Swami Prakashanand Saraswati was a revered spiritual teacher who dedicated his life to explaining the profound depths of divine love and the path to God realization. He emphasized that Krishn’s love represents the ultimate sweetness and bliss in the Divine realm, far surpassing all other forms of divine experiences. His teachings help us understand that while the essence of God remains one, the bliss experienced in Krishn love is unparalleled, as illustrated by the saints and scriptures throughout history.
According to Swami Prakashanand Saraswati…
Krishn is the absolute, supreme, and the ultimate sweetness of Divine love. God is only one, but there are variations in Divine status. The blissfulness of Krishn love does differ from the blissfulness of other Divine forms. Although it is totally impossible to intellectually comprehend how these differences exist in the Divine world, we can still try to faithfully understand this fact according to the historical events and the experiences of the Saints.
Brahma attempted to fathom the greatness of Krishn love with His own ultimate yogic powers, and He failed. Bhagwan Shiva resides in the Divine abode. He himself is God. Yet, He came running to receive Krishn’s grace and vision when Krishn appeared in Braj 5,000 years ago.
When Bhagwan Ram appeared in TretaYug, there were many great devotees living in Dandak forest. They desired the ultimate experience of Divine-love from Bhagwan Ram. Because He is a modest form of Divine-love, Bhagwan Ram blessed them to be reborn as Gopis in Braj in order for them to receive the supreme form of Divine-love, the ultimate bliss of love through Krishn, which they received during Maharas.
These instances show the ultimate supremacy of Krishn love. Try to understand with this example: a sweet drink can be made sweeter by adding honey or maple syrup, which will dissolve and make the drink thicker without increasing the volume. The thicker drink is sweeter. Similarly, there are varying intensities of Divine sweetness and blissfulness.
In this world material happiness and love has two stages: conscious and partly engrossed. There cannot be total engrossment in material pleasure because at every step of worldly enjoyment your soul remains dissatisfied and desires the bliss of the Divine. Any worldly happiness is short-lived and requires the sacrifice of your time, energy, effort, and intellect. Your soul is not satisfied by material attainments. It demands the experience of ultimate, Divine bliss, beauty, and contentment.
Before the Divine attainment, there is a devotional stage. In the devotional stage there is an experience of blissfulness which is neither Divine nor material. The engrossment in devotional love increases as the devotee proceeds on the path to God realization. When your mind is fully engrossed in divine-love during the devotional period, you enter into divine- love samadhi (divine-love trance). The devotional experience of love occurs in all the three stages: the conscious stage, partially engrossed stage, and fully engrossed stage. This happiness is far greater than worldly happiness yet much less than Divine happiness.
The first Divine stage is like the experience of Vaikunthdham (the abode of Mahavishnu and almighty forms of God). The second is like the blissfulness of Saket or Dwarika dham (the abode of Bhagwam Ram and Dwarkadish), and the third and ultimate is like the bliss of Vrindaban dham (Krishn love). Although these are all Divine stages there are variations in the experience of blissfulness.
In Ujwalneelmani, Jeev Goswami explains the various stages and experiences of devotional and Divine blissfulness in Krishn love. In the devotional stage one “enters” into samadhi, but in the Divine stage there is a natural, eternal samadhi (sahaj samadhi). In that Divine samadhi there is a stage where one is Divinely conscious even in the dream state and deep-sleep state.
He experiences an ever-increasing blissfulness of Divine-love. There are seven states of conscious samadhi and nine states of semiconscious and unconscious samadhi. For instance: jagratjagrat, jagratswapna, could be translated as natural, Divine transcendence in a fully awakened state, natural, Divine transcendence in a fully awakened-like, dream state, and so on. There are sixteen Divine states of Gopi love or Krishn love which a devotee experiences with the Divine grace of Radha-Krishn.
Thus the Divine experience of Krishn love is absolutely supreme and beyond all Divine experiences of Divine blissfulness.
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati thus explains how the divine experience of Krishn love is the highest form of spiritual bliss; it surpasses all other divine experiences in its depth and intensity. Prakashanand Saraswati illustrates how progression through the stages of devotional love leads to an ever-increasing awareness of this supreme divine love. Following this path, a devotee may finally be graced to receive the ultimate state of true Divine Love, which is beyond worldly comprehension.