Presenter: Eileen Goddard, Religious Studies Ph.D. candidate, University of California, Santa Barbara
Eileen Goddard is a Religious Studies Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She teaches courses on Indian religious traditions at UCSB and the University of Houston. Eileen̍s research focuses on the sixteenth century Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition and comparatively analyzes Indian religious constructions of perfected minds and bodies. Eileen's broader research interests include Hindu and Indian philosophies, bhakti traditions, classical Sanskrit aesthetic theory (rasa), and gender and sexuality. Eileen completed her M.A. in Religion at Rutgers University and B.A. in Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Kṛṣṇa in the World and as the World: Cosmology and Compassion in the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Tradition
The sixteenth century Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition, inspired by Caitanya, envisions that supreme Godhead Kṛṣṇa has three aspects through which he simultaneously encompasses, oversees, and permeates the universe. Although Kṛṣṇa eternally resides in his transcendental realm Goloka-Vṛndāvana alongside associate devotees (bhaktas), Kṛṣṇa as the nondual ontological whole also animates the natural world and resides in the heart of every embodied being. This talk examines how Gauḍīya philosopher Jīva Gosvāmin argues that the cosmological pervasiveness of Kṛṣṇa's divine presence is the foundation of all compassion. In Bhakti Sandarbha, Jīva contends that a practitioner's ability to perceive Kṛṣṇa's presence everywhere is a key mark of spiritual advancement. Jīva suggests that as a bhakta develops devotional love for Kṛṣṇa, so love for all other beings spontaneously develops as well. This talk analyzes how a bhakta's loving devotional mood for Kṛṣṇa is theorized to extend towards others such that every bhakta instinctively treats all embodied beings like a dear son or friend.