Haribol!
I want your thoughs about this. Is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu teaching Vaidhi bhakti or Raganuga bhakti?
Jai Sri Radhe!
You'll find plenty of our thoughts here
Haribol!
I want your thoughs about this. Is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu teaching Vaidhi bhakti or Raganuga bhakti?
Jai Sri Radhe!
Srila Sridhar Maharaja refers to Lord Caitanya as a golden mountain standing to show the direction towards Krsna lila. Then He ordered Rupa Goswami to distribute the higher types of devotion, Raghanuga bhakti. That raganuga bhakti was distributed through Rupa Gosvami. Mahaprabhu considered Rupa the best to deal with raganuga bhakti. Then Sanatana Goswami gives some sort of adjustment with raganuga bhakti, that is vaidhi bhakti,i.e.,what is what, a sort of acquaintance with the environment proper.
Rupa Goswami was chosen by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu as the most fit person to distribute raganuga bhakti.The rules and regulations are actually found in the Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu compiled by him. Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu is the handbook of bhakti-yoga or sadhana-bhakti, with the two divisions or categories, vaidhi and raganuga. They are in one sense separate, while at the same time inseparable—in that they are complimentary components of the same substance i.e., sadhana-bhakti. Sri Sanatana Gosvami who was the older brother of Sri Rupa, has given us the vaidhi, rules and regulations, in adjustment to the path of raganuga-bhakti.
Saraswati Thakura stressed that without going through all the stages of regulated practice (vaidhi-bhakti) one cannot come to the platform of spontaneous love (raganuga bhakti).
Madhavi,
in one sense one could say that Mahaprabhu teaches both: Vaikuntha-bhakti as the Yuga avatara and Raganuga-bhakti as Radha-Krsihna combined. We as Gaudiyas are naturally interested in Raganuga-bhakti and the "vaidhi-bhakti" we perform in that context is actually ajata-ruci-raganuga-bhakti, which means raganuga-bhakti without taste (I know, it's an oxymoron..).