Manas

rāgānugāyāṁ pravṛttir apīdṛśī—santuṣṭā śraddadhaty etad yathā-lābhena jīvatī | viharāmy amunaivāham ātmanā ramaṇena vai || amunā iti bhāva-garbha-ramaṇena saha | ātmanā manasaiva tāvad viharāmi | ruci-pradhānasya mārgasyāsya manaḥ-pradhānatvāt tat-preyasī-rūpeṇāsiddhāyās tādṛśa-bhajane prāyo manasaiva yuktatvāt | anena śrīmat-pratimādau tādṛśīnām apy auddhatyaṁ parihṛtam | evaṁ pitṛtvādi-bhāveṣv apy anusandheyam ||

(Bhakti Sandarbha: 311)

“Engagement in rāgānugā [-bhakti, i.e., the mental, verbal, and bodily performance of rāgānugā-sādhana-bhakti] too is such [i.e., is described in another statement of Piṅgalā in SB 11.8.40], ‘Satisfied living in accord with attainment [i.e., remaining satisfied regardless of whatever is encountered] and possessed of śraddhā in this [i.e., in the resolve that I shall attain Bhagavān as my husband], I shall enjoy solely with him [i.e.. Bhagavān], my beloved, by means of the self.’ ‘With him’ (amunā) means with [my] beloved, present in the interiority of [my] bhāva. ’I shall enjoy [with him] “by means of the self”’ (ātmanā) signifies, to be specific, by means solely of the mind because of this path in which taste (ruci) is predominant [i.e., because of the path of rāgānugā-sādhana-bhakti] having a predominance of the mind because of generally only the mind being fit for such worship (bhajana) in the case of one who has not become established in the form of [one of] his [i.e., Bhagavān’s] beloveds [i.e., since it is not possible for a jīva to directly serve Bhagavān as one of his beloveds when one has not attained the spiritual form of one of Bhagavān’s beloveds in his eternal abode and one thus remains embodied in a material body bound by time and karma within saṁsāra, it is only possible for a jīva to offer such worship (bhajana) conducive to the attainment of the rāga of a rāgātmikā beloved of Bhagavān for which one has ruci by mentally taking shelter in Bhagavān with the bhāva of being his beloved and offering worship to him in the mind with a mentally conceived form of one of his beloved of Bhagavān in his eternal abode, and thus on the path of rāgānugā-sādhana-bhakti, which is based on a sādhaka having ruci for the rāga of one of Bhagavān’s rāgātmikā associates, one’s worship (bhajana), that is, practice of sādhana, is primarily performed in the mind, where one can don a mentally conceived form suited to serving Bhagavān with the rāga for which one has ruci and in that mentally conceived form engage in offering various forms of worship to him in accord with the specific nature of that rāga]. Hereby, the audaciousness of even such in relation to the sacred Deity or elsewhere is repudiated [i.e., the audaciousness of offering to an existential seat (adhiṣṭhāna) of Śrī Bhagavān outside the mind, such as a Deity, the worship a beloved offers Bhagavān, viz., engaging in acts such as dressing one’s gross body as one of Bhagavān beloveds, offering Bhagavān embraces and kisses, etc., is repudiated by Piṅgalā’s statement in SB 11.8.40 that she will enjoy with Bhagavān ‘by means of the self’ (ātmanā), that is, only by means of the mind, and not by means of the body]. Such is [also] to be determined in regard to the bhāvas of paternity and so forth [i.e., no sādhaka with ruci for any form of rāgātmikā-bhakti should engage outside the mind in dressing one’s body as rāgātmikā-bhaktas dress themselves in Bhagavān’s abode or in performing any of the activities that are specific to how such rāgātmikā-bhaktas personally relate to Bhagavān in his eternal abode unless they so happen to match the conventional manner in which one dresses one’s sādhaka-deha, that is, physical body].”

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