rasa

        No pious activity can make Sri Krishna appear before us. We may get His darshan only by prem. And how do we get this ‘prem’? We can obtain it only by the kripâ of great devotees. Sri Krishna is full of ras; He is Ras – and full of wonder. This sense of wonder is the soul of ras.

What is ‘ras’?

                    If we see something that we have never seen before - something so wonderful that we have never heard about it, never even imagined it in our wildest dreams – if such an amazing object appears before us all of a sudden, our eyes will pop out. Actually, first, our hearts will leap out; since it cannot actually do so, our eyes merely convey this feeling externally. This is ‘wonder’.

                     The Pandits call such a wonderful and supremely blissful object as ‘ras’. When a loving devotee (premik) performs sâdhanâ, he gets prem. After getting prem, when his anxiety and thirst reaches the zenith, Sri Krishna takes mercy and gives Him darshan. At this moment the premik undergoes a ‘never-before’ experience   - a wonderful realization sweeps all over him – this is ‘ras’. He feels, “Oh! I must have performed so many pious deeds, due to which I have gained this experience!” In reality, his marvelous experience is not due to any pious activity; rather it is the result of extremely intense Bhajan.

                    We, as sâdhaks, must perform such Bhajan following all the principles of Bhajan very accurately. Then, by the mercy of Sri Gurudev and Vaishnavs, we too shall attain a state called “Ras-realization”.  After all, this is what Râgânugâ is all about.