Almost everyone has a need to create. Is this is reflective of divinity?

Brahman is consciousness, which is the basis for experience. 

Brahman therefore has an inherent predilection to experience things, which is why it has an inherent predilection to manifest experienceable things.

“ekaḥ bahu syāt.”

So, yes. Creativity is an inherent predilection of consciousness / divinity.

If Brahman has an inherent creative predilection, doesn’t that defy its definition, “without specific desire or impulses.”

Brahman is not the entirety of divinity, it is one of three divine facets. 

jñānam-advayam brahmeti paramātmeti bhagavān iti śabdyate 

In Brahman, creativity is a latent potential.

In Paramātmā, creativity is actuated. Things are actually brought into being.

In Bhagavān, the purpose of creativity is realized: the joy of experience.

Jīva Gosvāmī reasons that Brahman realization is beyond an individual’s experiential capacity, and therefore is extended as a revelation to the individual. In other words, it is impossible without divine mercy, and therefore requires the evocation of divine mercy: bhakti-yoga. What about people who realize Brahman through jñāna-yoga without practicing bhakti?

Jñāna-yoga includes practices of bhakti. For example, it involves mantras praising or petitioning a divinity. Even the word Oṁ is conceived as a praise and invocation of a divinity.

Śrī Jīva is not saying that everyone has to practice bhakti-yoga. He is saying is that every yoga-method includes some aspects of Bhakti.

Since Brahman doesn’t have specific qualities, it is described more readily as the negation of negative material qualities… This makes it seem like the Brahman experience is lonely and void-like. 

If you remove all negatives, do wind up with a negative? No.

If you remove all negatives, you wind up with something without negative traits, and which is therefore the basis for positive conditions.

Loneliness and non-existence are negative traits. Therefore, they cannot be descriptive of Brahman-experience.

Deep sleep is our closest thing to brahman-experience. When I am deeply asleep am I lonely? I don’t think so. I am not dreaming, not relating to anything, not involved in anything. Yet, it does not feel lonely.

Is love a part of the Brahman experience?

Love is an experience.

Consciousness is the basis and potential for experience.

Brahman is consciousness.

Love is a latent potentiality in the experience of Brahman. It is not absent, but not present. It is latent.

What are the “Tripuṭi” in relation to Bhakti?

Tripuṭi means “Three Things” – “Triplicity”

The fundamental triplicity is “noun-verb-object.” (actor, action, acted upon). This fundamental triplicity means different things in different venues.

For example, in art it is artist-art-audience

In bhakti: lover-love-loved

In dhyana: contemplator-contemplation-contemplated

In jñāna: knower-knowing-known

In karma: actor-action-effected/effect/outcome

Should we include all the bhakti practices in our Sadhana even if we do not do them perfectly, or should we include only those that we resonate with? 

After describing all the bhakti practices in Bhakti-Rasāmṛta-Sindhu, Śrī Rūpa makes this statement:

sā bhaktir eka-mukhya aṇga āśrita anaikāṅgi kātha vā |

svavāsana anusāreṇa niṣṭhātaḥ siddhi-kṛd bhavet ||1.2.264 ||

“She can avail herself of one primary bhakti practice, or of many. She should obtain perfection by focusing on those that seem most essential to her own personal inclinations (svavāsana).”

The word “primary” here refers to practices  # 21-64, not the “preparatory” practices (# 1-20), which are a separate consideration because they are needed to give us the chance to perform any primary practice correctly. So, 1-20 must always be in everyone’s practice, and from the remaining 44 we should choose those that are most congenial to us as individuals.

When I try to visualize the beautiful forms of Vishnu in my meditation practice, my  imagination takes over and distracts me.

Visualization is impossible without imagination. So, it cannot be that imagination is distracting you from visualization. Imagination is visualization. 

It may be more accurate to say that your imagination itself is distracted. I.E. you begin imagining other things.

It is essential to know our enemies clearly. Don’t misidentify imagination as the enemy. Distraction is the enemy. 

Would it be better to say His name and remain silent, just listening to the sound; keeping space for something real to come?

The amazon delivery comes to my door, it does not fly through my walls. Similarly, “something real” will come through your imagination.

Even if you focus away from visual meditation and towards sonic meditation you will have to resolve the meanings of the sounds – and this is the sonic equivalent of imagination.

We can’t avoid imagination.

Don’t be too hard on your imagination. It is essential for meditation, and if a gardener over-prunes a tree, the whole tree could die. If your imagination dies, your meditation dies with it.

If you are too strict in policing your imagination you will get exhausted and avoid sādhana for days, weeks, months, years, or more. You will also develop a phobia of dharana and get stuck at pratyāhāra which will lead you to voidism at best. Let your imagination do its thing, always feeding it healthy food:  mantra and śāstra.

If you notice that your visual or sonic imagination has wandered off topic, you have done well! Feel good about that. Noticing the wandering is the first step to stopping it. The sooner you notice it, the more you are progressing.

yato yato niścalati manaś cañcalam asthiram

tatas tato niyamyaitad ātmany eva vaśaṁ nayet

(Gītā 6.26) 

When you notice that your contemplation has strayed, ask yourself if you still have energy to practice right now. If you do – grab your mind by the horns and put a leash on it. Use āsana and prāṇāyāma to empty it (pratyāhāra), and then restart your contemplation (dharana) and try again. 

If you are out of energy, rest well and try again later when you are refreshed.

Is Jīva a subtype of ātma?

Not exactly. They are just two words that refer to similar things.

Jīva means “living thing” – the whole body/mind/soul as a unit. 

Ātma and Brahman are identical, except that Brahman is the potential form of the pair, and Ātma is the kinetic.

Atma is activated consciousness. Activated consciousness perceives, and therefore develops identity (ātma) in relation to what it perceives.

The word jīva is typically used in context of a body/mind/soul complex for a distorted, conditional self.

The word ātma is typically used to refer specifically to the actual conscious entity at the core of that body/mind/soul complex.

We have been always jivas but we can become pure atmas right? 

We have always been jīva and ātma.

Ātma can have clear or distorted perception, and therefore can provide a clear or distorted concept of self. What you are referring to as a “pure ātma” is one with non-distorted perception. Yes, we can correct our distortions and attain this condition.

Why do we say the atma is untouched even though the ego/mind/intellect are going through suffering? 

Suffering and happiness come and go from the mind because of changes in the conditions in the world. The ātma is the observer / experiencer of them. This is why we say that ātma is not changed when its experiences change. It’s mind, intellect, ego, body, and circumstances change.

Do we have an atma even if our atma is blind?

You don’t “have” atma. You “are” it. 

It is never “blind” but its vision can be distorted.

Where do nightmares come from? past life memories?  other people ill will? Repressed anger, fears and hatred? Are they simply bad omens? Or, bad karma paying back in another level?

All of the above. 

What is prophetic dreaming? Is it just that some of us are more attuned to the subtleties? 

In some cases, our subconscious randomly combines objects in its memory, which happens to coincidentally resemble what later happens in the physical world. Similarly, it may calculates likely outcomes of circumstances, and present those to us in dreams. Sometimes these calculations may prove accurate. These things can also be guided or entirely gifted by the divinities involved in mental functions. This is very related to being “more attuned to the subtleties.”

Also, the future is a repetition, like an echo of the past. So, some prophecy is actually memory – recollection of a previous experience which recurs again in the physical world in a very similar format.

When you discussed vedic standards of love and sex, you explained  that in the first yuga love was basically free and open, and moving into the next yugas they had to implement more and more rules leading towards monogamy to protect mainly women and children.

this explanation made me feel a little weird because i felt like my natural inclination was towards monogamy. 

Since you don’t live in Satya Yuga it would be weird if you DIDN’T have a natural inclination towards monogamy. Polyamory is NOT wholesomely natural in the era you live in. 

Why was there polygamy in the “closest to the ideal” satya yuga? 

Since everyone was ideal, everyone was equally attractive. Therefore there was no need for discrimination among mates.

Also, since everyone was moral, there was no partiality and no criminality. Therefore there was no need for the protection afforded by social structures like family and nation. People would take care of anyone’s child with the same love and affection as they would take care of “their own.”

Isn’t Bhakti / Prema exclusive to a single beloved? Therefore isn’t monogamy more ideal?

Prema is exclusive, yes, but exclusivity does not preclude diversity. 

In Satya Yuga the concept of identity and self is more in atma and Paramātmā. Therefore they love equally diversely, because they actually love the same being exclusively in everyone. 

The most ideal love is not in Satya Yuga, or any other Yuga. It is nowhere in the universe, it is beyond the universe in Krishna-loka. There you will find an astonishing, vivid, living expression of diversity in exclusivity. There everyone loves one being exclusively (Krishna), and in so doing they all cooperate intimately to bring him joy, and thus love each other intensely.

Could we love someone as an “living murti” of Hari? 

To love anyone without cognizance of their relationship to Hari is to love in ignorance. 

Everyone is related to Hari in some way. Therefore we should love everyone. 

Although everyone is related to Hari, no one except Hari is Hari. So we should love everyone because of our love for Hari, or to help develop our love for Hari. It should not replace love for Hari.

I read somewhere that some Indian women offer their poojas to benefit their husbands because they relate to them as a “form of Vishnu”. 

Is this really unique to India? Don’t Italian women pray to Jesus to bless their husbands and families? 

Is it unique to women? Don’t men all over the world also pray and worship their gods for the well-being of their nations, families, wives and children?

“The Husband as a Form of Vishnu” may sound weird, but it is simple. Since God maintains the universe, anyone who maintains others is a type of god or an aspect of god. Husbands, fathers, mothers, wives are therefore seen in a divine light. 

In reference to the Fourth Canto allegory of Puranjana… Does Vidarbhi being paired with Hari as two swans indicate that Hari is her real intellect? (Since all the pairs in this story are soul/intellect)

I think that is an acceptable concept.

At the end of the story, Hari reveals that Vidarbhi is actually a “swan” and he is her swan partner. So this could be extrapolated to illustrate that when the individual relates to Hari, Hari’s own intrinsic shaktis provide that individual with the intellect/mind/body/senses/identity capable of direct interaction with him.

How do we reconcile intimate nature of devotion with the communal nature of many bhakti practices?

Soccer fans enjoy their personal passion for soccer more when in a bar or a stadium full of other fans.

Bhakti practices are not overly communal. They are communal only with other intimate bhaktas. One cannot enjoy a concert with an arena full of people who are not particularly fans of the band.

Are the bhavas of bhakti stages of growth in our relationship to Hari? 

The later bhavas are evolutes of the former.

Can you explain how the bhavas are related as evolutes?

The first bhāva, Śuddha, is “purity” – the lack of personal wants or needs.

Purity can evolve into wanting and needing things for a beloved. Then it is “affection,” the second bhāva, prīti.

Affection can evolve into intimately knowing the wants and needs of the beloved. This intimacy is called sakhya – “friendship” – the third bhāva.

Friendship can evolve into wanting to influence and protect the wants and needs of the beloved. This is protective love, vātsalya, the fourth bhāva.

Protective love can evolve into evocative love; wanting to create and enhance wants and needs in the beloved. This is what we call romantic love, mādhurya, the fifth, ultimate bhaya.

Then shouldn’t we keep calm (shanta bhava) at the core of our relationship to Krishna at all times? 

Yes, but we should correctly understand what “calm” means and what the first bhāva really is.

The key trait of the first bhāva is purity (śuddha). Calmness (śānta) is the result of purity. Purity means lack of selfish desire. “Calmness” in this context therefore means lack of worry about ones own needs.

These two traits must be a constant foundation of any true love, especially any variety of Krishna prema.

How can emotion for God be attained by repetition of mantras. 

It cannot.

Emotion is liquid, like water (rasa). It is fluid, and unstructured. So, shouldn’t a bhakta try to develop more sincerity and tenderness in their internal feelings instead of scheduling, organizing, maximizing, over analyzing our love for God? 

Yes. 

I am not sure why you are asking these things, which are obvious principles of Bhakti-yoga. Maybe you have misunderstood Bhakti sadhana by conflating it with other religious and spiritual practices? Or maybe you are observing practitioners who are not practicing effectively? 

Bhakti sadhana is a practice for softening the heart. We do not practice repetition of mantra or mechanical, or intellectual disciplines.

If we do not repeat mantras, what is the Hare Krishna mantra?

It is not a mantra, and it is not repeated. It is the name of our beloved, and we contemplate it, or sing it joyfully. Repetition can be used to aid contemplation and musicality, but is not the purpose or focus of the practice.

What do you mean “it is not a mantra”?

Mantra refers to hymns used in rituals and ceremonies. Hare Krishna mahāmantra is not such a mantra.

Mantra also refers to verbal codes used as seeds for mediation. The Hare Krishna mahāmantra is more akin to this concept of mantra. 

In stressing “repetition” of a mantra, you evoke the ritualistic, first type of definition.

If Bhakti does not involve mechanical or intellectual discipline, why do we practice certain activities and study certain concepts?

As you noted, bhakti is very natural and needs little if any “practice.” Much of what we call “bhakti sadhana” is really a preliminary practice for getting rid of our disqualifications for really practicing it, or more accurately, really wanting it. The activities and studies you refer to here are important for this.