Longing and Letting Go
Holly Hillgardner
Fordham University Press eBooks September 1, 2016 DOI: 10.5422/fordham/9780823274666.003.0008 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 1 |
| Key points | Argues that reading Hadewijch through Mirabai's "viraha bhakti" integrates mystical separation and union as a single love-longing, and proposes that cultivating such longing as an end in itself enables mutual, non-possessive relationships described as "passionate non-attachment." |
Abstract
Holly Hillgardner develops a relational notion of the desiring self by reading the thirteenth-century Christian beguine Hadewijch in light of the sixteenth-century Vaisnava poet-saint Mirabai. Christian mysticism has often been read as moments of blissful union interspersed with long periods of painful absence, with union celebrated as the goal of the spiritual life. Mirabai, however, interprets this mystical ebb and flow through the category of viraha bhakti, defined as a bodily, all-pervading “love-longing.” Read in light of Mirabai’s viraha bhakti, Hadewijch’s descriptions of separation and union can be seen as integrated by the concept of love-longing. Viraha bhakti thus provides a schema to celebrate and cultivate such longing, not as a means to an end, but as an end itself. A conscious and sustained lingering in the middle spaces of longing opens Mirabai and Hadewijch to possibilities for mutual, non-possessive relationships with the other, divine and otherwise—a passionate non-attachment.