Sharanagati

Not only the objective existence of the world is useless if there is no God behind, but our personal existence is useless, completely useless, if there is no chance for reciprocation. Actually this feeling of complete uselessness and this feeling of devastation can be perceived in bhakti. Because there are different levels of bhava like vibhava, anubhava, satvika-bhava and vyabhichari-bhava.

Vibhava means the reason that gives rise to emotions. For example the name “Krishna” gives some tremor in the heart. You hear the name “Krishna” and immediately either your heart breaks, or your heart rejoices. Something is just entering your mind, entering your heart. These are things that are connected with Krishna – His name, His form, His flute, for example – if you hear the flute sound, it also gives rise to emotions – or if you see a peacock feather, it also starts emotional waves. This is some kind of objective part of vibhava. And the subjective part is ashraya and vishaya. Ashraya is the person, who has the feelings, who possesses the feelings. And vishaya is the object of these feelings. So these are the vaishnava, the bhakta; and Krishna.

And then there are the anubhava – these are the symptoms, different symptoms – when you have some ecstasy there are some symptoms like trembling and palpitation, and when all your hair is just standing on ends, tears also… But these are some reflections of the real feelings, some results, reflections.

Then there are the satvika-bhava, that means the really existing emotional levels, feelings. There are many. But these are some permanent kind of feelings. We can also say that these are sthai-bhavas, something that is firmly there.

And finally in the philosophy of bhava there is the vyabhichari-bhava, these are the storm emotions – devastating, so strong, that the final stage of this level is just feeling dead. The emotions are so intense, that you just die! This is the top of emotions. There is nothing beyond! Nothing beyond, because you offered your whole life to Govinda and you just finish there. Nothing more is there! You do not have anything more to offer. But of course this is only a feeling, we are speaking of bhavas. So you can perceive, you can feel the feeling of being non-existent in vipralambha. That is also a kind of shynyavada, right? Your existence is finished. But what kind of shynyavada is this! This is full of emotions! This is full of Govinda, Radha, jiva…