(Article–Eroticism in Gaudiya-Vaishnava Religion, taken from The Harmonist or Sree Sajjan a Toshani No.7 , page 63 )
There is no doctrine of Gaudiya Vaishnava Religion that is more grossly misunderstood than the amorous worship of Sree Krishna as practised by the milkmaids of Braja, which is declared by Sree Chaitanya to be the highest worship of the Divinity. The mood of Sree Chaitanya, from the time of His Initiation at Gaya into the worship of Sree Krishna, resembled that of the milkmaids at the abrupt conclusion of the amorous CircIe-Dance by the sudden disappearance of Krishna, when they began an agonised search for Krishna who had so unaccountably abandoned them. To the milkmaids the sight of Krishna was dearer than life itself. The Mood of Sree Chaitanya displayed, all through His Career, this intense agony of love’s separation felt by the milkmaids on missing the sweet sight of Sree Krishna. The eroticism of Gaudiya Vaishnavism is a matter transcendental. The study or contemplation of this subject is forbidden to all but the very highest order of devotees. The observations of Mr. Kennedy on P. 252 of his ‘Chaitanya Movement` that ‘the religious experience of the sect moves entirely within the circle of the Radha Krishna cult, that it is steeped in the erotic and moulded by it’, are not true in the sense in which he wants his readers to understand the proposition. Neither do we subscribe to his dictum—taken in his sense—that ‘the religion of the (Chaitanya) sect centres in the RadhaKrishna stories ; that they are the fountain source of all its devotion, and that its eroticism, therefore, flows from its very heart’ (Ibid).
Sree Chaitanya did not teach any erotic doctrines to the rank and file of His followers. During the last twelve years of His stay at Puri He shut Himself up in a seclusion of His sanctum with only two select persons to keep Him company, when He chose to listen to the songs and narratives of the Amorous Pastimes of Brindavana from the lips of those two persons only. In His conversations with Rai Ramananda at Vidyanagar and with Sree Rupa at Prayag He did, indeed, approve the view that the amorous worship of Sree Krishna, as practised by Sree Radhika, is the highest of all worship, being all-inclusive ; but the worship-service of Sree Radhika was never to be practised by any conditioned soul either by thought or by deed. Nay, the accounts of the Amorous Pastimes of Sree Sree Radha Krishna were not even to be listened to by any person who did not belong to the very highest order of devotees.
The attainment of Sree Sree Radha Krishna is thus only an object of longing of their pure minds even to the most advanced devotees. Few members of the Gaudiya-Vaishnava communion have anything to do with the Brindavana Pastimes of Sree Krishna. The loose practice of some spurious GaudiyaVaishnavas of the present day is in direct contravention of this cardinal doctrine of the religion taught and practised by Sree Chaitanya.
Not only is a Gaudiya-Vaishnava to strictly abstain from listening to the narratives of the Amorous Pastimes of Sree Sree Radha Krishna, but he is also to avoid all carnal association with the opposite sex except in a severely restricted form under the sanction of wedlock. The married person is required to conform fully to the -regulations of the Shastras in the matter of sexual intercourse even with one’s spouse. Every Gaudiya-Vaishnava is enjoined to avoid close association, with even married persons who are given to unregulated sexuality. This strict avoidance of all sexual association is one of the two basic principles of the conduct of a Gaudiya-Vaishnava, the other being avoidance of close association with persons who are hostile to Krishna. This ideal of conduct is fully illustrated by the practices of Sree Chaitanya and all His associates and loyal followers.
Those who have studied carefully the accounts of the Practice and Teachings of Sree Chaitanya penned by the Brindavana Goswamis who were authorised by Sree Chaitanya Himself to put them in writing, and their loyal followers, must have been struck with their uncompromising insistence on absolute sexual purity in practice and thought as the very first indispensable requisite for everybody who is to practise true spiritual living.
The real source of the practice and doctrines of the Gaudiya-Vaishnava Religion is not in the accounts of the Amorous Pastimes but in the Transcendental Name of Krishna. The Transcendental All-holy Name of Krishna is pleased to manifest Himself only on the lips of the person who is freed from all mundane attachment through undergoing full spiritual training, is devotedly attached to the Holy Lotus Feet of the Transcendental Personality and has thus established a bond by spiritual loving devotion. If a person of pure conduct listens with faith to the Transcendental Name of Krishna from the lips of the pure devotee he is freed from all the frailties of the flesh and the mind and in his turn becomes eligible for chanting the Holy Name of Krishna without spiritual offence. But it is a rare good fortune for a person to have the desire to listen with faith to the Transcendental Name of Krishna, with the sincere resolve of eschewing sensuous living, from the lips of a really pure devotee.
Faith or Sraddha is not a mixed condition. It is not a degree of belief resting on so-called hypothetical convictions engendered in sense-ridden people by the practice of the mental function on data supplied by sense-experience. Sraddha is an attitude of the soul and has nothing to do with sensuous, mental or physical experience. Such Sraddha can be awakened only by honest spiritual association with pure devotees of Krishna. From the first awakening of spiritual faith to the attainment of loving devotion to the Feet of Krishna the neophyte has to pass through successive well-defined stages of spiritual progress. Each stage is accompanied by its corresponding realisation of the nature of the Divinity.
I have briefly sketched the system of spiritual practices of the Gaudiya Vaishnava Religion to be found in the authoritative text books of the Faith. Mr. Kennedy evidently received his information from persons who were not themselves well-versed in the authentic literature of the Religion, or who might have been under the spell of that large and patently spurious literature that has been deliberately manufactured by the open and secret enemies of the Faith.
The Eroticism of the Religion of Sree Chaitanya is a matter of spiritual realisation and may be practised only by the most advanced devotees on the plane of fully spiritualised mind. It can have nothing to do with the impure mind and the physical body. The amour of the milk-maids is the highest activity in the state of grace, of the perfectly pure soul on the transcendental plane. The erotic mode is not wicked in itself. It is the source of the highest aesthetic and moral principles of this mundane plane. It attains its supremely wholesome and harmonising expression on the highest plane of the Transcendental Spiritual Realm of the Divinity. Till the eternal spiritual plane of activity is reached misapprehensions in one form or another are bound to occur and prevent the complete realisation of the nature of our own true selves and also that of the Divinity.