Parts 1 and 2 explored how Gauḍīya Vedānta safeguards pluralism—first through its vision of polymorphic monotheism, and then through its ability to hold both Brahman (the impersonal) and Bhagavān (the personal) within a single nondual reality. Yet this naturally raises a further question: if both are affirmed, why do Gauḍīya sources so often appear to privilege Bhagavān over Brahman?
It is precisely this tension that Swami Medhananda of the Rāmakṛṣṇa Order takes up in an essay for the volume Vaiṣṇava Concepts of God, entitled Harmonising the Personal God with the Impersonal Brahman: Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa’s Vijñāna Vedānta in Dialogue with Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism. After reading his thought-provoking piece—recommended to me by a friend—I invited him to my Free Radical Podcast for further dialogue.[1] During that exchange, he encouraged me to put my own reflections into writing. This final part of the series is both a continuation of that conversation and my attempt to respond to the questions his essay raises.
In his article, Swami Medhananda appreciates that unlike other Vaiṣṇava schools which utterly reject Brahman (and unlike radical nondualists who utterly reject Bhagavān) in eternity, Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism acknowledges the impersonal dimension of the Absolute as a real and eternal possibility. Yet, he argues, the Gauḍīyas differ from Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa, who placed both the personal and the impersonal on an equal footing. In contrast, according to Swami Medhananda, Gauḍīya theology establishes a hierarchy: Brahman is subordinate to Bhagavān but never the other way around. In Medhananda’s words, Gauḍīyas affirm an “asymmetrical ontological dependence” between Brahman and Bhagavān, whereas Rāmakṛṣṇa teaches a “mutual ontological dependence” and thus he “went one step further than Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava thinkers by harmonising personalist and impersonalist conceptions of the ultimate reality without hierarchically subordinating the latter to the former.” Yet the Gauḍīya position, as we will see, can be appreciated as far more nuanced than such a simple contrast might suggest.
To begin with, it is true that many Gauḍīya sources speak strongly against impersonal liberation. Rūpa Gosvāmī’s anthology Padyāvalī even contains an entire section titled Mokṣa-nindā-adhikāra, a section dealing with “the criticism of liberation,” where mokṣa—especially its impersonal expression—is consistently portrayed as undesirable for the devotee, for it is considered an obstacle to the experience of loving service to Bhagavān. In the bhakta’s eyes, liberation pales before the sweetness of devotion.
At the same time, however, the very same Padyāvalī includes verses that acknowledge impersonal realization in respectful terms—while still acknowledging a devotee’s preference. For instance, verse 77 declares:
Having attained perfection in yogic meditation, some great ones realize the Supreme Absolute Reality, the Nirguṇa Brahman. May they behold in the chambers of their hearts the pristine spirit, the Ātman. To devotees, the attainments of such yogis are of little consequence. We care only for our Lord, the embodiment of sweetness, whose lotus-like visage is always graced with an enchanting smile. Adorned with golden robes, he is resplendent like the dark hue of a raincloud. That lotus-eyed Lord is our Ātman, our very soul.
Here the dynamic is clarified: impersonal liberation is real, eternal, and acknowledged. But it is not desired by those on the devotional path, for their aspiration lies not in dissolving into Brahman, but in entering into the intimacy of relationship with their Beloved. The bhakta longs for the face of Kṛṣṇa—not the formless light, however exalted it may be.
Are Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas, then, creating an unnecessary hierarchy between Brahman and Bhagavān? I do not think so. And even if we were to assume that some hierarchy is implied, it would hardly be unique to Gauḍīya texts. Scriptures revered across the spectrum of Hindu traditions—whether by Advaitins like Śaṅkara, by other Vaiṣṇava lineages, or even by Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa and his followers—contain similar statements that repeatedly seem to privilege devotion and the personal Absolute over the impersonal Brahman.
The Bhagavad-gītā is one such scripture, and it provides abundant examples which seem to privilege devotion over impersonal realization:
- In verse 2.12, Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa insists on the eternal individuality of himself as the Supreme Person, as well as of all souls.
- In verse 6.47, he declares the yogī who worships him with devotion to be the highest of all yogis, thus highlighting the superiority of his bhaktas—and thus of bhakti and its corresponding object, Bhagavān.
- In verse 7.24, Bhagavān describes as “unintelligent” those who see his personal form merely as a temporary manifestation of the unmanifest Brahman.
- In verse 8.22, Kṛṣṇa declares that the Supreme Person is attainable only through exclusive devotion.
- In verse 9.11, he similarly calls “fools” those who deride him in his personal, humanlike form.
- In verses 11.52–54, after revealing his universal form and then returning to his personal form as Bhagavān, Kṛṣṇa tells Arjuna that such a vision is “the rarest of all,” unattainable through study, charity, or austerity, and then concludes: “By exclusive devotion, however, one can understand the full truth of what you now see before you.”
- In verses 12.1–5, when Arjuna directly asks who are superior—the personalists or the impersonalists—Kṛṣṇa unequivocally states that those who worship him with a mind fixed in love and faith are the highest. Then he acknowledges that the impersonalists also ultimately reach him yet notes that “their path is fraught with great difficulty.”
- In verse 13.13, Bhagavān presents Brahman as “subordinate” to himself.
- In verse 14.27, Kṛṣṇa declares himself to be the very foundation and shelter of Brahman.
- In verse 15.15, the personal God proclaims himself to be both the knower of the Vedas and the ultimate reality to be known by the Vedas.
- In verse 18.54, Kṛṣṇa situates Brahman-realization as but the threshold of devotion—not its culmination.
One could argue, of course, that Kṛṣṇa highlights bhakti in the above verses because he is speaking to Arjuna, his devotee. This is a fair observation. Yet, in the same text we also encounter verses that seem to privilege Brahman-realization, reminding us that texts like the Bhagavad-gītā accommodate a plurality of spiritual orientations.
- In verse 4.24, Kṛṣṇa describes how everything in sacrificial action—offering, oblation, fire, and sacrificer—is Brahman, and how Brahman alone is to be attained by one absorbed in such vision.
- In verses 5.24–26, those absorbed in Brahman are described as “liberated and blissful.” Similarly, verse 6.15 describes the yogī who remains absorbed in Brahman as “attaining supreme peace.”
- In verse 7.19, Kṛṣṇa proclaims, “I am everything.” This declaration resonates with the famous Upaniṣadic statement sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma—“indeed, all this is Brahman.”
- In verse 8.3, he defines Brahman as the “supreme, imperishable reality.”
- In verse 8.21, he declares that Brahman is said to be the highest goal, and that such unmanifest is his supreme form and identity.
- In verse 10.20, the very first statement Kṛṣṇa makes before beginning his list of manifestations is not “among this, I am this,” but a direct identification: “I am the ātman dwelling in the hearts of all beings.”
- In verse 11.18, Arjuna, beholding the universal form, identifies Brahman as “the ultimate to be realized.”
- In verse 11.40, Arjuna further declares to Kṛṣṇa, “You are everything.”
- In verse 13.14, Brahman is described as the sustainer of all.
- In verse 18.55, Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa states, “By devotion one truly knows me, and upon knowing me one enters into me.” This “entering” can be read as pointing toward brahma-sāyujya or merging into Brahman.
Clearly, the Bhagavad-gītā accommodates both paths. Some verses highlight bhakti as supreme, others extol Brahman. The coexistence of these two strands shows that scripture is not presenting a simplistic hierarchy, but a dynamic spectrum of possibilities where different practitioners will naturally gravitate toward what resonates with their inner affinity.
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa too—though overwhelmingly devotional—contains entire chapters centered on jñāna and Brahman-realization. As already noted, Kapila’s teachings in 3.28 describe sāyujya-mukti in great detail. Likewise, Bhāgavata Purāṇa 11.28 and 12.5 offer profound contemplations on the impersonal facet of the Absolute.
Most strikingly, one of the concluding verses of the text (12.13.12) declares kaivalya-prayojanam, literally, “the ultimate goal is merging.” How do Gauḍīyas reconcile such a statement within a text they revere as the very crest jewel of bhakti? The tradition has long acknowledged the need for hermeneutics. Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, commenting on this very verse from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, says:
It is necessary to give an esoteric meaning to this verse, so that it becomes suitable for devotees.
This does not mean a forced reading, but that revelation is always interpreted through the practitioner’s orientation. A bhakta will naturally hear terms like kaivalya, ekatva, or sāyujya in the light of intimate union with Bhagavān rather than impersonal absorption. For example, Rāmānuja often interprets sāyujya not as merging but as “being very close,” and Jīva Gosvāmī, in his Sandarbhas, reads it as a deep form of loving intimacy.
In the same way, Advaitins read the Bhagavad-gītā’s devotional verses through the lens of jñāna, relativizing their personalist thrust, while Vaiṣṇavas read the jñāna verses through the lens of bhakti. Both sides bring their hermeneutical bias, and both are justified in doing so, since at the end of the day they are approaching the same nondual reality from different—yet valid—angles.
Turning now to Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa himself, we find that while he is well known for his radical pluralism, he also at times highlighted what looks like a hierarchy between jñāna and bhakti—with bhakti being the most privileged of the two.[2] In one of his memorable sayings, he remarked:
Reasoning and jñāna are like men who can only enter the outer rooms. But bhakti is like women who can go into the inner apartments.[3]
This perspective should not surprise us, since Rāmakṛṣṇa was raised in a devout Vaiṣṇava family in rural Bengal. His parents were committed Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas, all of their children bore Vaiṣṇava names, and Rāmakṛṣṇa himself was first given the name Gadādhara.
At the same time, Rāmakṛṣṇa’s life is remarkable precisely because he practiced such a wide variety of paths—not only Vaiṣṇavism and Advaita monism but also Christianity and Islam—insisting that each of them carried salvific power and could lead one to realization of the Divine. His radical pluralism is perhaps best expressed in his equal affirmation of both personal and impersonal forms of the Absolute. In this, his stance resembles the teaching of Sanātana Gosvāmī in the Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta (2.4.152):
Devotees not exclusively attracted to one form of the Lord—those whose affection is not focused on a single appearance of his—are ready to serve him in any form.
According to his followers, Rāmakṛṣṇa was among those rare souls who did not merely affirm this principle but lived it—sometimes immersed in personalistic traditions of bhakti, at other times entering into the impersonal path with equal seriousness.
Yet a Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava might here raise an important question: if Rāmakṛṣṇa truly accepted Śaṅkara’s radical nondualism—which by definition nullifies everything except for Brahman—how could he consistently accept other paths as equally plausible? For radical Advaitins, Brahman alone is real; Bhagavān, bhakti, the world, and all forms are ultimately māyā, superimpositions upon the formless Absolute. From a Gauḍīya standpoint, this creates an irreconcilable contradiction: to accept Śaṅkara’s definition is necessarily to reject the reality of every other path.
In contrast to Śaṅkara’s proposal, the Vedas themselves speak of the eternal existence of Brahman (here understood broadly as the Absolute) along with its śaktis. The Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (6.8) declares: parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate: “the Supreme has manifold energies.” Equally, the tradition affirms śakti-śaktimator abhedaḥ: power and the possessor of power are distinct, yet inseparable.
Rāmakṛṣṇa himself embraced this principle, often employing the analogy of fire and its power to burn: fire is nothing apart from that which burns, and the power of burning is nothing other than fire in action; yet if fire and its power were entirely identical, there would be no meaning in saying “fire burns.” This analogy captures well the Gauḍīya principle of acintya-bhedābheda—the inconceivable unity and difference between the Absolute and its potencies. The Absolute and its energies—including us, the world, and the power of love—are not entirely one, yet not entirely different.
Ramakrishna’s foremost disciple, Swami Vivekananda, while honoring his master’s pluralism, placed greater emphasis on the impersonal, nondual vision of Advaita Vedānta, often in ways that seemed to negate personality altogether.[4] In his lecture “Is Vedanta the Future Religion?”, he declared:
No book, no person, no personal God. All these must go.
In the same lecture he went further:
The Absolute God of Vedanta is impersonal principle. You and I, the cat, rat, devil, and ghost, all these are Its persons. . . . God is the infinite impersonal being—ever existent, unchanging, immortal, fearless. . . . The real power is in the unseen, the impersonal, the nobody.
In this same lecture, he even characterized those who believe in a personal God as bound by “dualistic superstition,” belonging to what he dismissed as a “kindergarten of religion.”
Such strong words clearly privilege the impersonal while dismissing—and at times mocking—the personal conception of the Divine. It is no surprise, then, that Gauḍīya teachers such as A. C. Bhaktivedānta Swami Prabhupāda sometimes responded with equally strong statements, not against impersonal realization per se, but against this dismissive denial of the personal Absolute. As Swami Medhananda notes, Gauḍīya thinkers tend to posit an asymmetry between Brahman and Bhagavān, regarding Brahman as a partial realization and Bhagavān as the fullest expression of the Absolute. Yet Vivekananda himself seems to repeatedly establish a similar asymmetry—only inverted—where Brahman alone is ultimate and the personal Divine is secondary, childish, or unreal.
In this sense, both sides, when not fully understood or expressed with sufficient nuance, end up mirroring each other—creating hierarchies that dismiss what the other side most deeply cherishes.
How, then, do Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas themselves interpret their own emphasis? The answer lies in their hermeneutics of rasa. Gauḍīya Vedānta revolves primarily around the concept and reality of bhakti-rasa: sacred rapture in loving devotion. Therefore, those statements that seem to undermine the impersonal dimension, or even posit it as ontologically inferior to the personal, are not to be read literally as metaphysical verdicts, but as expressions filtered through this specific perspective: the primacy of rasa.
This is crucial. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the foundational text for the Gauḍīya tradition, describes itself at its very onset (1.1.3) as a rasa-śāstra—a scripture centered on the notion of sacred rapture in loving devotion. This is no incidental flourish: while many other scriptures revolve around tattva (truth, essence, ontology), the Bhāgavata from its very beginning frames its concern not merely with what is but with how truth is relished. Its hermeneutical key is rasa—love in its most exalted, aesthetic, and experiential form.
The Six Gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana, the main architects of Gauḍīya theology, can be seen as extending this vision. Their works are essentially extended chapters of the Bhāgavata’s essence, excavating its implications and constructing a theology where love is not a side effect of realization but its very core.
Among them, Rūpa Gosvāmī’s Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu holds a central place. It distills the essence of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa specifically in terms of bhakti-rasa, the sacred relish of loving devotion. Śrī Rūpa develops a comprehensive theology where Kṛṣṇa is not only the supreme object of love but also the supreme relisher of love, described as akhila-rasāmṛta-mūrtiḥ: “the very embodiment of all rasas in their nectarine fullness.”[5] This is not arbitrary innovation, but a synthesis carefully grounded in earlier authorities. Drawing from the Taittirīya Upaniṣad’s declaration raso vai saḥ (“Brahman is rasa”)[6] and from Bharata Muni’s aesthetic theory of rasa in the Nāṭya-śāstra, Rūpa Gosvāmī crafts a uniquely Gauḍīya contribution: the Absolute is both the supreme object of rasa and simultaneously its supreme taster, or rasika.
This vision is illustrated by two key scriptural references. In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (10.43.17), Kṛṣṇa is described as simultaneously attracting all beings through a multiplicity of rasas, becoming the object of varied sacred relationships. And in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (4.8.85), Kṛṣṇa is depicted as relishing in a single moment the full spectrum of all rasas, each without diminution. The message is unmistakable: whatever Gauḍīya texts may seem to say about a hierarchy between Brahman and Bhagavān—or even among various forms of Bhagavān—such hierarchies are not absolute ontological decrees but reflections of what best facilitates the experience of bhakti-rasa. Rasa, rather than ontology in its own right, is the ultimate yardstick for Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas.
This principle is also known as rasa-vicāra, or evaluation through the barometer of rasa. In complement to this Gauḍīyas also employ tattva-vicāra, impartial discernment of reality. As I described in my book Evolution in Divine Love:
Tattva denotes spiritual truth or essence, while rasa conveys the experiential dimension of this truth—the sacred rapture and flavor that love assumes within the Divine. As tattva, love remains an unchanging constant. In other words, the nature of love is eternally the same. Yet as rasa, the flow and glory of love are in a perpetual state of expansion. Thus, tattva embodies existential stability [which could be related to Brahman] while rasa embodies experiential dynamism [which could be related to Bhagavān]. One is eternally unchanging, the other eternally evolving. These two aspects are woven into the paradoxical unity and distinction of bheda-abheda—the harmony of oneness and difference.[7]
Through the lens of rasa-vicāra, Brahman is seen by Gauḍīyas as partial in comparison to Bhagavān—not unreal, not false, but incomplete in terms of providing the highest experience of bhakti-rasa. Brahman offers the bliss of undifferentiated being, while Bhagavān offers the bliss of relational love. Thus, Gauḍīyas “discriminate” between Bhagavān and Brahman in a way that privileges the personal, not because Brahman is denied as an eternal reality or deemed as ontologically or soteriologically inferior, but because Bhagavān embodies the fullness of relationality, which is the tradition’s highest value.
Interestingly, this rasa-vicāra is not only expressed in relation to Brahman but even extends to distinctions among various forms of Bhagavān. Nārāyaṇa, for instance, is revered as the majestic Lord of Vaikuṇṭha, yet is considered a partial manifestation of Kṛṣṇa.[8] Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas may explain this by, for example, declaring that Nārāyaṇa embodies sixty of the sixty-four divine qualities described by the Gosvāmīs, but he does not possess the remaining four unique to Kṛṣṇa: the unique sweetness of his flute, his form, his love, and his līlā, or divine play.[9] According to Gauḍīyas, these four unique excellences make Kṛṣṇa the fullest manifestation of divinity—again, with rasa being the yardstick. A famous example of this comes from Rūpa Gosvāmī’s Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (1.2.59):
Although in tattva there is no difference between Kṛṣṇa and Nārāyaṇa, still, in terms of rasa, the form of Kṛṣṇa is superior. This is the conclusion regarding rasa.
Even beyond this, Gauḍīya Vedānta posits a hierarchy in terms of rasa not only between Bhagavān and Brahman, and between Kṛṣṇa and other forms of the personal God, but even among Kṛṣṇa’s own manifestations! This is indeed a striking feature of Gauḍīya theology: not only is the Absolute presented as both impersonal and personal, not only is Kṛṣṇa presented as distinct from Nārāyaṇa in terms of rasa, but even within Kṛṣṇa’s own līlās distinctions of fullness and intimacy are drawn. In Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, Rūpa Gosvāmī describes Kṛṣṇa in Dvārakā as pūrṇa (complete), in Mathurā as pūrṇatara (more complete), and in Vṛndāvana as pūrṇatama (most complete).[10] In Dvārakā, Kṛṣṇa appears as a majestic king surrounded by opulence; in Mathurā, as a heroic prince; but in Vṛndāvana he reveals his most intimate self, free from the trappings of majesty, simply as the cowherd boy, the beloved of the gopas and gopīs. It is this Vṛndāvana Kṛṣṇa that the Bhāgavata Purāṇa refers to as Svayaṁ Bhagavān—the Original Bhagavān, or Bhagavān “when he wishes to be himself,”[11] surrounded by the unguarded sweetness of love. Once again, this hierarchy is not about abstract ontology but about the varying capacities of different forms of the Divine to facilitate deeper experiences of sacred rapture in divine love.
Yet, the odyssey of rasa-vicāra does not stop even here. Within Vṛndāvana itself, the Gauḍīya tradition recognizes gradations of intimacy among Kṛṣṇa’s devotees. Those in the mood of servitude (dāsya), friendship (sakhya), parental affecton (vātsalya), and romantic love (mādhurya) each relate to him in a distinct way, but among them the romantic love of the gopīs is considered supreme, because it represents the most intense experience of bhakti-rasa. In this connection, the Caitanya-caritāmṛta (2.8.83) famously states:
For each person, the rasa they cherish is supreme for that person; yet from a neutral standpoint, there is a gradation among the rasas.
This verse beautifully captures the paradox at the heart of Gauḍīya theology: subjectively, every devotee feels their own relationship with Kṛṣṇa to be the highest—and everyone is correct. Objectively, however, the tradition acknowledges a hierarchy of intensity in terms of rasa. Both are true.
Sanātana Gosvāmī captures this balance of equality and gradation in Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta (2.4.154):
Each devotee enjoys the particular happiness for which they aspired and feel it greater than all others. This creates a hierarchy of tastes, but within it a simultaneous equality.
In his commentary on this verse, Sanātana Gosvāmī adds:
Though there are differences of lesser or greater degree because of differences in particular bhāvas in hearing and chanting, the devotees are all equal. According to their particular rasa they all attain the highest happiness arising from that rasa.
Here the point becomes clear: hierarchy in Gauḍīya thought is not a tool of exclusion, but a way of affirming diversity within unity. Everyone is equal in attaining the fullness of bliss, though the flavors of that bliss differ.
Another way to express this subtle hierarchy is through the notion of ānanda. In his Bhāgavata-sandarbha (anucchedas 1–2), Jīva Gosvāmī takes up the famous Bhāgavata verse (1.2.11) which defines reality as advaya-jñāna-tattva—nondual consciousness—manifesting as Brahman, Paramātmā, and Bhagavān. He explains:
This one nondual Absolute manifests its own existence in one of these three aspects, in exact accordance with the specific qualification of the worshiper.
This principle of divine reciprocity—that the Absolute accommodates the heart of the seeker—is central to Gauḍīya Vedānta. Bhāgavata Purāṇa (3.9.11) itself confirms this when Brahmā prays to Kṛṣṇa:
Out of kindness toward your devotees, you take the very form they meditate on and appear to them in that way.
Then, in anuccheda 3 of the Bhagavat-sandarbha, Jīva Gosvāmī develops the point further in strikingly ontological terms:
From this it is concluded that bliss (ānanda) is the unqualified substantive (viśeṣya), all the energies its qualifiers (viśeṣaṇa), and Bhagavān the qualified substantive (viśiṣṭa). In this way, being qualified by all his potencies, Bhagavān is the indivisible or total Reality (akhanda-tattva), because he is the complete manifestation of the Absolute Truth. From this it is concluded that because Brahman exhibits no specific qualities, it is an incomplete manifestation of that Truth.
Here Śrī Jīva makes a crucial move: he identifies ānanda—which could be another way of referring to rasa—as the very essence of the Absolute. Everything else—qualities, potencies, forms—is a way that bliss becomes manifest. Thus, Brahman, Paramātmā, and Bhagavān are not competing ontological absolutes, but distinct modalities of the same fundamental reality of ānanda. From this perspective, Brahman is not a subordinate dependent on Bhagavān, but stands as an equal in a theological and ontological sense—distinguished only by a different mode of self-expression. Yet for the Gauḍīyas, the ultimate measure is bhakti-rasa (or ānanda in this context), and by that criterion Bhagavān receives primacy.
In this sense, Gauḍīya Vedānta can even allow for a kind of “mutual dependence.” If Brahman represents the undifferentiated luminosity of the Absolute, and Bhagavān the relational fullness of that same Absolute, then one face illuminates the other. Brahman without Bhagavān would lack intimacy, while Bhagavān without Brahman would lack the ineffable horizon of transcendence. The two are thus not rivals but complementary disclosures of the same indivisible reality, inseparable in their very difference.
That said, one could say that Jīva Gosvāmī positions ānanda (or, in Gauḍīya vocabulary, rasa) as the ultimate barometer of reality in terms of his devotional disposition. Hence, Gauḍīyas privilege Bhagavān, not out of sectarian dismissal of Brahman, but because Bhagavān allows the deepest flowering of bliss in love.
This framework is not a Gauḍīya innovation but finds deep precedent in the Upaniṣads. In the Taittirīya Upaniṣad (2.8.1–4), a striking sequence of gradations of ānanda is described. This layered vision shows that even in the earliest strata of scripture, bliss can be taken as the measure of reality, and that bliss admits of degrees and expansions. The Gauḍīyas, by tying ānanda to rasa, extend this principle to its highest expression: bhakti-rasa, the aesthetic bliss of loving devotion.
Śrīla B. R. Śrīdhara Mahārāja captures this insight poetically with a modern metaphor:
Each individual country has its own currency such as dollars, pounds, rupees, rubles, yen, etc.; but the international standard is gold. Similarly, rasa or ānanda is the universal standard by which we are to measure what is high and what is low.[12]
Thus, Gauḍīya Vedānta evaluates Brahman, Paramātmā, and Bhagavān not by negating any of them, but by discerning how much relational ānanda each embodies. Brahman is eternal; it is blissful; it is true. Yet Bhagavān, as akhila-rasāmṛta-mūrtiḥ, the very embodiment of all nectarean rasas, embodies that bliss in its fullest, most relational form. The hierarchy, therefore, is not a ladder of worth but a spectrum of bliss—each point valid, each eternal, each true—yet culminating, for the Gauḍīya, in the sweetness of love.
In academic terms, this can be described as a value orientation. Every tradition selects some ultimate criterion by which it evaluates and interprets reality. For Advaita Vedānta, the yardstick is pure consciousness—undifferentiated awareness beyond all qualities. For other schools, it may be being, knowledge, or power. But for the Gauḍīyas, the decisive criterion is rasa—ānanda in the form of relational bliss.
As much as Gauḍīyas emphasize difference between Bhagavān and Brahman, they simultaneously insist on their abheda—the nondual unity of their shared reality. If Brahman is one of the facets of the One Nondual Absolute—and one which can be eternally attained—how could it ever be deemed “bad” or “inferior”?
As A. C. Bhaktivedānta Swami Prabhupāda underscores in his commentary to Bhagavad-gītā (7.8):
Practically speaking, there is no conflict between personalism and impersonalism. One who knows God knows that the impersonal conception and personal conception are simultaneously present in everything and that there is no contradiction. Therefore, Lord Caitanya established his sublime doctrine: acintya-bhedābheda-tattva—simultaneous oneness and difference.
In other words, Prabhupāda makes it unmistakably clear: bhedābheda is not a vague compromise but the bold affirmation that the impersonal (Brahman) and the personal (Bhagavān) are woven into every atom of existence. They are not rivals, nor half-truths standing against each other, but perfectly reconciled dimensions of the same Absolute—two inseparable faces of one indivisible Reality. To pit one against the other is to miss the point; to see them together is to glimpse the wholeness that Śrī Caitanya himself proclaimed.
Recognizing this harmony does not erase the Gauḍīya preference, however. For even while affirming the equal reality of Brahman and Bhagavān, the tradition unapologetically confesses its bias for bhakti. It is precisely this “passionate bias” that explains the Gauḍīya critique of mukti. When poets and teachers of the tradition speak strongly against impersonal liberation—or even against personal forms of liberation[13] such as sālokya (residing on the same planet as God), sārūpya (attaining a form similar to his), or sāmīpya (living near him)—they are not condemning mukti per se. Rather, they are declaring that, for a heart inflamed by divine love, nothing, not even eternity in Brahman or Vaikuṇṭha, compares with the sweetness of service. Their rejection of mukti is not philosophical disdain but devotional preference. It is not that liberation is inherently undesirable—it is simply that the intoxication of love renders everything else negligible.
The Gauḍīya understanding of bhakti-rasa and ānanda is also often expressed through the metaphor of sweetness. Sweetness is universally attractive, yet not every palate delights in the same degree of sweetness. For some, honey is overwhelming; for others, it is the very embodiment of bliss. In the same way, not every soul finds the highest peaks of rasa/ananda to be its natural home—and that is entirely acceptable. As I often say, while we might argue that the mango is objectively the sweetest fruit, we cannot impose it as everyone’s favorite, for not all palates are drawn to such intensity of sweetness. Taste is always relational, always subjective. Even Bhagavān himself acknowledges this, declaring that while his own sweetness appears ever fresh, each devotee relishes it “in proportion to the unique shape of their love.”[14]
Thus, the Gauḍīya tradition exalts one kind of “sweet juice”—the rasa of personal loving devotion—but it does not deny the legitimacy of other flavors. For some, excessive sweetness might even feel like “spiritual diabetes.” Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa captured this with his famous saying: “Bhaktas love to eat sugar, not to become sugar.”[15] But he also acknowledged that some prefer to become sugar. In other words, there are degrees of “sugar-ness,” and each soul finds its place in the vast sugar market of transcendence—from those who long to relish mangoes for eternity to those who yearn to dissolve into sweetness itself.
From this perspective, Gauḍīya Vedānta can affirm that Brahman-realization, though different in flavor, is not a failed or inferior destiny. It is a genuine eternal goal, divinely willed for those whose hearts are drawn to stillness rather than play. Just as the bhakta delights eternally in Bhagavān, the jñānī may rest eternally in Brahman—both states being complete within their own orientation. In this way, salvation is not monopolized by one path but distributed across the Infinite’s manifold self-disclosures.
To be fair, then, one must also admit the mirror perspective: if Gauḍīyas privilege Bhagavān as “higher” because he affords the richest experience of relational love, it is equally understandable that someone might privilege Brahman as “higher” because it affords the radical stillness of undifferentiatedness. The yardstick is different, the value orientation shifts, and what seems greater from one lens appears lesser from another. From the Gauḍīya standpoint, this is not a contradiction but an inevitable consequence of an infinite Absolute manifesting in infinite ways. Or, as Swami Medhananda put it in the title of one of his books, Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality.
This pluralism is reinforced by another key Gauḍīya insight: bhakti is not inherent in the soul but received as a gift of grace.[16] This means that souls are not eternally predestined to a single path or predetermined goal. Rather, the spiritual saṁskāras—the impressions received through grace, association, and practice—shape their eternal destiny. Some will be drawn toward Bhagavān, some toward Paramātmā, others toward Brahman. All are eternal possibilities within the one Nondual Absolute. This premise protects Gauḍīya Vedānta from sectarian exclusivism. It allows the tradition to affirm its own preference for bhakti-rasa without denying the legitimacy of other paths. In this way, the Gauḍīya vision remains simultaneously preferential and nonsectarian, particular and universal: it proclaims its own “sweetest fruit” while acknowledging the entire orchard.
Swami Medhananda concludes his article with an important warning:
A danger in the hierarchical views of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism is that it may foster an attitude of superiority or condescension towards followers of non-Gauḍīya traditions.
I wholeheartedly agree with the dangers of hierarchy and how, at times, this stance has been misrepresented or misused by members of the Gauḍīya lineage. Yet I have also tried to show in this essay that the Gauḍīya stance is not as rigidly hierarchical as it may appear at first glance. Its heart is more subtle: a theology that privileges certain experiences of rasa while still acknowledging the validity of other realizations.
But the deeper point here is, in my opinion, that superiority complexes are not the monopoly of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas. A radical nondualist can look down upon all devotional paths as illusory. A follower of Rāmakṛṣṇa can feel themselves superior for possessing, as they perceive it, the “most harmonizing view.” In truth, pride is endlessly resourceful—it can nourish itself on any theological stance, however inclusive or exclusive it may claim to be. Thus, my caution is not aimed at any one school but at the universal human tendency to allow the ego to appropriate even the loftiest visions.
Recognizing this universal danger of pride also opens the door to a more constructive exchange. Indeed, this very conversation creates an opportunity for mutual harmonization. On one side, some Advaitins affirm that Brahman alone is real and that Bhagavān is merely a provisional illusion. On the other, some Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas still insist that Bhagavān is the only possible reality and that those who attain Brahman must eventually fall. Both positions, when taken in their most extreme form, close doors rather than open them.
Yet, what I have tried to demonstrate here is that Gauḍīya Vedānta, when carefully read, is far more nuanced in its approach than what we may originally think. And this nuanced reading is not only important for outsiders who seek to understand the tradition more fairly—it may be even more necessary for insiders, who sometimes need to be reminded that their own theology is richer, deeper, and far less binary than they assume.
At the conclusion of his essay, Swami Medhananda cites Rāmakṛṣṇa’s parable of the chameleon, which I personally find both delightful and profoundly accurate in expressing the spirit of pluralism that Gauḍīya Vedānta is all about:
Once a man entered a forest and saw a small animal on a tree. He came back and told another man that he had seen a creature of a beautiful red color on a certain tree. The second man replied: ‘When I went into the forest, I also saw that animal. But why do you call it red? It is green.’ Another man who was present contradicted them both and insisted that it was yellow. Presently others arrived and contended that it was grey, violet, blue, and so forth. At last, they began quarrelling among themselves. To settle the dispute, they all went to the tree. They saw a man sitting under it. On being asked, he replied: ‘Yes, I live under this tree, and I know the animal very well. All your descriptions are true. Sometimes it appears red, sometimes yellow, and at other times blue, violet, grey, and so forth. It is a chameleon. And sometimes it has no color at all. Now it has a color, and now it has none.’
Interestingly, the Gauḍīya tradition offers a similar example in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta (2.9.156), where the Absolute is compared to a jewel:
Just as a gem, when reflecting blue, yellow, and other colors, appears to assume different forms, so the one infallible Absolute is perceived as having different forms according to different kinds of meditation.[17]
Both metaphors—the chameleon and the gem—capture the same exact truth: the Absolute is one, yet capable of infinite manifestations, each valid and luminous from a particular vantage point.
As I arrive at the end of this reflection, I return to where I began—with my lifelong attraction to unity in diversity, and with my aspiration to live as a saragrahi, an essence-seeker. Earlier I shared how this principle drew me into Gauḍīya Vedānta, which I once saw as my “nonsectarian destiny.” Now, after exploring the subtle nuances of Bhagavān and Brahman, of rasa and ānanda, of Gauḍīya and Rāmakṛṣṇa traditions, I see even more clearly that acintya-bhedābheda is not merely a metaphysical formula but also a spiritual ethic: the call to embrace paradox rather than collapse it into contradiction, to affirm difference without denying unity, and to seek harmony without erasing the tensions that give love its unique depth.
The circle thus closes: what first drew me to Gauḍīya Vedānta—its promise of unity in diversity—remains the heartbeat of my journey. But now I understand it less as a “final destination” and more as an ongoing invitation: to live with paradox, humility, and openness; to remain always a seeker of essence, not a claimant of superiority. After all, to be a saragrahi is not to arrive, but to keep seeking—forever.
Ultimately, the Gauḍīya system is not simply about choosing between personal and impersonal, between Brahman and Bhagavān. Its essence is bhedābheda—the paradoxical harmony of difference and non-difference. It charts a middle path: monism within pluralism, identity within distinction, unity within diversity.
As paradoxical as such reconciliation may appear, it is not an abstract puzzle but a lived vocation. Both sides—the personal and the impersonal—must learn to coexist in peace. And we, as seekers, must learn to coexist with them. Here, tact becomes as necessary as theology. We are all invited to embrace nuance, to practice reverence, to extend appreciation to those who see differently. Every tradition, including my own, has at times been misrepresented—sometimes even fanatically—by its own adherents. In light of this, we must not only ask for charity from others but also cultivate it ourselves in how we meet them.
As we move toward the conclusion of this reflection, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura offers a fitting summary of its intention. Addressing his own Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava community—many of whom were perhaps not yet ready to appreciate what he himself could see—he invites a fraternal embrace that honors not only the varieties of personal worship but also the impersonal approach on an equal footing. In this spirit, his song distills the heart of Gauḍīya pluralism:
Why continue to despise the ways in which people of other lands worship? The forms of devotion are many, shaped by different countries and different people. Some worship with loosened hair, some by bowing on their knees, and others by closing their eyes in meditation upon Brahman. Some approach through yogic postures, while others immerse themselves in the joy of congregational singing of God’s names. Yet all of them worship the same one treasure, that we know as Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, remain always in a spirit of brotherhood, live together in goodwill, and practice devotion to Hari—whether in this life or at the time of death.[18]
Anchored in this mood of brotherhood, we can begin to imagine what such a posture looks like in practice. It is not a vague ideal but something as concrete as the image of a drawing compass: one point firmly anchored, the other moving outward, sketching wider and wider orbits around the same center. The circle is never closed once for all; it can always expand, provided the fixed point remains steady. This balance between fidelity and openness, between belonging to one home and welcoming the light that shines through many windows, can guide us as seekers. It is precisely such a stance that enables us to embrace paradox without fear and to grant dignity to truths that may appear opposed at first glance. As Robert A. Johnson insightfully reminds us:
The religious faculty helps us move from contradiction—that painful condition where things oppose each other—to the realm of paradox, where we are able to entertain simultaneously two contradictory notions and give them equal dignity.[19]
It is within that realm of paradox—where contradictions dissolve into mystery—that Gauḍīya Vedānta, Rāmakṛṣṇa’s Vijñāna Vedānta, and all authentic spiritual paths can truly meet. And perhaps, in that meeting, we may glimpse the possibility of restoring dignity to every face of the Absolute—and to our own being through the very act of doing so.
Endnotes:
[1] The link to this episode is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRpmMT4dSeA.
[2] It should be noted that in texts such as The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, we also encounter numerous statements where Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa privileges jñāna over bhakti, illustrating the fluidity and contextual nuance of his teachings.
[3] The Kathamrita of Sri Ramakrishna, Vol. II, Sect. 19.
[4] At the same time, Vivekananda did not entirely dismiss bhakti. Alongside his strong advaitic emphasis, he frequently spoke of devotion as a powerful and natural path, especially suited for the majority of seekers.
[5] Rūpa Gosvāmī, Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.1.1.
[6] Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.7.1. Other similar statements appear in Taittirīya Upaniṣad 3.6.1, Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3.9.28, Chāndogya Upaniṣad 4.10.4–5, and Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī, Caitanya-caritāmṛta 1.4.96–98.
[7] Swami Padmanabha, Evolution in Divine Love, p. 70.
[8] Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī, Caitanya-caritāmṛta 1.2.58.
[9] Rūpa Gosvāmī, Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 2.1.41–43.
[10] Rūpa Gosvāmī, Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 2.1.221–223. For a similar notion, see Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī, Caitanya-caritāmṛta 2.20.398–402.
[11] Bhāgavata Purāṇa 1.3.28.
[12] Śrīla B. R. Śrīdhara Mahārāja, Sermons of the Guardian of Devotion vol. 3, p. 49.
[13] A few examples of this are Bhāgavata Purāṇa 3.4.15, 3.25.34 and 36, 4.9.10, 4.20.25, 6.11.25, 6.17.28, 7.6.25, 7.8.42, 8.3.20, 9.21.12, 10.16.37, 11.14.14, and 11.20.34.
[14] Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī, Caitanya-caritāmṛta 1.4.143.
[15] The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 133.
[16] For more on this, see Swami Padmanabha, Inherent or Inherited?: Bhakti in the Jiva According to Gaudiya Vedanta.
[17] Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī, Caitanya-caritāmṛta 2.9.156.
[18] Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, Gītāvalī, Śreyo-Nirṇaya, Song 5.
[19] Robert A. Johnson, Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche, p. 64.
