BENGAL VAISHNAVA LYRICS 98 Spiritual transformations. Bhakti or love of God must be what is called ahaitukee, which means without any normal or familiar cause, such as contemplation of the mercy or benign providence of the Lord. Just as a thing of beauty, whether in Nature or in men or women, by its mere presenee attracts the mind and excites a passionate longing for its possession and enjoyment, even so in ahai' tukee bhakti or the love of the Lord not quickened by any extraneous cause, the mere consciousness of the Divine Presence or the revelation of His Beaxity captivates both our outer senses and inner consciousness. This ahaitukee bhakti is a special realisation of Bengal Yaishnavism, which has described the Loi'd not onlj^ as a Person with a form — not material like ours but spiritual — but as the eternal embodiment of all joy and bliss — Nikhilarasamritamnrti. The Upanishads des- cribed Brahman as raaa and anandam. Our Yaishnava realisations have discovered an eternally realised form or murti of Bi'ahman, and have, therefore, described the Ultimate Reality as Nikhilarasamritamurti. We are able to understand what this beatific realisation of the Yaishnavic piety of Bengal means, though indirectly, from our experiences
