FAQs

Aulai Darshan occurs in the early evening in the Radharaman Temple, around the time of Sandhya Aarti. The mood is that Krishn has just returned from a long day of herding cows. He freshens up, changes his clothes and wears his loungewear. At this time he is very hungry and waiting to eat. So, Mother Yashoda tells him aulai, “Come. I am bringing.”

Radharamanji is a moveable deity; he is small, light and not mounted on a surface (like most deities in other temples). When he is sitting on his throne at a height, he may fall if we place a flute in his lotus hands or if we remove it from them. We also have to remove and replace the flute every time he eats his meals ( bhog), which again could result in his soft hands getting scratched and him falling over. Instead, we meditate that he is holding his flute so that he has it with him always.

For the love of Gopal Bhatt Goswami, Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appeared as Radharaman. Gaur holo Radharaman. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the joint incarnation of Radha and Krishn. The ancient deities of Vrindavan had Names like Govind, Gopinath and Madanmohan, but later when Shri Radha’s deities were installed in those temples, they became known as Radha-Govind, Radha-Gopinath, Radha-Madanmohan, and so forth. But Shri Radharaman Dev is Radha and Krishn in a single form, non-different from Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. There is no separate deity of Radharani with him, however the Holy Name of Radha is worshipped at his left side, in the same manner a three-dimensional deity would be.

When Jahnava Maata came to Braj, she had vigrahas of Radha made for all the main temples of Vrindavan. She wanted to have a deity of Shri Radharani made to accompany Radharamanji too but Gopal Bhatt Goswami felt that as Radharamanji already has Radharani within him, and he did not want to keep a separate deity of Radharani with him. Because then there would be two Radhas and the deity would be Shri Radha-Radharaman! Nevertheless he could not deny Jahnava Thakurani’s request and a golden deity of Radharani was actually installed next to him. But strangely that deity kept disappearing. The Goswamis would put Radharamanji to sleep at night with that deity but in the morning, she would not be there. Instead she would be found in lonesome corners of random places on the temple premises. At last Radharamanji appears to Gopal Bhatt and asked him to take that deity away; that the deity was not Radharani but his sister, Yogmaya. Radharamanji was not very pleased to be put to bed with his sister every night instead of Radharani. Now that deity of Yogmaya Devi is the Goswamis’ kuldevi, Sheetla Maata, who resides in a temple in Gurgaon, Delhi near sector 12. And thereafter naam seva of Radharani at the Radharaman Temple has been performed till this day. Just as Shri Gaursundar is yugal Swaroop yet he is accompanied by Radharani in the form of Gadadhar pandit, similarly our Radharamanji is Radha and Krishn in one but still he is worshipped with Radharani at his side in the form of her Name.

The Veds are the oldest and primary scriptures of sanatan dharm (Hinduism) which were not composed by man, but issued forth from the breath of the Lord. The Veds are composed of karm kand, gyan kand and upasana kand, which describe ritual, philosophy, and worship, respectively.

After contemplating the Veds, the sages wrote the Upanishads which are highly philosophical. They explore the nature of the supreme Reality, the soul, and liberation from the cycle of birth and death. There are 108 main Upanishads.

The Purans are post- Upanishadic religious epics which reveal wisdom mainly through stories. There are 18 Purans and 18 sub- Purans. The Srimad Bhagwat Puran is known as “the ripened fruit of the Ved” because it contains the ultimate conclusion of the Vedic and Upanishadic teachings; that is, devotion. The Gaudiya Sampradaya’s philosophy is based on the Srimad Bhagwat Puran, which reveals the highest goal of human life, sacred love.

Krishn is the Supreme Divinity. The Srimad Bhagwat Puran says, Krishnas tu Bhagavan svayam, “Krishn alone is God himself,” ie. the Source of all the incarnations. Although he is God, he enacts his lila or eternal divine pastimes as a cowherd boy amidst the rustic cow-herding community of Vrindavan.

Radha is the Soul of Krishn in an external form. She is Krishn’s “bliss energy” or hladini shakti, the Source of all loving devotion, the eternal Queen of Vrindavan.

Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the combined incarnation of Radha and Krishn. He manifested on this earth in the sixteenth-century to educate all the souls in the easiest path to attain the Lord, by giving the teachings of the Holy Name and kirtan.

When Shri Radha and Krishn came to this world to perform their lila, they brought a small piece of their eternal abode, Braj, to the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. Today, millions of devotees visit this holy land on pilgrimage every day.

Braj and Vrindavan are one and the same, but there is also a modern city named Vrindavan which is located in the Braj region. Vrindavan is the home of Radha and Krishn. It is the faith of the devotees and the saying of the scriptures that They are always present there and play Their Raas-lila every day.

Manjaris are gopis (cowherd women) who are the maidservants of Radharani who serve her with total dedication and whom she entrusts with her innermost secrets.

Gopal Bhatt Goswami is the combined incarnation of Gunmanjari and Ananga Manjari. Gunmanjari is one of Radharani’s maidservants, who serves her primarily by providing various kinds of scented water. Ananga Manjari is Radharani’s younger sister, and is also her assistant and follower, like Gunmanjari.

The ultimate goal of human life is prem or “sacred love”, a specific spiritual state wherein the lover attains complete saturation in the Beloved. In this state, the soul no longer feels self-centred desire and she enjoys permanent intimacy with God, both in this world and in the eternal abode.

Guru is the Lord appearing in the form of the spiritual master who gives mantra and teachings to the disciple. In this form, the Lord is to be honoured and worshipped as a helpful guide and not as the Supreme Lord.

Initiation is a ritual where the guru whispers the mantra into the disciple’s ear. The scriptures describe this ritual as a transmission of divine knowledge and energy. It creates a bond between teacher and disciple on a soul level, and qualifies the initiate to perform worship of the deity as a member of the Sampradaya (spiritual school).

According to Patanjali’s Yog Sutra (2.4), avidya (ignorance) is one of the five miseries or klesh. It is the primary klesh from which the other four klesh spring forth. These are: false sense of self ( asmita); attachment to material pleasures ( raag); aversion to distress ( dvesh); and the relentless desire to live coupled with the fear of death (abhinivesh). Klesh also encompasses all types of sins: sins whose reactions are currently being experienced ( prarabdha), accumulated sins whose reactions have not fructified ( aprarabdha), sins whose reactions have manifested subtly and will soon be experienced in full ( kuta), and sins which persist in the form of subconscious desires which later fructify ( beej).

Avidya (ignorance) means mistaking the transient for the eternal, the impure for the pure, distress for pleasure, and that which is not the self for the self. ( Yog Sutra 2.5) Ignorance often manifests as a feeling that our worldly relationships with family and friends are permanent, and feeling that the fleeting pleasures of this world are a permanent joy, when they actually give distress when they end, and they bind us to the cycle of birth and death.

The jeev or jivatma is the individual soul. The soul is a particle of consciousness ( chit-kana) and is part of the Lord’s borderline energy ( tatastha-shakti). This means that the soul sits on the borderline between spiritual and material realities, ie. it has the capacity to absorb itself in either one, although its true nature is spiritual.

Maya is the deluding energy of Lord Krishn which causes the soul ( jivatma) to identify itself as gross matter when it is actually pure spirit.

Bhakti is devotion for the Lord. According to Roop Goswami, the best kind of devotion consists of devotional acts performed with the Lord’s happiness as the goal, which is free from ulterior motives and is not obscured by reliance on any other path.

Kirtan is the singing of the Holy Name, descriptions, and holy acts of Lord Krishn and his devotees.

God is the source of all that is, the perfect object of service and love. He is Krishn, pure Being, Consciousness and Bliss in a personal form.

According to the essence of all the scriptures, Lord Krishn is the supreme Divinity of whom all the other gods and goddesses are part. Gaudiya Vaishnavs honour all the gods and goddesses, while keeping their main focus on Radha and Krishn.

In Braj, God is adored informally and with intense sacred love as a son, friend or beloved. In the Gaudiya Sampradaya, the devotion of the Braj residents is the ultimate ideal.

A mantra is a string of Sanskrit syllables or words, used in prayer, which contains the full power of the divine person (or persons) whose name it contains. In simple words, mantras are words with strong vibration and great spiritual energy. Every Sampradaya or spiritual school has a main mantra, the transmission of which equates to admission into the tradition.

The panch tattva are Shri Krishn Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Shri Nityanand Prabhu, Shri Adwait Prabhu, Shri Gadadhar Pandit and Shri Srivas Pandit. They are the incarnations of Shri Radha-Krishn, Shri Balram, Shri Mahavishnu and Sadashiv, Shri Radha and Devarshi Narad, respectively. They appeared in Bengal approximately five hundred years ago.

The six Goswamis are Shri Roop Goswami, Shri Sanatan Goswami, Shri Raghunath Bhatt Goswami, Shri Gopal Bhatt Goswami, Shri Raghunath Das Goswami and Shri Jeev Goswami. They are the incarnations of Shri Roop Manjari, Shri Lavang Manjari, Shri Rasa Manjari, Shri Gunmanjari (or Ananga Manjari), Shri Rati (Tulsi) Manjari and Shri Vilas Manjari, respectively. About five hundred years ago, these six saints laid the philosophical foundation for the Gaudiya Sampradaya. They also rediscovered the lost holy sites of Krishn’s life story, and their devotion in the Braj mood was of the highest calibre. They were the followers of the panch tattva.