56
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 1, Ch. 1]
mundane activities and mundane knowledge. In this  śloka  it is stated that  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam  is not only a superior literature, but that it is the ripened fruit of all Vedic literatures. In other words, it is the cream of all Vedic knowledge. Considering all this, patient and submissive hearing is definitely essential. With great respect and attention, one should receive the message and lessons imparted by the  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam .
The  Vedas  are compared to the desire tree because they contain all things knowable by man. They deal with mundane necessities as well as spiritual realization. The  Vedas  contain regulated principles of knowledge covering social, political, religious, economic, military, medicinal, chemical, physical and metaphysical subject matter and all that may be necessary to keep the body and soul together. Above and beyond all this are specific directions for spiritual realization. Regulated knowledge involves a gradual raising of the living entity to the spiritual platform, and the highest spiritual realization is to know that the Personality of Godhead is the reservoir of all spiritual tastes or  rasas .
Every living entity, beginning from Brahmā, the first-born living being within the material world, down to the insignificant ant, desires to relish some sort of taste derived from sense perceptions. These sensual pleasures are technically called  rasas . Such  rasas  are of different varieties. In the revealed scriptures the following twelve varieties of  rasas  are enumerated: 1)  raudra  (anger) 2)  adbhuta  (wonder) 3)  śṛṅgāra  (conjugal love) 4)  hāsya  (comedy) 5)  vīra  (chivalry) 6)  dayā  (mercy) 7)  dāsya  (servitorship) 8)  sakhya  (fraternity) 9)  bhayānaka  (horror) 10)  vībhatsa  (shock) 11)  śānta  (neutrality) 12)  vātsalya  (parenthood).
The sum total of all these  rasas  is called affection or love. Primarily, such signs of love are manifested in adoration, service, friendship, eternal affection, and conjugal love. And when these five are absent, love is present indirectly in anger, wonder, comedy, chivalry, fear, shock and so on. For example, when a man is in love with a woman, the  rasa  is called conjugal love. But when such love affairs are disturbed there may be wonder, anger, shock, or even horror. Sometimes love affairs between two persons culminate in ghostly murder scenes. Such  rasas  are displayed between man and man and between animal and animal. There is no possibility of an exchange of  rasa  between a man and an animal or between a man and any other species of living beings within the material world. The  rasas  are exchanged between members of the same species. But as far as the spirit souls are concerned, they are one qualitatively with the Supreme Lord. Therefore, the  rasas  were originally exchanged between the spiritual living being and the spiritual whole, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The