19860912 Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya-līlā 8.224-229

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on September 12^th 1986 at New Pānihāṭi Dhāma in Atlanta, Georgia. The class begins with a reading from Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā chapter 8, verse 224 – 229.

Jayapatākā Swami:

Text 224

nibhṛta-marun-mano ’kṣa-dṛḍha-yoga-yujo hṛdi yan
munaya upāsate tad arayo ’pi yayuḥ smaraṇāt
striya uragendra-bhoga-bhuja-daṇḍa-viṣakta-dhiyo
vayam api te samāḥ sama-dṛśo ’ṅghri-saroja-sudhāḥ

Translation: “‘Great sages conquer the mind and senses by practicing the mystic yoga system and controlling the breath. Thus engaging in mystic yoga, they see the Super soul within their hearts and ultimately enter into impersonal Brahman. But even the enemies of the Supreme Personality of Godhead attain that position simply by thinking of the Supreme Lord. However, the damsels of Vraja, the gopīs, being attracted by the beauty of Kṛṣṇa, simply wanted to embrace Him and His arms, which are like serpents. Thus the gopīs ultimately tasted the nectar of the lotus feet of the Lord. Similarly, we Upaniṣads can also taste the nectar of His lotus feet by following in the footsteps of the gopīs.’ ”

Purport: This is a quotation from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.87.23) spoken by the śrutis, the personified Vedas.

Text 225

‘sama-dṛśaḥ’-śabde kahe ‘sei bhāve anugati’
‘samāḥ’-śabde kahe śrutira gopī-deha-prāpti

“The word ‘sama-dṛśaḥ,’ mentioned in the fourth line of the previous verse, means ‘following the mood of the gopīs.’ The word ‘samāḥ’ means ‘the śrutis’ attainment of bodies like those of the gopīs.’

Text 226

‘aṅghri-padma-sudhā’ya kahe ‘kṛṣṇa-saṅgānanda’
vidhi-mārge nā pāiye vraje kṛṣṇa-candra

“The word ‘aṅghri-padma-sudhā’ means ‘associating intimately with Kṛṣṇa’. One can attain such perfection only by spontaneous love of God. One cannot obtain Kṛṣṇa in Goloka Vṛndāvana simply by serving the Lord according to regulative principles.

Text 227

nāyaṁ sukhāpo bhagavān
dehināṁ gopikā-sutaḥ
jñānināṁ cātma-bhūtānāṁ
yathā bhakti-matām iha

Translation: “‘The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, the son of mother Yaśodā, is accessible to those devotees engaged in spontaneous loving service, but He is not as easily accessible to mental speculators, to those striving for self-realization by severe austerities and penances, or to those who consider the body the same as the self.’

Purport: This verse from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.9.21) is spoken by Śrīla Śukadeva Gosvāmī. It appears within a passage in which he glorifies mother Yaśodā and other devotees of Kṛṣṇa by describing how they can subjugate Him with their love.

Text 228

ataeva gopī-bhāva kari aṅgīkāra
rātri-dina cinte rādhā-kṛṣṇera vihāra

Translation: “Therefore, one should accept the mood of the gopīs in their service. In such a transcendental mood, one should always think of the pastimes of Śrī Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa

Text 229

siddha-dehe cinti’ kare tāhāṅñi sevana
sakhī-bhāve pāya rādhā-kṛṣṇera caraṇa

Translation: “After thinking of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa and Their pastimes for a long time and after getting completely free from material contamination, one is transferred to the spiritual world. There the devotee attains an opportunity to serve Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa as one of the gopīs.

Purport: Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura comments that the word siddha-deha, "perfected spiritual body", refers to a body beyond the material gross body composed of five elements and the subtle astral body composed of mind, intelligence and false ego. In other words, one attains a completely spiritual body fit to render service to the transcendental couple Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa: sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ tat-paratvena nirmalam. (Cc. Madhya 19.170)

When one is situated in his spiritual body, which is beyond this gross and subtle material body, he is fit to serve Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. That body is called siddha-deha. The living entity attains a particular type of gross body in accordance with his past activities and mental condition. In this life the mental condition changes in different ways, and the same living entity gets another body in the next life according to his desires. The mind, intelligence and false ego are always engaged in an attempt to dominate material nature. According to that subtle astral body, one attains a gross body to enjoy the objects of one’s desires. According to the activities of the present body, one prepares another subtle body. And according to the subtle body, one attains another gross body. This is the process of material existence. However, when one is spiritually situated and does not desire a gross or subtle body, he attains his original spiritual body. As confirmed by the Bhagavad-gītā (4.9): tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti so ’rjuna.

One is elevated to the spiritual world by the spiritual body and is situated either in Goloka Vṛndāvana or in another Vaikuṇṭha planet. In the spiritual body there are no longer material desires, and one is fully satisfied by rendering service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. This is the platform of bhakti (hṛṣīkeṇa hṛṣīkeśa-sevanaṁ bhaktir ucyate [Cc. Madhya 19.170]). When the spiritual body, mind and senses are completely purified, one can render service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His consort. In Vaikuṇṭha the consort is Lakṣmī, and in Goloka Vṛndāvana the consort is Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. In the spiritual body, free from material contamination, one can serve Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa and Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa. When one is thus spiritually situated, he no longer thinks of his own personal sense gratification. This spiritual body is called siddha-deha, the body by which one can render transcendental service unto Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. The process is that of engaging the transcendental senses in loving devotional service. This verse specifically mentions, sakhī-bhāve pāya rādhā-kṛṣṇera caraṇa: only transcendentally elevated persons in the mood of the gopīs can engage in the service of the lotus feet of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa.

Thus, end the Bhaktivedanta purports to text 229 of chapter 8 Madhya-līlā Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta in the matter of ‘Talks between the Lord and Rāmānanda-rāya’.

*Gurudeva re-reads translation*

Jayapatākā Swami: So of course, this is the process for achieving the service of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. The process is the same to go to the spiritual world, regardless of one's rasa, or service, in the spiritual world. One has to meditate on the pastimes of Kṛṣṇa, His consorts. Has to meditate and the spiritual pastimes of the Lord, engage in their service, become purified from contamination. Then one can achieve the spiritual world in a spiritual body. So, the spiritual body is already formed by rendering the devotional service. Even though externally one may not be able to see the spiritual body. It describes that those are residents of the holy places, of the holy dhāma, they are seen as having a spiritual body by the denizens in the higher planets. Those who are residents of Śrī Kṣetra, where Jagannātha lives, they are seen by the denizens of the heavenly planets as having four arms. Those are residents of Navadvīpa, Māyāpur-dhāma, are seen as having two arms and having a spiritual body suitable to serving Lord Caitanya. Those who are residents of Gaura Maṇḍala Bhūmi, which is a next layer outside of Māyāpur-Navadvīpa; it is compared that Māyāpur-Navadvīpa is like the round part in the centre of a lotus, and the flowers which go out is like the Gaura Maṇḍala Bhūmi. So the residents at Gaura Maṇḍala bhūmi are seen by the residents of svarga as having four arms, and blue form. The residents in Māyāpur-Navadvīpa are seen as having two arms and golden form. So according to one's relationship developed with Kṛṣṇa, one already develops the spiritual body. It already awakens. It's there within our heart. In conditioned life, the soul is like a small seed. It is dormant. The spiritual body is dormant because we don't need a spiritual body when we're in material life. Instead, the soul is just like a small seed, and we experience pleasure and pain and mixture of the two from this material body and mind. Prabhupāda explains here about the gross body and about the astral body. That we have to purify our conception beyond the gross and subtle material body.

In America many people are very attracted to the astral body, and they try to do astral projection and leave their gross body, and then move about. But they are still connected to the gross body. They have to come back. And if they break the connection, then they have to change their body. They die, so to speak. Meaning that their connection with this gross body will be finished. They remain in their subtle body, which is like a ghost. Or otherwise they'll go on to the next birth. So all these gross, or subtle, or astral situations of attachment to the material world don't actually take one to the spiritual world. They don't change our connection with the material nature in any absolute way. They simply are keeping us bound up to this material world. But by worshipping Rādhā-Mādanamohana, by worshiping Nitāi-Gaura, Jagannātha-Subhadrā-Balarāma, by developing our transcendental attachment to serving them; first we serve there very strictly according to rules and regulations, then we become more spontaneous in following the rules and regulations and we enjoy to follow those. Then we develop higher level of rāgānugā, where externally one follows the rules and regulations, but internally one is spontaneously attracted to serving the Lord in any way which will give satisfaction to guru and Kṛṣṇa. And the service becomes more important to such devotees than other external aspects of devotional service.

So, the idea of doing whatever is pleasing to Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, that was the mood of gopīs. The gopīs were not desiring that, “Kṛṣṇa please dance with me.” They were thinking how to get Kṛṣṇa to dance with Rādhā. Rādhāraṇī, vice versa. So this is a mood was simply how to give Kṛṣṇa happiness. How to reunite Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. In other words although externally it may appear all the gopīs are wanting to dance with Kṛṣṇa, like a woman wants to be with a man,  a man wants to be with a woman. No. It's not like that. Their desire was actually selfless. Their greater happiness was in trying to unite Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. Sometimes Rādhāraṇī would force the gopīs to be with Kṛṣṇa. But that wasn't their greater happiness. Their greater happiness was to bring Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa together. In fact, sometimes in the beginning in devotional service one gives great happiness to accept the remnants of kṛṣṇa-prasādam. But then later one gets more happiness in offering the prasādam to Kṛṣṇa. Seeing very nice offering. Like last night, we saw what a wonderful offering - hundreds of preparations to Kṛṣṇa. It actually gave joy to the heart to see so many offerings. More happiness then we could get even by trying to who serve the prasādam afterwards.

Lord Caitanya, He would feel love for Kṛṣṇa both in accepting prasādam and offering. But when He saw the beautiful offering to Kṛṣṇa, that would melt His heart, that how the devotees have put their love and devotion and made such a nice offering to Kṛṣṇa. So, this mood they trying to please Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. Trying to please the Lord. That mood has to become more prominent. In material life, our mood is absorbed in how to please the body and how to please the mind. When our body and mind isn’t satisfied, we get frustrated. This is known as being under the control of the modes of material nature. So these things are going to happen. The body is going to sometimes be happy and sometimes give us distress. Sometimes the body will feel satisfied by its present situation, sometimes it will pull, and pull, and say we need this or that. If we simply go running after the urges of the body, and allow those urges to make us feel happy or distressed, then we simply come under the control of illusion more and more.

Just like someone was giving the example yesterday how Prabhupāda said that, you scratch and you get a little relieved. Then again the itching is there, again you scratch. Finally you scratch and scratch so much, then finally you stop. Not because the scratching goes but because there's blood. Even if one wants to serve, Kṛṣṇa can eat so many preparations. But if we want to take even a little bit, then we cannot finish. There's too many preparations offered to Kṛṣṇa. Although mentally we may think let us take some more, but physically we are incapable. Someone they want to enjoy unlimited sense gratification. But so many problems come. Modern society, they want unlimited sense gratification. Now they're very frustrated with so many diseases which have come - AIDS, Herpes. They don't know what to do. They're frantically spending millions and millions of dollars trying to find the cure so that they can again have unrestricted sense gratification. And headline came ‘New Sexual Revolution About to Happen on the Eve of Finding AIDS Antidote.’ In other words, now people have forced to restrict themselves because of fear of death. So when the hope of finding an antidote is there, they practically rejoice in the paper. New sexual revolution about to come. So, this revolution, or that revolution, based on sense gratification is going to produce other problems. It frustrates one totally if one lives one life simply based upon sex, or sense gratification. One may think that by having homo-sex, there's no children. So then it's more free. You don't have to go through so many problems. But then we see so much mental anxiety comes. So many other subtle sufferings are coming due to all these types of unnatural relationships based simply upon sense gratification, without any higher purpose. At least the bond between husband and wife can be purified by the desire to produce a Kṛṣṇa conscious child for Kṛṣṇa. Then it has a legitimacy, based upon this sacrifice to have a Kṛṣṇa conscious child. And that child can be raised to be a devotee of Kṛṣṇa. Therefore the sex is actually purified. Whatever one does, one gradually has to purify the consciousness from this gross attachment to the body, the subtle attachments to the mind. Likes and dislikes are always pulling us to and fro here and there, and this way there's another śloka from Caitanya-caritāmṛta:

jihvāra lālase yei iti-uti dhāya
śiśnodara-parāyaṇa kṛṣṇa nāhi pāya
(Cc. Antya 6.227)

Someone who's running here and there trying to satisfy the tongue, someone who simply attached to the tongue, belly, and genitals, cannot achieve Kṛṣṇa. People are running here and there, whole society. Most of the long distance planes, they always show these different movies, none of which are unfortunately very fit to see. We always see the silent figures running around on the screen. They're always running after this sense gratification. In the end there's a big smile and everything is alright. Imagine everything's alright. Seems there's always a smile in the end, most of them. But you know the material world everything is no-life. Actually, life isn't meant to be pursued in such a gross level. That’s why Śrīla Prabhupāda came. He said whole society here is simply spiritually bankrupt. We need to give them spiritual direction. Everything is there materially, there's nothing lacking. Still why the people are frustrated. Some people are proud, America is a dynamic country. It's an experiment, it's only 200 years old. So, this experiment will be perfected if we base America on actual spiritual principles. In the money if still says ‘In God We Trust’. The original founding fathers of America, even Benjamin Franklin, he believed in reincarnation. Thomas Jefferson believed in reincarnation. Benjamin Franklin for sure.  The basic principles were in spiritual life. But nowadays gradually America has become more and more hedonistic. We have to redirect that in a spiritual direction. Because Prabhupāda preaching there is overall a general revival in spiritual principle. But māyā will try to attack us, will try to distract us in many ways. Each devotee has to himself become an ācārya, has to become one who teaches by their own example. Apane ācāri dharma para ke sikhāibe. Lord Caitanya said you teach others by your own example there's no use in saying so many things if you don't practice it yourself it's not going to convince others we have to teach others by our own example. So Prabhupāda wanted that the devotee should be first-class citizens. They should be persons who are able to correct the society and who are famous for being very simple and very pure in their activities, who are able to lead people. Unfortunately, often we're in such a financial bind that we have to somehow or another collect donations from the materialist to maintain the temples and other overheads. But in the future we hope to have a larger and larger congregation, and that the basic expense for maintaining the deities Rādhā Madananohana, Nitāi-Gaura, Jagannātha-Subhadrā-Balarāma, these should be maintained by the congregation. That is their special service. And devotees who are directly serving and those who are preaching, if they don't have to maintain the overhead of the Deities and mortgage and so on, simply their own maintenance there's no difficulty to collect by simple preaching. But because right now our congregational program is in a very basic level, they have to work to that.

So whatever we do, although certainly having different forms, we should cultivate this desire of serving guru and Kṛṣṇa, serving guru and Gaurāṅga, serving Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa in a selfless mood. We should learn to be a little tolerant, even though our body and mind agitates. We should learn to go above various prejudices and accept arrangements that Kṛṣṇa makes try to engage ourselves in Kṛṣṇa service according to the time and place. You know how these great devotees like Narottama Dāsa Ṭhakura, Śrīnivāsa Ācārya, Śyāmānanda Paṇḍita, they are such great devotees. Śrīnivāsa Ācārya, you heard how one time he found that Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa were having some pastimes. One cowherd girl came to him and said, “Rādhā lost her ring in the water.” Somehow Śrīnivāsa Ācārya dived in the water and underwater he found the ring of Rādhārāṇī and gave it to the gopī. So Rādhārāṇī was so pleased that she gave the betel nut that Kṛṣṇa had given Her, while kissing the night before. She gave that betel nut to Śrīnivāsa Ācārya, which put him in complete spontaneous love of Godhead. Such great devotees had such blessings from Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. So many other pastimes are there. Śyāmānanda paṇḍita got firstly blessed by Rādhā. She put a dot right on his forehead. Actually, Śyāmānanda paṇḍita was known as Duḥkhī Kṛṣṇadāsa. He was sent by Hṛdayānanda to serve under Jīva Gosvāmī as śikṣā-guru. So, when he came back, instead of Duḥkhī Kṛṣṇadāsa as a name, he had the name Śyāmānanda. “What the heck is going on? I send my disciple to go as a śikṣā-guru, he got a new name. Then he has a little dot in the middle of his tilaka. Like what's going on? He gives him a new tilaka, gives him a new name.” He writes a letter to Jīva Gosvāmī with the messenger that, “What have you done to my disciple? Why did he get a new name? Did you reinitiate him with something? Why is he wearing a different kind of tilaka?”

Even you know even in those days there was little misunderstanding (laughing). Actually Śyāmānanda got the name because duḥkhī means unhappy. Why he should be unhappy? He was giving such ecstatic lectures on Kṛṣṇa consciousness that somehow even the deity of Śyāmasundara became favoured over him or something, and this way he became known as Śyāmānanda. It was something which was given by gosvāmīs, given by the Deity. It’s a spontaneous thing. So, they explained all this. “He's not re-initiated. He's your disciple but this thing happened. The Deity somehow blessed him with His name and the six gosvāmīs, they were there and they appreciated his devotional service. Don't take it other way. He never had his name changed at the time of dīkṣā. Actually one should change the name at the time of dīkṣā.”

“All right. That was all right. But what about the tilaka. Why he's having a dot?”

Actually Rādhārāṇī lost something. He did some special service to Rādhārāṇī. Rādhārāṇī was so pleased that She just put a little bindu. Just like touched his head. Actually touched by Rādhārani or touched by one of the gopīs and got this mark. So Jīva Gosvāmī wrote back. Said that, “Listen this was given by special mercy. By Rādhārāṇī’s mercy. If you think it's there by his own wish, you try to rub it out.”

So he rubbed the white thing. It came back. No matter what he did, it’d come back. So these devotees are so favored, they had such an intimate relationship with Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa that you can't imagine. Obviously they were in spiritual body. No one is going to get the blessing of Rādhārāṇī with the irremovable tilaka dots or be given mahā-prasadam from Kṛṣṇa’s own mouth, Rādhārāṇī’s own mouth. They are already having completely spiritual bodies developed. Liberated Souls. They were sent by Govindajī, “Go and distribute these books. Take these book, get them copied, distribute them and then you preach on them and establish their validity amongst all the people of Eastern India.” Including Bangladesh, Manipur and everywhere. It's not that going out and preaching is some service meant for the neophytes and when you become advanced than you sit in some place and just talk. Prabhupāda said this is artificial imitating of Lord Caitanya. Lord Caitanya was God himself, He discussed Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa pastimes. Even the gosvāmīs wrote the pastimes. They're not bhajanānandīs. They're liberated souls. There's they're so advanced that they're practically living in the spiritual world. Still they come from their completely transcendental position to take the time to tell us not to stick our feet out in the temple! What Rūpa Gosvāmī  writes in his Bhakti Rasāmṛta Sindhu, all the sixty-four sevā-aparādhas including sticking your foot out in the temple and so on. Why? He's doing that for his bhajana? No! To uplift us to the spiritual platform. And he also tells us how to do vidhi-mārga, rāgānugā-mārga, how to do devotional service from beginning to end. He's the ninth gopī! He's Rūpa-mañjarī. He's come down from the spiritual world. Naturally he's going to be in Vṛndāvana, he's going to sometime run like a madman calling after Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. He's not a conditioned soul, he's in the spiritual world! He doesn't see the ordinary trees and rocks in Vṛndāvana that the conditioned soul sees. When he sees, it’s the cintāmaṇi-dhāma. Still in spite of being in that transcendental position, he comes down to the level of writing down all the rules and regulations, all the siddhānta - philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Sanātana Gosvāmī writing how one goes from the beginning up to the spiritual world in his Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta, with writing all the rules and regulations in his Hari-bhakti-vilāsa, including how to brush your teeth, so on and so forth. You shouldn't mistake because they're wearing a short dhotī and sometimes running in Vṛndāvana crying ‘Rādhā!’ and ‘Kṛṣṇa!’, that they're only interested in their own bhajana. They only came to expand this mercy to everyone. But actually, they're liberated souls. you can't imitate them. Now there are many imitators. They're not even bhajanānandī. They’re bhojanānandī in most cases. They’re expert, Prabhupāda says, in knowing where to get the free capātīs. Which house will give capātī on which day, they know all that. They haven't developed such spontaneous bhajana. They may be bhajanānandī. But the six gosvāmīs… Jīva Gosvāmī wrote two hundred thousand verses. Two or four hundred thousand verses forget. Twice as much as the Mahābhārata I think! Four hundred thousand verses. Mahābhārata is two hundred thousand. You can call him bhajanānandī? He's only interested in this bhajana, in his own salvation? You know how to write 200,000 or 400,000 verses? They may have stayed in one place. It’s very hard to write and travel. I can see why Prabhupāda would go for two months in Māyāpur and different places and sit and write. It's very hard to travel and write. Unless the whole temple gears itself to just let you give one class a day and let you write. You have to go all the temple programs otherwise they'll say you're in māyā. And then you have to give all the classes and darśanas and deal with all the problems to manage. Where is the time to write?

So anyway, the six gosvāmīs, they stayed in Vṛndāvana for a period of time and they wrote so much literature, that we can't imagine how much literature. Why? Because this was the desire Lord Caitanya. You write this literature down so that the people can know the path how to worship Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, how to go back to the spiritual world. But the immediate followers who went, they'd like to stay in Vṛndāvana. They loved Vṛndāvana. They were crying in separation when they left. The remaining gosvāmīs that were there, Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, they're literally crying to think how we have to leave Vṛndāvana and Govindajī, Gopīnātha, Mādanamohana, all the deities. But they were sent to go out and preach this message. These books have been written. Now go out and distribute them! So Prabhupāda had spent so much time writing his books, we have to now distribute this knowledge to the people. People should know!

One girl yesterday said, “So I got the Bhagavad-gītā.”

“Have you read some of the other books too?”

“I didn't know there were any other books.”

There is about 90 or 100. By the time Ācāryadeva finishes the Bhāgavatam, it'll be like Prabhupāda wanted, practically almost sixty volumes. So we have a great service ahead of us. We shouldn't think that this service is demeaning or this service is less. We should take up the service the way that Narottama dāsa Ṭḥākura, the way that Śrīnivāsa Ācārya took it up, in separation of Vṛndāvana, Māyāpur. Taking it up as a higher service, that let the Lord be satisfied. He wants to see these conditioned souls who are just in quicksand of material sense gratification, every move they're just getting further and further entangled, let's pull them out and give them a real lease on life. Give them a chance to develop their spiritual body. Get above their astral projection. Their astral, physical, psychic plane. Above their gross physical attachment. Let them experience what is real ecstasy. And we want all the devotees, they should strictly follow this vidhi-mārga, follow the rules and regulations, so that they can get purified of contamination and gradually they can develop spontaneously the appreciation of serving Kṛṣṇa. It says here you have to do it for a long time and get completely free from material contamination. Long time means years together in this lifetime. If one does it continuously, by Lord Caitanya’s mercy they can achieve. Not that after three months, six months, one and a half years, “Already I've been doing. Why haven't I yet achieved my spiritual body?” No. It may take years together. We have to get free from the material contamination. Then we can achieve Rādhā & Kṛṣṇa.

Hare Kṛṣṇa. Tathasthaḥ! So be it.

Living vs staying in the dhāma: It is explained by Nityānanda to Jīva Gosvāmī that that those persons who live in the dhāma, and who have their sambandha, anubhāva, or their understanding of their relationship as a servant of the Lord, they're actually really residents of the dhāma. Those who are not in that relationship, who are residents in  the dhāma but they're oblivious to the fact that it's the holy dhāma and they're not in that idea of having any relationship with the Lord of that particular dhāma, then they're living on a thin crust of material energy that covers the dhāma. They're not actually residents of the dhāma. They're superficially there but they're not really in dhāma. Those who are in dhāma are conscious of their relationship as a servant of the Lord, they're the residents of a dhāma and they are visible like that. Even sometimes the resident of a dhāma, even if he does something improper, depending on how their relationship is with the Lord, they may also be in some special situation. This way it says that one shouldn't go and stay in the dhāma more than three days. You stay too long then you start to become familiar with the residents of the dhāma and criticize them. Then you become guilty of offenses. When you're there you can recognize to some extent that some people have got a very deep relationship with the Lord when they're living in dhāma, and others are not at all conscious of what's going on. So, there's a difference. Those who are there with the conscious understanding that, ‘This is the dhāma, this is the Lord, I am His servant’, in that consciousness, they're the real residents of the dhāma. The other people they're physically there, but they don't know. They could be anywhere.

On the beloved Gauḍīya Deities: In the explanation of the Kāma-Gāyatrī, text 138, it mentions that Kṛṣṇa is called Kāmadeva or Mādana-Mohana, the Deity who establishes our relationship with Kṛṣṇa. Mādana-Mohana is the deity who establishes our relationship with Kṛṣṇa. You're in the material world. Establishing our relationship with Kṛṣṇa is first done by Rādhā Mādanamohana. Govinda is Puṣpabāṇa, who carries an arrow made of flowers, is the personality of Godhead who accepts our devotional service. Anaṅga-gopījana-vallabha satisfies all the gopīs and its ultimate goal of life. So Mādana-Mohana is the first form of the Lord who brings us into that spiritual relationship with Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. Then there is Rādhā-Govinda who accepts our service, and then finally the goal of life, all the desires of gopīs, is satisfied by Gopīnātha. Sanātana Gosvāmī established the Rādhā Madanamohana deity in Vṛndāvana. They're also worshipped in Pānihāṭi-dhāma.

Hare Kṛṣṇa!

Verified by your humble ever Servant 

Vinoda Gopīkeśa Dāsa 
09-01-2025
Māyāpur India