Chapter Forty-five
Laughing Ecstasy
In the fourth division of Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī has described seven kinds of indirect ecstasies of devotional service-known as laughing, astonishment, chivalry, compassion, anger, dread and ghastliness. In this portion, Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī further describes these ecstasies of devotional feelings, some being compatible and others incompatible with one another. When one kind of ecstatic devotional service overlaps with another in a conflicting way, this state of affairs is called rasābhāsa, or a perverted presentation of mellows.