I was reading the verse from Bhakti rasamrita-sindhu that starts suddha-sattva visesatma
and I was wondering, what's the meaning of the word atma in this context?
Jiva Goswami only talks about suddha sattva and visesa as the combination of samvit and hladini, so why is the atma always added to the term when preachers talk about the constitution of bhava?
In Sri Cahitanya-charitamrita, Srila Prabhupada gives atma as "nature" in the word-for-word translation. So perhaps he's saying that bhakti's nature (Bhanu Maharaja uses "essence") is suddha-sattva, which means samvit and hladini shakti
That's the best I can come up with now--gotta go do my service. Maybe Bhrigu and/or Swami can help.
I added a lengthy reply but it got lost because I got logged out.
At any rate the gist of the post is that atma in the verse refers to the fact that the mind identifies or 'becomes one with' the Bhava which manifests in the mind. Like iron and fire. The iron appears to one with the fire but is isn't actually so. Similarly, Bhava appears to be one with the mind but it is not identical. This is called tad atma. This is discussed in Jaiva Dharma chapter 22. Bhaktivinoda Thakur uses the word svarupata meaning that Rati attains identification with the mental faculty or manovritti. In the verse suddha sattva visesa this is indicated by the addition of the word atma.
This conclusion was taken shamelessly from a discussion of Jaiva Dharma posted on internet. It seems to me to be a good analysis.
Thanks a lot for the answers. I'll take a look at JD's 22nd chapter. Audarya-lila, could you post a link to the website you used as a reference? I'd be interested to check it out.
http://krishnascience.com/Vaisnava%20Libra...d.prayojana.htm
that is the url for the chapter discussion. If that doesn't work, you can go to krishnascience.com and look around I suppose. As I said I found it by doing a google search for the word visesatma.
Gaura Hari Bol!