The sixteenth-century Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition presents a distinctive model of religious practice that entails multivalent forgetfulness of oneself. The Gauḍīya Vaisnava tradition is centrally concerned with a practitioner’s successful cultivation of a loving relationship with the supreme Godhead Kṛṣṇa. Such cultivation begins with an initial range of devotional practices that aim to help a practitioner immerse their body, speech, and mind entirely in Kṛṣṇa so that they can remember him at all times. This includes practices like hearing and singing Kṛṣṇa’s names, meditating on Kṛṣṇa, worshipping Kṛṣṇa’s deity form, and dwelling in holy places. This initial stage of practice hinges 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).
This typology of forgetfulness remains interwoven, however, with the sustained remembrance of Kṛṣṇa as well as one’s eternal relationship with him that transcends all ordinary modalities of identity. According to the Gauḍīya tradition, each practitioner is capable of realizing one of four “flavors” of devotional love known as the bhakti-rasas, which are modeled by Kṛṣṇa’s paradigmatic devotees in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. This central Gauḍīya scripture correlates each flavor of perfected devotional love with particular types of embodied identities. These types of love and their associated embodied identities include: (1) dāsya, serviceful affection, which is exemplified by Kṛṣṇa’s male servants; (2) sakhya, devoted friendship, which is exemplified by Kṛṣṇa’s male cowherding companions the gopas; (3) vātsalya, parental love, which is exemplified by Kṛṣṇa’s mother Yaśodā; and (4) mādhurya, erotic love, which is exemplified by Kṛṣṇa’s female cowherd beloveds the gopīs.
According to Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava philosopher Jīva Gosvāmin, a practitioner is able to realize one of these four flavors of devotional love through five stages of meditation practice that center around progressively remembering Kṛṣṇa’s names, forms, qualities, and eternal pastimes as depicted in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. Jīva theorizes that a practitioner’s sustained efforts in meditation combine with Kṛṣṇa’s loving and reciprocal divine grace, which together reveal the particular flavor of divine love that any given practitioner has the capacity to experience. According to the Gauḍīya tradition, a practitioner initially visualizes themself expressing such love towards Kṛṣṇa in meditation. At the moment of death, a devotee them becomes able to eternally experience such love in Kṛṣṇa’s transcendental realm known as Goloka where his Bhāgavata Purāṇa pastimes are believed to eternally unfold.
And yet, even such ultimate realization of one’s highest self in relationship to Kṛṣṇa as servant, friend, parental elder or lover in Goloka also hinges on a certain modality of “forgetting.” Namely, the defining feature of these devotees is that they remain so consumed with love for Kṛṣṇa that they are not at all either concerned with or even aware of themselves at all. Kṛṣṇa’s attendant servants in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, for instance, think only of how to please Kṛṣṇa and fulfill his needs without giving any thought to their own. Kṛṣṇa’s gopī beloveds are also considered to be the greatest of all of his devotees specifically because they “forget” themselves to the highest degree possible: they abandon their lives in the village the moment that they hear Kṛṣṇa’s flute in order to meet with him in the forest. The Bhāgavata details how they run out of their homes, for instance, with milk and food on the stove, half-dressed, and with their makeup partially removed.
Such examples highlight how forgetfulness of oneself remains interwoven with remembrance of Kṛṣṇa in the Gauḍīya Vaisnava tradition. To help cultivate such forgetfulness imbued with remembrance, practitioner devotees are also encouraged to practice sevā, selfless service, such that that that devotee’s realm of concern shifts effectively away from themself towards Kṛṣṇa. Practicing sevā also primes devotees to continue such “forgetfulness” of self at the level of perfection, exemplified by Kṛṣṇa’s Bhāgavata devotees who likewise forget themselves in exchange for their eternal and dynamic remembrance of Kṛṣṇa. In these ways, the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition presents a unique model of devotional forgetfulness as both integral and central to religious practice, such that only the forgetting of one’s self can effectively catalyze eternal remembrance of Kṛṣṇa.
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.