implored once more: "But I cannot live without tasting the nectar of this love!"Astonished by joy, Sri Radha broadly smiled, and as if orchestrated by her heartbeat, all of Vraja fell silent, eavesdropping to hear her jubilant declaration. "All right, beloved. I will give you this love You crave. But there's something more. You will need the sanctuary of my golden complexion to shield your beautiful blackish body, because the intensity of my love will cause You to stumble and fall. And without the protection of my golden effulgence, you would be bruised. This golden hue will indemnify You instantly, no harm will come to ever overtake Your soft body, which is more dear to me than life itself."So Krsna was concealed by the molten gold of Sri Radha's dazzling complexion, which causes Him to adopt her mood and inner disposition. His limbs began to tremble and dance in jubilation, and He began to cry out, as Radha does, "O Krsna, where are You? Where are you? O ascendant moon risen from the dynasty of Nanda Maharaj and Yasoda? O beloved of my life breath, where are You? As soon as Krsna possessed and was possessed by this love, His amorous cries transformed the landscape: the stones within earshot melted in ecstasy; the trees began to dance; and the ardour of the love He felt caused Him to crash down like a tree torn from the earth by a gale, and cast to the ground. And then it was that Sri Radha's beautiful golden effulgence protected Him, as she had promised... This is the notion of Gauranga Mahaprabhu found in the line of Rupa and Raghunath..."(This story appears in Narahari Cakravarti's 18th Century Narottama-vilasa)I wish you a most joyous Gaura Purnima, Appearance day of Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu!May Lord Caitanya be in your hearts and minds!
All the best,
Rukmini Walker
Entering Kartika
It’s that time of year again in which the sun moves away from the Earth, temperatures drop and darker days start moving in. For many of the world’s major religious traditions, these darker autumn and winter months become an impetus to connect with our own inner light sources: our spiritual sparks. This is often represented through the ritualistic lighting of little candles, or lamps.[perfectpullquote align="full" cite="" link="" color="" class="" size=""]Beginning with this month’s Vaishnava offerings of ghee lamps for Damodar, to the flickering Diwali lamps, to the lighting of menorahs, we are entering a special time of year marked by people all over the world as a celebration of spiritual light.[/perfectpullquote]If we pay close enough attention, we’ll notice that our individual experiences of spiritual light and darkness increase and decrease with a rhythm that mimics the seasonal changes in nature around us. The yogis of the past—like Buddha and Patanjali—were incredibly attuned to this, and worked within these natural forces to support swift, spiritual development.Long, dark nights of the soul—to borrow a phrase from John of the Cross—have an amazing ability to cause us to reach toward divine light with the most fervor, like Arjuna did at the beginning of the Gita. As such, autumn is meant to prepare us for a spiritual hibernation of sorts, in which we take inventory of all those places and people that we find the most spiritually nourishing in our lives, and keep them very close to us.In this context, darkness paradoxically becomes a servant of the light, fueling its brightness. After all, the light of a candle shines the brightest in a dark room.
The brightest light in the Bhakti tradition is the supreme Goddess, Radha: Krishna’s dearest beloved. Radha and the Gopis—her cowherd girlfriends—spend the entire autumn season in the forests of Vraja, playing with Krishna, in what is called the Rasa Lila.During the Rasa Lila, the Gopis express the sweet sentiments of devotional love that are at the very heart of the Bhakti tradition. Today, we find these beautiful, poetic words in the tenth book of the Bhagavat Purana: the ancient Sanskrit text so dear to practitioners of Bhakti.This month, devotees of Radha and Krishna, meditate on the stories of the Bhagavat Purana that describe Krishna as an adorable toddler: Damodar. In one of the stories, Krishna’s mother, Yashoda, binds him up with her love—represented by ropes. Baby Krishna eventually frees himself of these ropes and crawls off. But Krishna never frees himself of the “ropes” of Radha’s love.[perfectpullquote align="full" cite="" link="" color="" class="" size=""]Radha’s love has more power over Krishna than anything else. During the month of Kartika, we especially celebrate and serve this love.[/perfectpullquote]In fact, the special spiritual power, or shakti, that flows forth to us this month mercifully comes to us from Radha: for she grants us direct access to him. For this reason, Radha is called Urjesvari: the empress of all power. Her love is so powerful, in fact, that the Bhakti tradition describes it as stopping the sun and the moon in their orbits.It is said that during this whole month of Kartika the moon remained full—its bright light shining upon Radha Krishna and the Gopis during the Rasa Lila. Kartika begins with the last full moon (sharad purnima), and lasts until the next (rasa yatra purnima).
We light the candles every morning and evening this time of year to remind us that our spiritual enthusiasm has the potential of never waning, just like the full moon of autumn during the Rasa Lila. The external lights are a beautiful reminder of the spiritual sparks we each have burning within us all the time.Kartika is considered the holiest month of the Bhakti tradition because—despite the darkness all around us—Radha’s love is always shinning brightly, and this is the month we feel it the most, as she shines her special mercy upon us.(Written by Krishna Kanta Dasi)
Deepening my Relationship with The Goddess
Pranada Comtois
It’s the nature of spiritual practice, or sadhana, to move from head-to-heart to become harmonized. This is why it took me several years after I began my practice of Bhakti yoga, nearly fifty years ago, to really internalize certain concepts beyond theory and let them find a deep place in my being. This isn’t surprising since one such concept, and perhaps one of the most provocative, is that -according to Bhakti Theology- all souls (whether in a male or female body) are feminine!Ironically, females were oppressed in the Bhakti community where I lived and in response, for a while, I tried to suppress my own femininity. Even though we had all been taught that we are not our physical bodies, gender seemed to become an issue in many Bhakti temples. Throughout those struggles I absorbed myself in japa and kirtan,the main practices of Bhakti yoga. Quietly to myself, and out loud in groups, respectively, I chanted the ancient Hare Krishna maha-mantra, which addresses the Supreme Divine as both male and female.Although, at first my focus was on Krishna – the divine masculine – as my meditation progressed through the decades, Radha – the divine feminine and supreme Goddess—came to the forefront of my heart and awareness. Soon, pleasing her, serving her, and seeing her became my passionate, cherished goal.[perfectpullquote align="full" cite="" link="" color="" class="" size=""]As my practice continued, Radha revealed her beautiful qualities to me. She is patient, grave, affectionate, compassionate, gentle, grateful, merciful, respectful, etc. In fact, all souls possess the same goddess-like qualities at their spiritual cores. How I longed to awaken these within myself![/perfectpullquote]
One text describes: “Radha is the full power, and Krishna is the possessor of full power.” Gradually Radha, the Divine Feminine, showed me the formidable power of the feminine, for her love conquers the all-powerful Krishna!This divine vision of Goddess Radha overpowering God through love – knocking him off his throne – astonished me. I realized that the Goddess not only shares the throne at the summit of reality, she demurely controls it, as well as he who owns it! And she does so with the deepest compassion and pure love: a love that drives God mad.Each day my relationship with Radha – and understanding how powerful the feminine can be – deepens. Meditating on Goddess Radha has unlocked transcendental reflections in me as I begin to understand the awesome implications in declaring all souls as feminine: that we all have these qualities and this power of spiritual love, regardless of our biological genders. What a different world it would be if all people imbibed these powerful, divine qualities!We experience masculine and feminine in this world – however imbalanced – because they have a pure state in the spiritual world. Unfortunately, our experiences of masculine and feminine energies are but impoverished reflections of their spiritual source and oftentimes the world subjugates the female and accentuates the male.[perfectpullquote align="full" cite="" link="" color="" class="" size=""]The Goddess teaches us how to do away with inebriated concepts of gender by empowering ourselves with her divine qualities and her overpowering, pure love through service to our Divine Other.[/perfectpullquote]
This is the path of Bhakti, which I call “The Way of the Feminine Divine.” It is the means by which we achieve our full potential as spiritual beings. It is the way of the Goddess of Wise-Love, Radha, unto whom I offer my life each day in the service of helping others call Radha into their lives.Goddess Radha is the exemplar lover and the shelter of all affection. For me, she’s the transcendent goal. Whether in a male or female body and whichever gender we identify with, in our spiritual perfection – according to Bhakti – we’re all servants of the Supreme Goddess Radha!And what happens when we become servants of the divine goddess in the truest sense? We become spiritual lovers. We conquer God! We conquer our Divine Other with our love. Is there any greater potential for the soul? Not as I see it.This essay was originally published in GODDESS, When She Rules: Expressions by Contemporary Women, (Golden Dragonfly Press, Jan.2018)______________________________________________
Pranada Comtois is a devoted pilgrim, teacher, and award-winning author of Wise-Love: Bhakti and the Search for the Soul of Consciousness. Her writing sheds light on bhakti’s wisdom school of heartfulness with a focus on how to culture wise-love in our lives and relationships so we can experience the inherent, unbounded joy of the self. At sixteen she met her teacher A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami and began her lifelong study and practice of bhakti. The wisdom of her teaching grows from living for twenty years as a contemplative in bhakti ashrams, and another twenty years raising a family and running two multi-million dollar businesses. Pranada is an activist in women’s spiritual empowerment. She was the first to speak up for gender harmony in the modern bhakti tradition and successfully organized global steps against gender injustice. Her writing has appeared in Integral Yoga, Rebelle Society, Elephant Journal, Tattooed Buddha, and the books Journey of the Heart, Bhakti Blossoms, and GODDESS: When She Rules. She is a featured speaker in the film Women of Bhakti.Her debut, award-winning book, Wise-Love: Bhakti and the Search for the Soul of Consciousness is available here. Connect with Pranada on her website here.