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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
710
Atman and Moksa
of Bhāgavata is supported and actually adopted by Caitanya. Caitanya holds that first there arises taste (ruchi) for God, then a strong attachment for Him (āsakti) which further generates passion (rati) for Him which ultimately, when sufficiently deepened, culminates into constant love (prema ). The constancy of love is sustained by unflinching faith or s'raddhā in Kịşņa. What Caitanya insists on is an unfading passion for always being in the company of the Lord Kțşpa, and an unfailing experi. ence of joy and calm which is never disturbed by the happenings of the world. As the devotee is steady and steadfast in his object of devotion he has no fear left to be afflicted by the usual sufferings of the world. The prema or love that gets deepened in the devotee takes progressively the forms of sneha, māna, praraya, rāga, anurāga, bhāva, and mahābhāva.'
These higher stages of love ultimately make the devotee drunk with God and then he is no more for a moment without Him. He enjoys an everlasting fountain of love, joy, calm, freshness, and enthusiasm of the Divine. The communion with God brings an unparalleled peace with it. That communion, when it is successful, is followed by bliss (a bliss which has no parallel in the world), with the visible symptoms thereof, such as tears of joy, and at last a swoon. The man whose so-called communion with God does not bring him bliss may rest assured that he has gained very little by his efforts, and that communion for which he has striven, has not been brought about. Thus, when a devotee is fully satisfied by
1 Ghose Shishir Kumar: Lord Gauranga, Vol. II, p. 184. 2 Ibid,
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