Wisdom of the Sages

Live from the Wisdom of the Sages annual Tuscany retreat, three questions that go to the heart of the practice. How do we deepen intimacy in bhakti without imitating it? How do you reconcile respect and resentment toward a teacher who gave you bhakti but also caused real harm? And how do we recognize what Krishna wants from us as our next step?
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Q&A Live from the Wisdom of the Sages annual Tuscany retreat. How does a bhakti practitioner maintain boundaries with a parent whose behavior has been harmful — without abandoning dharma or their own wellbeing? How do you help teenage daughters navigate comparison and self-worth in the age of social media? And how do we balance codependency with the aspect of mercy — in the context of the guru/disciple relationship?
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Live from the Wisdom of the Sages annual Tuscany retreat, Raghunath and Kaustubha take questions from their live audience. Four questions: When Krishna takes something away — is it punishment or love? How do you know if you're actually making progress on the path of bhakti? How do you stay Krishna conscious in a kirtan scene that rarely chants the Mahā-mantra? And how do we process the apparent repercussions of Krishna's Līlā in this world — Hiraṇyakaśipu was a devotee in a previous life, and yet he torments Prahlāda, kills brāhmaṇas, and terrorizes the universe. How do we make sense of that?
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That is the signature of real love — not what you get out of it, but how impossible it feels to ever pay it back. Arthur Ashe, dying, wrote to his young daughter: "You gave me so much happiness I can never repay you." He raised her. By any accounting, she owes him. And yet the giver feels the debt. In this episode Raghunath and Kaustubha arrive at Krishna's confession to the gopīs: the Supreme Person, whom no one can place under obligation, declares He cannot repay their love. Not in a lifetime of Brahmā. The chapter opens with the gopīs unable to bear separation. It closes with Krishna unable to repay it. The longing that begins as theirs ends as His.
Srimad Bhagavatam 10.32.15- 22
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The yogī sits for years, disciplining the mind, trying to bring scattered awareness to a single point of focus. In this episode Raghunath and Kaustubha trace how Śukadeva repeatedly frames the gopīs' intimate love against the highest reference points of contemplative life. Not to dignify their love by comparison to meditation, but to show the reverse: what the yogī seeks through discipline, the gopīs already possess, fully and completely, through love. Their devotion isn't an emotional substitute for yogic awareness. It is yogic awareness in its most concentrated, most complete form.
Srimad Bhagavatam 10.31.17 - 10.32.14


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