In our quest for meaning, we humans have experienced it all, from the unfathomable depths of the oceans to the wildest heights of the Earthly sky, only to find ourselves even thirstier, asking bigger and bigger questions and finding meaning only in the act of answering them, ad infinitum. Thus life, in its very dynamics and nature, is a cryptic and delicate story, one that cannot stop screaming for a perpetual unpacking of its most crucial intricacies.
It is within this existential query that we, as aspirant Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas, have the opportunity to glimpse the greatest story ever told: the Bhāgavata. This unprecedented masterpiece depicts the love life of the Absolute. It is also considered to be Śrīla Vyāsadeva’s final word, in which his quill attained immortality and full satisfaction. But why is it that this particular treatise (among the many penned by its author) gave special delight to the mind of Vyāsa? Let us try together to find an answer, and in doing so encounter everlasting and substantial bliss ourselves…
The Bhāgavata presents the ultimate purport of samādhi (devotional immersion), itself being written in the charming language of trance (samādhi-bhāṣya). And thus it is understandable only to those who can enter into that unique lexicon. So if we are to delve into the Bhāgavata’s rare samādhi as Gauḍīyas, our foremost duty is to give proper honor to Śrī Caitanya’s exhibition of aesthetic sacred rapture. Why? Because if there was one book that Mahāprabhu embraced as his very heart, it was the Bhāgavata. And from this comprehensive embrace, his own ecstatic inner culture came as a result. Later, the Six Goswāmīs, Gaura’s main representatives, theologized about Gaura’s rhapsody, resulting in what we know today as the Gauḍīya sampradāya.
A sampradāya is a school of thought that fully (sam) delivers (pradāya) the lineage’s teachings and spiritual-emotional prospect. As followers of Śrī Caitanya’s current, we accept the Bhāgavata as our cornerstone. In it, both precept and feeling are purely represented, inviting all of us to inhabit the eternal pages of its philosophical poem as Mahāprabhu himself (the person Bhāgavata in every sense of the word) did, revealing the furthest implications of living in the Bhāgavata: Śrī Caitanya’s ecstatic example being the most extreme in religious history, his spiritual bliss cascaded like a waterfall, displaying an uncontainable overflow of divine enjoyment.
From its very onset, the Bhāgavata urges us to enter into Mahāprabhu’s current by invoking one of the most sacred condensations of words ever heard: satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi. This sūtra-like expression could be translated as “Let us engage the best part of our intelligence in perfectly thinking about (dhīmahi) the highest form (paraṁ) of ultimate truth (satyaṁ).”
Besides giving a clear indication that the Bhāgavata embodies a perfect commentary on the Vedānta-sūtra (as Mahāprabhu himself stated), this line speaks to us about the Gāyatrī-like nature of this work. Since time immemorial, both Veda and Vedānta have expanded from Gāyatrī-devī. Since she herself is a manifestation of Divya Saraswatī (the goddess of mystical civilization) and is nondifferent from Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s internal energy, we can then understand how the Bhāgavata focuses exclusively on the chief means for attaining the zenith of spiritual perfection: Kṛṣṇa bhakti resulting in Kṛṣṇa prema. Naturally, this makes the Bhāgavata the mature fruit of the desire-tree of the Vedic canon.
Any śāstra (as well as reality as a whole) can be read from a literal, interpretative, or esoteric point of view; similarly, our ācāryas have explained the concept of satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi from many different perspectives and emotional dispositions. In his famous Sārārtha-darśinī-ṭīkā, Śrī Viśvanātha Cakravartīpāda has given five different meanings to this first śloka of the Bhāgavata, presenting satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi in multidimensional terms in crescendo. There, he establishes an interesting parallel with Vedānta-sūtra’s athāto brahma-jijñāsā, describing these three words as a meditation on bhakti itself that ultimately speaks about how to perform loving devotional service to Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa without any trace of deceit.
Similarly, Śrīla Jīva Goswāmī explains, “Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes go on eternally (satyaṁ). Therefore I meditate (dhīmahi) upon these two (paraṁ) who are actually one in mahābhāva and one as potent and potency.”[1] In this connection, Śrī Jīva emphasizes that the word satyaṁ (existing) implies unchanging union between Their Lordships. He makes his point by quoting Vedānta philosophy, where satyaṁ refers to that which exists through all three phases of time. Additionally, Śrī Jīva points out that satyaṁ is qualified here by paraṁ (supreme), which indicates that the union between Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa is not only real and unchanging (satyaṁ) but also supreme (paraṁ) because such a quality and intensity of love is not found anywhere else. Thus from its very first stanza, the Bhāgavata shows how the ultimate truth (satyaṁ paraṁ) is Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, who are always united in the highest exultant prema.
At the same time, by following the idea of upakrama-upasaṁhāra (which suggests that by paying close attention to both the introductory and final statements of a text, one can ascertain its deepest meaning and intention), we will appreciate that satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi appears not only at the beginning of the Bhāgavata but also at its very end (12.13.19). In this last section, the Bhāgavata again invites us to absorb the best of our faculties in the service of the Absolute Truth, but this time the text gives even clearer instructions about how to do so. After thousands of verses containing broad schooling and revelatory metanarrative, the Bhāgavata invokes its initial claim once more, but now fully unpacking both the means and end of satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi. This cardinal culmination is finally revealed in the Bhāgavata’s very last śloka, which represents its conclusion and final prospect:
I offer my respectful obeisances unto the Supreme Lord Hari, the congregational chanting of whose holy names destroys all sinful reactions, and the offering of obeisances unto whom relieves all material suffering.[2]
The Bhagavad-gītā ends where the Bhāgavata starts, but here Vyāsa puts his Bhāgavata pen to rest by throwing us at the feet of Śrī Caitanya’s prema-saṅkīrtana. Thus the supreme truthful meditation (satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi) advocated by the Bhāgavata is śrī–harināma-saṅkīrtana, with its twofold fruit: freedom from all inauspiciousness and a visa for our eternal dwelling in the highest realm of passionate love. As Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (2.25.147) reveals in terms of conceptual orientation (sambandha), the supreme object of our affection (depicted by the Bhāgavata as satyaṁ paraṁ) could be both Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa and Mahāprabhu, since Mahāprabhu is the result of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa’s union. In order to express abhidheya (the means), the term dhīmahi has been used in plural (let us meditate/worship), thus indicating the congregational nature (saṅ) of this unique type of celebration (kīrtana) predicted by the Bhāgavata and fully inaugurated by Śrī Gaurasundara.
Finally, the Bhāgavata culminates by way of expressing its prayojana-tattva (the truth about one’s ultimate need) in the form of the unalloyed prema of Śrī Rādhā, from which the very name of the Bhāgavata manifests: the well-known Gauḍīya term Śrīmad Bhāgavatam is but another way of saying Rādhā Bhāgavatam, or the divine exhilaration (mada) of Rādhā (Śrī) toward the most upgraded expression of Bhagavān, Śrī Kṛṣṇa. It is this very madness that Śrīman Mahāprabhu imbibed and personified through his līlā and dispensation, and it is perfectly represented in the Bhāgavata’s supreme combination of words, satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi. I thus pray to always remain absorbed in meditation on this supreme truth—or in Gaura’s own and most famous words, kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ.
[1] Krama-sandarbha commentary of Jīva Goswāmī on Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 1.1.1
[2] Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 12.13.23
