19950310 Caitanya-caritāmṛta Ādi-līlā.1.38-43 - Caitanya līlā Day 1

The following is the class given by His Holiness JayapatākāSwāmī on March 10th 1995, in Śrīdhāma Māyāpur. The class begins with a reading from the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi-līlā Chapter One, Verses 38 to 43.

bhagavānera bhakta yata śrīvāsa pradhāna
tāṅ’-sabhāra pāda-padme sahasra praṇāma

There are innumerable devotees of the Lord, of whom Śrīvāsa Ṭhākura is the foremost. I offer my respectful obeisance’s thousands of times unto their lotus feet.

Advaita ācārya — prabhura aṁśa-avatāra
tāṅra pāda-padme koṭi praṇati āmāra

Advaita Ācārya is the Lord’s partial incarnation, and therefore I offer my obeisance’s millions of times at His lotus feet.

nityānanda-rāya — prabhura svarūpa-prakāśa
tāṅra pāda-padma vando yāṅra muñi dāsa

ŚrīlaNityānandaRāma is the plenary manifestation of the Lord, and I have been initiated by Him. I therefore offer my respectful obeisance’s unto His lotus feet.

gadādhara-paṇḍitādi — prabhura nija-śakti

tāṅ’-sabāracaraṇe mora sahasra praṇati

I offer my respectful obeisances unto the internal potencies of the Lord, of whom Śrī Gadādhara Prabhu is the foremost.

śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu svayaṁ-bhagavān
tāṅhāra padāravinde ananta praṇāma

Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Mahāprabhu is the Personality of Godhead Himself, and therefore I offer innumerable prostrations at His lotus feet.

sāvaraṇe prabhure kariyā namaskāra
ei chaya teṅho yaiche — kariye vicāra

Having offered obeisance’s unto the Lord and all His associates, I shall now try to explain these six diversities in one.

Purport:

There are many unalloyed devotees of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, all of whom are considered associates surrounding the Lord. Kṛṣṇashould be worshiped with His devotees. The diverse principles are therefore the eternal paraphernalia through which the Absolute Truth can be approached.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghāyate giriṁ
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanyaṁ īśvaraṁ

Jayapatākā Swami: Sometimes it is very difficult to understand, The Lord and all His associates, what is the way that a devotee should fix the mind upon the associates of the Lord. Here Śrīla Prabhupāda explains there are many unalloyed devotees of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, all of whom are considered associates surrounding the Lord. Kṛṣṇa should be worshipped with His devotees. All these associates, they are surrounding the Lord, they are unalloyed devotees, they are serving Him. The Lord should not be worshipped alone, but He should always be worshipped with His devotee.

Śrīla Prabhupāda explain that Kṛṣṇa is always with His devotees. In Vṛndāvana, He is with the cows and the cowherd boys and the cowherd girls and the Mother Yaśoda, Nanda Mahārāja, all the Vrajavāsīs. Because There was never a picture of Kṛṣṇa, without another devotee. Without a devotee of Kṛṣṇa. If Kṛṣṇa alone then Prabhupāda would object. There should always be some devotee, some associate of the Lord at least a cow, a Surabhī or some devotee of the Lord, should not be pictured alone. That is an impersonal form, an impersonalisation of Kṛṣṇa, that God is not to be alone.  Lord Kṛṣṇa is never alone, he is always associating, with so many devotees and association of so many different types of devotees.

How do these devotees help us, or what are we going to consider them as in terms of our own spiritual progress, is given here by Śrīla Prabhupāda. The diverse principles are therefore the eternal paraphernalia through which the Absolute Truth can be approached. The diverse principles meaning these diverse devotees, who are manifesting different spiritual principles, personalizing different qualities, you can say different qualities are specifically manifested to different devotees.

And by all these different devotees, by worshipping them, by understanding them, by their blessing we can get to Kṛṣṇa. They are the means by which the Absolute Truth can be approached. Here we are fallen into the material world, far away from the Absolute Truth. And to approach Absolute truth, we need to go through His paraphernalia, through His devotees. So, then Kṛṣṇa begins with our first link to the transcendental realm.

yadyapi āmāra guru – caitanyera dāsa
tathāpi jāniye āmi tāṅhāra prakāśa

Although I know that my spiritual master is a servitor of Śrī Caitanya, I know Him also as a plenary manifestation of the Lord.

Jayapatākā Swami: Prabhupāda explains in the purport every living entity is essentially the servant of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. And the spiritual master is also His servant. Still the spiritual master is the direct manifestation of the Lord. With this conviction, a disciple can advance in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. The spiritual master is non-different from Kṛṣṇa because he is a manifestation of Kṛṣṇa. Lord Nityānanda was Balarāma Himself, the first direct manifestation of Lord Kṛṣṇa, is the original Spiritual master. He helps Lord Kṛṣṇa in His pastimes, but He is the servant of Lord Sri Kṛṣṇa. Every living entity is eternally a servant of Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya. Therefore, the spiritual master cannot be other than the servant of Lord Caitanya. 

The spiritual master’s eternal occupation is to expand the service of the Lord, by training disciples in the service attitude. The spiritual master never poses as the Supreme Lord Himself, he is considered a representative of the Lord. The revealed scriptures prohibit ones pretending to be God, for the bonafide spiritual master is the most faithful and confidential servant of the Lord, and therefore deserves as much respect as Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja initiating guru was Lord Nityānanda who was directly the plenary expansion of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Although He is the original guru. All spiritual masters are considered external manifestations of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s mercy. And they are also the representatives of Lord Nityānanda, representatives of Lord Kṛṣṇa. So, the disciple sees one’s own spiritual master as the way that Kṛṣṇa is helping us externally. Prabhupāda explains, that Kṛṣṇa is helping us from within as caitya-guru.As the eternal Supersoul, He is giving us guidance and from externally, He is helping us as the spiritual master.

guru kṛṣṇa-rūpa hana śāstrera pramāṇe
guru-rūpe kṛṣṇa kṛpā karena bhakta-gaṇe

According to the deliberate opinion of all revealed scriptures, the spiritual master is nondifferent from Kṛṣṇa. Lord Kṛṣṇa in the form of the spiritual master delivers His devotees.

Purport:

The relationship of a disciple with his spiritual master is as good as his relationship with the Supreme Lord. A spiritual master always represents himself as the humblest servitor of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but the disciple must look upon him as the manifested representation of Godhead.

Jayapatākā Swami: Very subtle philosophy. Many traditions in the world they don’t understand why they consider, why a man should be worshipped? Although they accept sons of Gods, prophets and many other categories of worship able personalities who are connected to the Supreme Lord. But somehow the concept of guru is not well understood around the world. Here Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja very nicely explains how simultaneously the guru is always considering himself the most-humble servitor of the Lord, never considers himself to be the Lord and taking the service of training his disciples in the service attitude. Kṛṣṇa is working through the via media of the guru. And therefore, for the disciple the guru is respected like one respects Kṛṣṇa because he has the quality of Kṛṣṇa, the quality of mercy.

So today we will be discussing also about Advaita Ācārya who was the spiritual master that brought Caitanya Mahāprabhu into the material world by his devotion, by his worship. He was an external, a visible cause because he prayed for Lord Chaitanya to come down, we will touch that this morning also in the class. How Advaita Ācārya worshipped tulasī, worshipped śālagrāma-śilā with mañjari (tulasī flowers) Ganges water and fasting and a lot of crying. Advaita Gosāñī has many followers, just like there were followers of Lord Caitanya and Nityānanda, there were also followers of Advaita Ācārya which are mentioned in the twelfth chapter of the Ādi-līlā of Caitanya-caritāmṛta.

Advaita Ācārya lived 125 years. He was born in what is now the greater district of Śrīhaṭṭa. Now Bangladesh has divided Bangladesh divided their whole district into many sub districts, many new districts have been formed from the old big district. It used to be Śrīhaṭṭa now it’s a new district, but it’s a sub-division of the old. Their Advaita Ācārya appeared in a place which is very close to the Indian border of Meghalaya, on the Saptami day in the month of Māgha, just before the Nityānanda Trayodaśī, is a śukla-saptami. He appeared in the family of Kubera Paṇḍita and his mother’s name was Nala Devī. Although he was born there, then he moved to a place called Navahatta and from there he came to Śāntipura. He also had a residence here in Navadvīpa-dhāma. He appeared in something like 1434, 1443, I forget of the Christian calendar. That means Advaita, Lord Caitanya appeared in 1486, he was already about 50 years old. By the time Lord Caitanya was starting the saṅkīrtana movement he was in his sixties, but he lived till 125 years old. So, he was present even after Lord Caitanya left the world. Lord Caitanya was only in the planet visibly for 48 years.

So Advaita Ācārya, he was doing his worship in Śāntipura and at that time Mādhavendra Purī, he was going from Vṛndāvana for Jagannātha Purī and necessary to South India. Because His Gopāla deity was very hot. He found a Gopāla deity in the forest of Vṛndāvana by the side of Govardhana. And they had a big installation. The Deity was there abandoned for a long time in the forest because of the Moghul rulers. The Mohammeddan rulers in those days used to go and break the deities. So, they hid the deities in the forest. But Mādhavendra Purī discovered that Deity by somehow or the other, wonderful pastime.

And the Deity said, He is feeling very hot, and he wants some sandalwood to cool Him down. Where He was, there was no sandalwood available in that area. So Mādhavendra Purī went down the path of the Yamunā and the Ganges. He didn’t like to travel on the main path because there were all the materialistic people who would ask him for blessings of a materialistic kind because he is a sannyāsī. This happened to me once when I was in Silchar, Assam and one lady offered her obeisances right on the street there, paid her obeisances and started trying to touch my feet, and you know with folded hands, she started crying and she said, “Please have your blessings on me, āśīrvāda dāo, āśīrvāda dāo, want your blessings.”

So, I was curious as to what blessing she wanted rather than give a blank cheque (laughter)! So, I asked her what is the blessing you want? And she was crying and you know very humbly coming and she’s saying you know, “My son has got a tumor in his stomach!” or some kind of stomach ache, I didn’t know so much Bengali in those days, something wrong with his stomach and because of his stomach problem she was very worried about her son’s health. So, she wanted a blessing that her son would recover very quickly from his stomach-ache. So, I redirected her and said that you should go and pray to Kṛṣṇa in the temple there. We were outside the Rādhā-Śyāmsundara temple there, He is the Supreme Lord, my department is just to give bhakti, not stomach cure(laughter)! So, it is quite common for people to come up and ask for blessings to sādhus and sannyāsīs.

But then sometimes there are so many people coming, but none of them really want to get the real jewel that a great devotee like Mādhavendra Purī could give, he can give pure love for Kṛṣṇa. He can give the devotional service to Kṛṣṇa, which is the cure of all problems, even the problem of being here in the material world, the problem of our forgetfulness of Kṛṣṇa and so many problems and all material problems as well. So rather than be disturbed either by people that are coming and asking for so many mundane blessings or seeing people engaged in various mundane activities, he goes off the main path. Also, he did not want to meet any other sannyāsīs because he was the only Vaiṣṇava sannyāsī in practically the whole North India. All the sannyāsīs in those days were Māyāvādī sannyāsī followers of Śaṅkarācārya. And all they would greet each other by saying ‘oṁ namo nārāyaṇāya’, I offer my obeisances to you Oh Nārāyaṇā! And they would be talking all these offensive things that they are God.

Now in the description we heard of a bonafide spiritual master that he considers himself always as the most-humble servitor of the Lord, but rather these Māyāvādīs are considering themselves to be God by their impersonalist philosophy. So, meeting them was also not very pleasing to Mādhavendra Purī. So, he was going down by the side of the Ganges. Sometimes when we want to walk by the side of the Ganges, then devotees say no, no don’t go that way. Materialistic people they use the side of the rivers for things which we don’t want to mention here. They leave their dirty things there on the side of the path so most people don’t walk on that pathway. Of-course, it is sad that people do such things.

 It was so painful to Puṇḍarīka Vidyānidhi, that he wouldn’t go to the Ganges in the daytime, because he couldn’t bear to see people passing their nature’s call on the side of the sacred river. He goes in the night when everybody was asleep when he could just see the Ganges in the moonlight and offer his prayers and not have to see all these offensive activities going on. In fact one of my proposals to the Development Committee that someday here on one side of the Ganges we have like a sterile zone in front of our temple where we have you know public latrines and ghāṭas, at least have a section of the Ganges where in the future, when our city develops none of these activities will be permitted as far as possible to restrict such things.

 Anyways Mādhavendra Purī walking alongside the Ganges, somehow, he walked into the āśrama of Advaita Ācārya who was worshipping his śālagrāma-śilā. His house is right on the side of the Ganges. If you go to Śantipur, if you have been to Śāntipura, how many of you have been to Śāntipura? So, you can see right next to his house there is an inundation, you can see where the old riverbed of the Ganges flow, it comes right up to Advaita Ācārya’s house. In-fact even now in the rainy season the old riverbank still flows with some water although it is not connected. The Ganges has a way of curving back and forth so it makes a big loop, then it makes a big loop like this, the distance like a hairpin curve, the distance between, there is very short distance you know.

The land mass between the Ganges becomes very narrow in some places although something like that. So, what happens is that after some time the Ganges just cuts through, so the river experts, what do they call it, I forget the technical name. They say there is a cut off. So that is what happened over here, it is cut off and now the whole loop going by Māmagāchi and Gaurasthali. Modadruma-dvīpa is now just the old riverbed. But still there it got cut off two-three years ago. Eventually what happens is that it might even dry up, and in the future, they may not be able to go by even river.

We don’t know what the Ganges has in store.  So, what happens is that we find the Ganges is here in places and suddenly it shifts eight miles away, five kilometers away. Because where the Ganges used to flow, now its cut short, then it starts the loop again and again cuts. This is going on since millions of years. So, you will find pathways of the Ganges quite far. Even sometimes we will see that the Ganges of course shifts drastically up to even fourteen kilometres overnight in a very short time. Right now, one engineer saw me when we were in the other side of the river. He said that right now the Ganges is almost trying to bypass the big bridge they have here. If you saw, I noticed from Vṛndāvana that the Ganges is trying to cut its way around the bridge. When it cuts around the bridge the bridge will be standing there but no Ganges underneath! It will become useless. So, they are trying to dig out how to keep the Ganges going out from under the bridge (laughter)!

The Ganges in 1970s when we went, we had to walk almost two kilometers to get to the Ganges, one and half kilometers. Now the Ganges is within 100 meters of the road. So, in this way the Ganges was flowing right by the āśrama of Advaita Gosāñī, but then again, the Ganges shifted and now it is flowing about three-four kilometers away by Ambikā Kālnā.

So Mādhavendra Purī, he walked right into the āśrama of Advaita Gosāñī. And then he was very surprised to see a Vaiṣṇava. Advaita Gosāñī obviously had the signs of a Vaiṣṇava, shaved head, tilaka, kanṭhī-mālā. That’s it this is a Vaiṣṇava. And Advaita Gosāñī was seeing he was a sannyāsī but he is a Vaiṣṇava also with tilaka and kanṭhī-mālā. He was very amazed to see a Vaiṣṇava sannyāsī. It was like unheard of in those days in that part of India. So, immediately Advaita Gosāñī offered his obeisances and invited Mādhavendra Purī to sit down, offered him respect and received him. They started to discuss. They found out each other’s identity and they started to discuss about Kṛṣṇa consciousness and the glories of Lord Kṛṣṇa.

Advaita Gosāñī requested Mādhavendra Purī to please allow us to cook for you some offering of Kṛṣṇa prasādam, which he accepted. Then the wife of Advaita Gosāñī prepared prasādam and offered to the deities and they gave Mādhavendra Purī. Again, they were discussing late into the night. And in this way, Advaita Gosāñī very impressed by Mādhavendra Purī, and inspired by his devotion. Although he only stayed there very short time, Advaita Gosāñī said you are a travelling mendicant, there will be no opportunity to see him again possibly or we don’t know when we will be able to see again. So, one should take the opportunity. So, he begged for initiation from Mādhavendra Purī and he got the formal initiation.

The brāhmaṇas when they reach somewhere between six to fifteen years of age, they are given upanayana from the father, which is the first, there is one mantra, one Vedic mantra, the sāvitrī gāyatrī. When they receive that they can began to read and study Vedas. After that then they will do various types of services. But they need to find still a bonafide spiritual master at which time they are given pañcarātrika mantras. And accepting a spiritual master is a very important phase, essential phase.

So not all the brāhmaṇas have that spiritual master. The family guru, the father, his guru or family tradition, but initiation, a formal initiation and accepting of a guru in that sense is not that exactly in the Madhva sampradāya in South India, the only people who are initiated like that, the ācāryas are like the ācārya who came here Viśeṣa tīrtha Mahārāja of the Pejawar Matha. So, they only initiate maybe one or two disciples who will be the next ācārya in their Matha after them. And all the brāhmaṇas act as disciples, they just respect them, but they are not formally initiated. Some people have traditions like that. Rāmānuja, he initiated many more people, even non-brāhmaṇas and made them brāhmaṇas.

Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s disciplic succession is expanding the family of devotees and initiating is very common. In-fact Nityānanda’s son, sometimes would perform one thousand initiations in one day which is kind of inconceivable. He was Kṣīrodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, so no difficulty for him. Anyhow one son or grandson of the Hussein Shah went on a program of converting Hindus to Muslims by force. But then Vīracandra went on, five hundred people were all converted and he initiated them all as Vaiṣṇavas and made one thousand Muslims as all pure Vaiṣṇavas bringing them to that fold of pure Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So, he was a very dynamic preacher expanding the number of devotees.

So Advaita Gosāñī, he took initiation from Mādhavendra Purī in that holy place and Mādhavendra Purī continued on south. Until he got to, then he of course left the Ganges there and went to Jagannātha Purī. And he went to Remuṇā, there the pastime of Kṣīracorā Gopīnātha where the deity of Gopīnātha stole the condensed milk for Mādhavendra Purī occurred. Mādhavendra Purī was blessed in that way by Gopīnāthaji. When he got to JagannāthaPurī, the king agreed to give him sandalwood to put on his Gopāla deity in Vṛndāvana. Mādhavendra Purī was going back towards Vṛndāvana, he would have to be going back through Bihar, all very difficult places where there are many robbers and dacoits, carrying you know even now someofthe most notorious kings of dacoits in India are the ones in the sandalwood forests in South India. You are laughing for something? Escaping for how many years you know the public can’t catch him. Are they getting him? (laughter) He smuggles out sandalwood blocks which are, how much it costs now per kilo of sandalwood?

Devotee: 10,000 rupees something like that…

Jayapatākā Swami: 10,000 rupees for one kilo of sandalwood. So, you can imagine in those days it was like a priceless commodity. So, there he was taking a whole bullock cart of sandalwood back to Vṛndāvana. It would be very difficult but still he was fearlessly doing his service. When he got to Remuṇā, the Gopīnātha deity gave him an instruction. His Gopāla deity told Mādhavendra Purī that you put the sandalwood on Gopīnātha, He is non-different from Me and I will get cooled down by that. So Mādhavendra Purī, he went there.

So Advaita Gosāñī is very merciful to all the fallen souls. Advaita Gosāñī was seeing the whole world in a very materialistic situation. He studied that the people were not understanding the real purpose of religion. They were not practicing God consciousness but rather they are performing some superficial religious rituals simply for some material purpose. Nobody was actually doing love for God and performing services for the love for God he is not saying. In those days people were doing such religious activities like giving their daughters in marriage very pious activity, to see that one’s daughter has got a good pious husband and is taken care of. But what has happened is apart from the pious deed of marrying the daughter known as kanyā-dāna, it become a social status symbol, how big or luxurious a wedding ceremony you can put on for your daughter. So, it became a competition who can have a bigger feast, bigger festival, bigger arrangement, a bigger band, a fancier tour for the bridegroom and so on and so forth.

So people then who had daughters, if somebody else had a bigger wedding, they get gifted, they wanted to give back. Somebody gave a suggestion, why don’t you marry a deity, a deity of Śiva and Pārvatī, why don’t you marry them? It is an excuse to have another big wedding ceremony. So, they made a clay deity of Śiva and Pārvatī and put on a big wedding ceremony for them. But then somebody else said that this became like ordinary, everybody was doing it. So that someone promised to do something even more royal. And he performed a big Vedic wedding ceremony for a male and female dog (laughter), changing garlands and everything.

Some people do wedding ceremonies for trees, wedding two trees together. So, the whole thing was getting far off, completely off the track. And Advaita Gosāñī was thinking what is all this? They are not the main purpose of religion. In-fact it was simply putting on a show for their own name and fame. They completely lost the track. People were worshipping the devas to get material benefits and they weren’t understanding that Kṛṣṇa is the Supersoul, He is in the heart of all the devas, and only by His blessing will any deva give their benedictions to their devotees. And all their worship is meant for Lord Kṛṣṇa. So, he was seeing people performing so many different austerities and rituals but all just for some mundane purpose. He felt overwhelmed at that whole sight that how will I be able to re-direct all these people to Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa Himself can only give His own bhakti.

So, he went to pray to Kṛṣṇa to come down into this world. Lord Kṛṣṇa comes, He can give His devotion to everyone. So, then Advaita Gosāñī he decided to bring Lord Caitanya down into the world, the most merciful form of Lord Kṛṣṇa.

namo mahā-vadānyāya kṛṣṇa-prema-pradāya te
kṛṣṇāya kṛṣṇa-caitanya-nāmne gaura-tviṣe namo namaḥ

So, we offer our humble obeisance to ŚrīAdvaita Gosāñī by whose mercy Caitanya Gosāñī has come down into this world. By his mercy the conditioned souls get the opportunity to serve Lord Kṛṣṇa by the mercy of Lord Caitanya. Narottama das Ṭhākura prays:

doyā koro sītā-pati advaita gosāi
tava kṛpā-bale pāi caitanya-nitāi

Please have your mercy on me, oh sītā-pati, the husband of the Goddess of fortune, Sītāṭhākurāṇī, Advaita Gosāñī. By your mercy one can get the lotus feet of Śrī Gaura and Nitāi. Nitāi-Gaura-Sītānātha premānande Hari Haribol!

People in Śāntipura, if you say Nitāi-Gaura haribol, someone may run after you with a stick, “Why you want to beat me?” “You didn’t say Sītānātha!”  Nitāi-Gaura-Sītānātha. If you go to Ekacakrā, Nityānanda’s dhāma, you say Gaura-Nitāi, then they get angry sometime. They say Nitāi-gaura, only by the mercy of Nitāi, you get mercy of Gaura. So, the safest thing to say is Nitāi-Gaura-Sītānātha premanande Hariharibol. Nitāi-Gaura-Sītānātha premānande Hari Haribol! Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare Hare Rāma, Hare RāmaRāmaRāma, Hare Hare! Any questions? Hare Kṛṣṇa! OK, prabhu?

Devotee: When you were speaking on Mādhavendra Purī being a Vaiṣṇava sannyāsī, you reminded me of a question that in our sampradāya, there are several different names for different sannyāsīs, Sarasvatī, Bhāratī, Tīrtha, Purī. So Mādhavendra Purī’s spiritual master when we look into the succession is Lakṣmīpati Tīrtha. So, when a sannyāsī of a Tīrtha order initiates someone, that person becomes a Tīrtha. Sarasvatī initiates someone that person becomes a Sarasvatī like that? So how is it that Mādhavendra Purī is a Tīrtha’s disciple but not a Tīrtha?

Jayapatākā Swami: Nobody have asked me that one before (laughter)! Of-course Lord Caitanya was initiated by Keśava Bhāratī, but then He kept the brahmacārī name. So normally the brahmacārī’s under the Bhāratī sannyāsīs are called Caitanya. So, he gave Lord Caitanya the name Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya. So also, in that there was some exception. So sometime there was exceptions. But specifically, I must research it why Mādhavendra Purī gets a Purī and not Tīrtha if there is anyway to find out.

Devotee: Also, that both Nityānanda Prabhu and Advaita Prabhu, they both get initiated by Mādhavendra Purī, and now it’s been said Nityānanda prabhu took initatied by Mādhavendra Purī.

Jayapatākā Swami: There is two versions, some say when he was travelling in South India, he met Lakṣmīpati Tīrtha and he took initiation there. And then there is also a version says that he took initiation at some point of time from Mādhavendra Purī. So, in that case there is a contradictory two statements. Since then, Śrīla Prabhupāda mentions that even in some purport that there is double version. So, whether you accept as the godbrother of Advaita Gosāñī or the godbrother of his guru, in any case he was considered older spiritual uncle in relation to Lord Caitanya. So, he was like an older uncle or older brother of Lord Caitanya.  That one there is admitted dual report coming down, I don’t know if anyone did a detailed study as to which report is most accurate. We generally accept, actually Prabhupāda, he said, he mentioned both. Yes, who is that?

Devotee: [inaudible 37.27]

Jayapatākā Swami: He is a 2ṛhastha gosvāmī. He was controlling all of his senses in the gṛhastha-āśrama. He is known as the Gosāñī and Caitanya-caritāmṛta refers to him like that. Gosāñī or gosvāmī, Gosāñī is a Bengali version of gosvāmī, another way of saying gosvāmī. ‘Go’ means senses and ‘svāmī’ means controller, one who is the controller of the senses is called Gosvāmī. So Advaita was not only fully in control of his sense, he could perform very great devotional service, some austerities. He didn’t get that because, Gosvāmī is one of the names given to sannyāsīs, svāmī, gosvāmī, Purī, Tīrtha, Bhāratī. In ISKCON we just generally use the name Svāmī and Gosvāmī. But in the Gauḍīya Matt they use the 108 Vaiṣṇava names for sannyāsīs. So that’s why someone may have the name, Nārāyaṇa Mahārāja, Tīrtha Mahārāja, Purī Mahārāja Śānta Mahārāja, Parvata Mahārāja and so on, 108, Govinda Mahārāja.

That instead of swami, Śrīdhara Mahārāja, instead of the name svāmī, svāmī is one of the 108 sannyāsi names, but svāmī is also a title for sannyāsīs. Like all sannyāsīs could be called svāmīji or gosvāmījis. But also some swamis, some sannyāsīs, have the sannyāsa name of svāmī or gosvāmī. So, to simplify Prabhupāda has been using these two names. That is why one time someone mentioned, we have our Śrīdhara Svāmī Mahārāja. Śrīdhara Svāmī Mahārāja is our god-brother, minister of, the, no official title, Kṛṣṇa conscious fundraising, and but then there is like Prabhupāda’s god-bother Bhakti Rakṣaka Śrīdhara Mahārāja. His sannyāsa name was Śrīdhara. So it is not that we say Advaita Gosāñī or Advaita Gosvāmī as the sannyāsa name, he is not a sannyāsī, but he is also a very elevated personality, and therefore he could also be given the name Gosvāmī, but not as a sannyāsī, but as an elevated personality.

But Prabhupāda was criticizing that it is really a title, like some people were given the title ‘Ācārya’. Advaita Ācārya was the title given to him by his teacher who recognized his great learning. So sometime when you are very learned in Sanskrit, or learned in the śāstra, then some academy would give you the title ‘Ācārya’, just like people get bachelors or masters and Phd degrees, previously they would get titles like Ācārya or Tīrtha, different titles. So Advaita was as a gṛhastha, he was given the title Ācārya also. Śrīnivās Ācārya was given the title Ācārya by the gosvāmīs in Vṛndāvana.

Śyamānanda was given the title Paṇḍit, so these are different titles that were given affectionately, respectfully by the Vaiṣṇava community. So that way Advaita also was giventhe,he was respected also by the name Gosāñīor gosvāmī. Prabhupāda, he didn’t approve that people took it as a hereditary title, now you have got the gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana and the gosvāmīs of Śantipur, they keep the last name gosvāmī, so and so gosvāmī, hereditary they are handing it down. So, they are not actually gosvāmīs by qualification, they become gosvāmīs by title. So Advaita Gosāñī, he was an Ācārya and he was also a Gosvāmī by qualification, he was not a sannyāsī.

Devotee: Is there Sannyāsa-līlā in the spiritual world?

Jayapatākā Swami: Sannyāsa-līlā in the spiritual world, no need of taking sannyāsa. Sannyāsa is civil death, no birth, no death in the spiritual world. No need of renouncing there, simply you serve Kṛṣṇa. Sannyāsa is for this material world to get purified, it is a purificatory rite. There was no need of Lord Caitanya taking sannyāsa, He didn’t need to get purified. He was already pure. That’s why Lord Nityānanda was upset He had taken sannyāsa, he took His daṇḍa and broke it into three parts and threw it in the river near Purī. So, one was why He should carry a daṇḍa, why He should take up austerities, He is the Supreme Lord. The other was why He should have a single daṇḍa which is Māyāvādī sannyāsī, he should be tridaṇḍi Vaiṣṇava sannyāsī.

But so many Vaiṣṇavas, they were not taking sannyāsa, they were going directly and taking bābājīs and claiming to be paramahaṁsas. Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, he re-established this principle of taking sannyāsa. Because people were cheapening the whole thing. He explained that Vaiṣṇava is a very elevated position, transcendental to the varṇāśrama. So out of humility they are taking the position of sannyāsa which is lower than the transcendental position. It is within the varṇāśrama, within the material sphere. They are doing this for purification. So, he was doing that to establish what is the actual position of the Vaiṣṇava. So, people complained why the Vaiṣṇava is wearing the saffron cloth.

Vaiṣṇava should wear white cloth. In this way many neophyte people who have no spiritual understanding, they would just wear white cloth and claim to be transcendental and then do all kind of nonsense. But if you are sannyāsī, then you have to strictly follow at least the Vedic rules of sattva-guṇa, which the so-called paramahaṁsas were in the tamo-guṇa. They were doing unmentionable things. So, by establishing sannyāsa, at least people in sannyāsa had to act in the mood of goodness. And Śrīla Prabhupāda said if one really is a paramahaṁsa then, that will be revealed by qualification not by some artificial means. You had a question? The last question, then we will close.

Devotee:Actually, what is the difference between svāmī’ and gosvāmī’, both these terms are interchangeable?

Jayapatākā Swami: The sannyāsīs, it is interchangeable. We do see that for some gṛhasthas, they are given the title ‘gosvāmī’. But I haven’t heard that a gṛhastha given the title of ‘svāmī’.

Devotee: [inaudible 45:45]

Jayapatākā Swami: Generally what Prabhupāda did, those who were gṛhasthas and later on they took sannyāsa, he gave them the name ‘gosvāmī’. Those who were always brahmacārī’s and from brahmacārī they took sannyāsa, he gave the name ‘svāmī’. That is the kind of tradition we have seen. Although there may be some exception, by and large that was the system. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, he was for some time a gṛhastha, he was given the name ‘gosvāmī’. In other case they were not married, they were given the name svāmī, Bhakti Caru Swami.

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare!

jaya śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda
śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda!

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Hare Rāma, Hare RāmaRāmaRāma, Hare Hare!