A Teaching Note: Reading and Teaching Jayadeva’s Gītagovinda: Journal of Vaishnava Studies

Abstract

In the first part of his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, the late Steve Jobs reflected on his decision to drop out of college and pursue his own education. While these choices had little practical application at the time, Jobs, looking back, saw them as crucial in directing his life and providing the raw material, years later, for developing Apple computers. Looking back, it is possible to connect the dots and see how all of this fit together, but “it is impossible to connect the dots moving forward.” “You have to trust that
the dots will connect in your future” and “that you will have the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path…and that will make all the difference.”2 The same rule applies to the evolutionary development of religious traditions and, in particular, to Jayadeva’s Gītagovinda.