Video audio and recordings of the classes will be included and sent via Whats App. A textbook will be made available to the participants.
This introduction into the Sanskrit language offers an overview of the cases (vibhakti) and their usage, as well as sandhi and the most basic grammar rules. Jagadananda Das developed his own methodology by which he avoids the teaching of complex rules upfront, and instead of keeping mostly to the singular. The course is thus designed to minimize the amount of memorization that needs to be done in the beginning and to be more reflective of what will be encountered in the texts of the Vrindavan Goswamis. Thus, the textbook used in this course includes many verses from the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava literature, especially Bhāgavad Gītā and the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. The orientation is towards rasa, or getting a taste for the language as well as getting a feel for the specific genius of Sanskrit and its unique ways of expression.
The spiritual path is very important to understand. Why is it said to have a guru and surrender to a guru? If you don’t surrender, you are only going to hang on to your own mind and material lens. That’s what you have, you can’t get rid of it. It’s not possible. You have to surrender your mind, body, and speech to guru. You have to have this faith that if he is saying something and it doesn’t match my understanding, then I am going to give up my understanding.
