Forgetfulness As Devotion in the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Tradition

The sixteenth-century Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition presents a model of religious practice that entails multivalent forgetfulness of oneself. The Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition is centrally concerned with a practitioner’s successful cultivation of a loving relationship with the supreme Godhead Kṛṣṇa. Initial devotional practices hinge on a central paradigm of remembering and forgetting: one must strive to remember Kṛṣṇa at all times to the degree that one ultimately “forgets” one’s own ordinary identity as an embodied being (jīva). Ultimately, a practitioner is said to realize their eternal relationship with Kṛṣṇa by awakening to one of four potential "flavors" of devotional love that correspond to Kṛṣṇa's paradigmatic Bhāgavata Purāṇa servants, male friends, parental elders, and erotic beloveds. And yet even such realization hinges on a modality of "forgetting." Even perfected devotees remain so consumed with love for Kṛṣṇa that they forget themselves, presenting a model of devotional forgetfulness that allows realization of eternal self.