19990814 Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Ādi 7.31) Class

19990814 – Cc. Adi 7.31 Lecture in Villa Vṛndāvana (part 1)
 [this lecture has Italian side-by-side translation]

♪ ♪ *Gurudeva sings Jaya Rādhā-Mādhava* ♪ ♪

oṁ ajñāna-timirāndhasya
jñānāñjana śalākayā
cakṣur unmīlitaṁ yena
tasmai śrī gurave namaḥ

nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktisiddhānta-sarasvatīti nāmine
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe

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

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

jaya jaya śrī caitanya jaya nityānanda
jayādvaita candra jaya gaura bhaktavṛnda
(3x)

Texts 31-32

tāhā dekhi’ mahāprabhu karena cintana
jagat ḍubāite āmi kariluṅ yatana

keha keha eḍāila, pratijñā ha-ila bhaṅga
tā-sabā ḍubāite pātiba kichu raṅga

(We're reading today Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, the life and pastimes and teachings of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu from Ādi-līlā, Chapter 7)

Translation: Seeing that the Māyavādis and others were fleeing, Lord Caitanya thought, “I want everyone to be immersed in this inundation of love of Godhead, but some of them have escaped. Therefore, I shall devise a trick to drown them also.”

Purport (by Śrīla Prabhupāda): Here is an important point. Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu wanted to invent a way to capture the Māyāvādīs and others who did not take interest in the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. This is the symptom of an ācārya. An ācārya who comes for the service of the Lord cannot be expected to conform to a stereotype, for he must find the ways and means by which Kṛṣṇa consciousness may be spread. Sometimes jealous persons criticize the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement because it engages equally both boys and girls in distributing love of Godhead. Not knowing that boys and girls in countries like Europe and America mix very freely, these fools and rascals criticize the boys and girls in Kṛṣṇa consciousness for intermingling. But these rascals should consider that one cannot suddenly change a community’s social customs. However, since both the boys and the girls are being trained to become preachers, those girls are not ordinary girls but are as good as their brothers who are preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Therefore, to engage both boys and girls in fully transcendental activities is a policy intended to spread the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. These jealous fools who criticize the intermingling of boys and girls will simply have to be satisfied with their own foolishness because they cannot think of how to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness by adopting ways and means that are favorable for this purpose. Their stereotyped methods will never help spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Therefore, what we are doing is perfect by the grace of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, for it is He who proposed to invent a way to capture those who strayed from Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Thus end the Bhagavad Gītā and the Swami’s translation reports to texts 31-32 Caitanya-caritāmṛta Ādi-līlā, Chapter 7, spoken on the Ratha-yātrā day at Villa Vṛndāvana, the 513^th year of Lord Caitanya’s holy appearance, and 1999 of the Christian era, the second millennium, the second half of Lord Brahmā’s life.

Jayapatākā Swami: This is a very important verse actually. Even Prabhupāda said, “Here is an important point.” Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu wanted to invent a way to capture the Māyāvādīs. This shows how the use of creativity and Kṛṣṇa Consciousness and intelligence in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness is authorized for delivering the fallen souls. Actually, Śrīla Prabhupāda said that a Temple President, he should always be making Kṛṣṇa Consciousness a challenge for the devotees in the temple. It should be something enlivening, something which makes people want to achieve new heights of achievement.

Here, Lord Caitanya, He had to come in order to deliver everyone. And in Caitanya-maṅgala, He said He would personally do this for India. And for the rest of the world, He would send his Senāpati Bhakta, his Commander Devotee.

Prabhupāda kī…!

Devotees: Jaya!

So, Śrīla Prabhupāda, he was not a stereotype. He was a trailblazer, someone who MADE the path. He would see the situation and then see how to apply Kṛṣṇa consciousness in that new environment. So this is a very important point. Because every one of us will always encounter some new situation. Have any of you ever encountered any new situation when you were trying to preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness? 

Devotee: Every day.

Every day! So, practically every person you talk to is a new situation. A new kind of māyā. A new problem. A new challenge how to make this person Kṛṣṇa conscious. That's why if somebody is engaged in preaching, then Kṛṣṇa consciousness is exciting. But if one is not engaged in giving this knowledge to others, then it may not be so exciting unless one has the service that he really likes to do. So what we like to do of course is that to get everybody in the preaching more. They should also want to represent Caitanya Mahāprabhu and his pure devotees. Knowing that Lord Caitanya wanted to have everybody delivered, then come up with some means how to do that. Lord Caitanya, he accepted sannyāsa in order to deliver the Māyāvādis.

One of the members of the ‘Shelter’ band said that, “Just as Lord Caitanya took sannyāsa, I have taken music in order to deliver the fallen souls!” And one may do various kinds of strategies how to bring people to Kṛṣṇa. One devotee moved to a town in England, advertised “Bhakti-yoga, Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, Reincarnation, come for the program!” But nobody came. Couldn’t get anybody to come. Because in that village people don't visit people they don't know. They could have come from another planet, it doesn't matter. They don't visit people until they know them. So, then he had to try to do different things to make friendship with people. So, he started to play chess with some people. Just because he sat together for a long time, he could talk, somehow establishing a relationship. Gradually he made some friends. And those friends he convinced about Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. And those friends knew many people, then they brought their friends to Kṛṣṇa. And this way the guru-paraṁparā system was working.

Rādhā Vrajasundara jī kī…!

Devotees: Jaya!

Gaura-Nitāi kī…!

Devotees: Jaya!

Guru Gaurāṅga kī…!

Devotees: Jaya!

So, Bhakti Tīrtha Mahārāja, I heard he is going to come today for preaching in Africa. He was made a chief and a king! He is an African king or something. It is good for preaching. So what’s good in Italy? The devotees actually use their intelligence and try to consider what is the best way to help people to become more spiritually awakened. When you see somebody waking up from their ignorance, there is nothing that gives you more satisfaction - to see somebody free from the cycle of birth and death.

Yesterday when I was on the plane flying here, a businessman was talking with me. And I invited him, “Why don’t you come to India? We were travelling all over.” He said, “No, no. I don't believe that after this life there is anything more. I am enjoying life now. I am just waiting for my death. And when I die it is all over. So, I don't want to go to India. Because if I go to India, then I might find out something different.” (laughter) He did understand. He has good respect for India. I told him, “Look! This is like ostrich philosophy. And, what if there is more to this life? Ostrich puts the head in the sand when he is being chased by the dogs. Woof! ‘Oh, I’m surrounded by dogs, I cannot escape!” *Puts head in the sand* No more dogs. It doesn't see me.’ Then the wild dogs, the dingo dogs, they jumped on it. RAWR! It’s finished!” How did it save him? Simply a moment of peace, of ignorance. You find so many people, they are afraid, “No, no, I don't want to know anything else, then maybe I will change my diet or change my clothing, or change something.” That's why these people, their mentality, they are called foolish, like mūḍha. Mūḍha means ass or a donkey. Because they simply carry some big load on their back, but they don't realize what they are doing. They are just working for some master. And in India, they do the trick, that they tie a stick to the back of a donkey. And they hang a carrot with a string from the front of the stick about ten inches from the face. He will be running after the carrot. Normally they are very lazy, these donkeys. They fill their back with huge loads of laundry or something. And then they put the carrot in front. They go running. Running, running, carrot, carrot. (laughter) Go running. I am almost there, I have almost got it, just there! They walk for kilometers. Finally, at the end of the day, then the owner takes the carrot and gives it to him. “I got the carrot; I am really smart! (laughter) Baah…. (laughter) I am the smartest donkey in the world. (laughter)” Every donkey thinks he is very smart. But they don't realize they are simply being cheated. So, trying to save the donkey is very difficult. But still the devotees, they somehow or other try to save these kinds of people.

That is why for a sannyāsī like me, it is difficult to reach such people, because they put up a big wall.  But you can see, if such a person, when he was invited to a devotee’s home, and is given prasāda, gradually, he gradually learned to like vegetarian food, gradually it can change the mind. So, that’s why the householders, they are also to be preached to. And here we see Prabhupāda said, “The ladies should be preached to.”  What to speak of the men? Some children can also be preached to. In school, sometimes, Kṛṣṇa conscious children, they make presentations about their beliefs, about something to do with Kṛṣṇa. In Alachua, Florida, young children, they play sports, it is natural. So the devotee children, they are part of the football team. And on the team there are both devotee children and non-devotee children. So the school wrote that on this team many are vegetarian. So they wrote to the other parents that, “Please if you send any snacks to the kids, make sure it is only vegetarian snacks.” And when they have the games, you know that the parents are cheering on their members of the team. So, maybe one of the boy's name is Govinda. So, one of the karmī parents, he is also cheering on his whole team side. So he is shouting out, “Govinda! Govinda! Govinda! Make the goal Govinda!” So in this way, they are shouting the Holy Names. And it is an opportunity to make friends with these parents and also bring them closer to Kṛṣṇa. There may be many opportunities like this to bring Kṛṣṇa to people. In your workplace, while doing saṅkīrtana, or shopping, or selling, while walking on the street, so many opportunities may be there. If you are followers of Caitanya Mahāprabhu, you should try to use those opportunities to preach to your family members. There are moments when the family becomes open.

One of my disciples from Argentina went home to Buenos Aires when the father was sick, in a coma, from a stroke. The family is Catholic, and so when she went there, they were all frustrated because their father was unconscious and in a coma. And so one of the family members was chastising the Hare Kṛṣṇa sister, “You always keep chanting this Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa. What are you doing for our father? Now he is in coma. What are you going to do now? If you can do something, show us, otherwise, shut up with all this Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa!”

“Give me some time with my father, let me see if I can help him.” So she spent time, she was chanting by his ear.

♫ Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare…
…Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare ♫

Then she began reading Bhagavad-gītā, the sacred verses of the song of God spoken by Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself.

dehino 'smin yathā dehe
kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir
dhīras tatra na muhyati
(Bg. 2.13)

So she is reading the Bhagavad-gītā in the ear of her father. And the father's expression had been a very, very painful expression before she was chanting and reading. You can imagine a face which is frowning and straining. Horrible type of painful face! When she started chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, it became a pacified face. When she read the Bhagavad-gītā verses, gradually the mouth started to move. It started to raise upwards into a smile. ? Her sister was amazed! “Mummy, mummy, look here! Daddy is smiling.” The wife came and looked, “Oh Maria! (laughter) He's smiling! He has not smiled in ten years! (laughter) He never smiled.” (laughter) Never smiled for ten years, and on hearing the Bhagavad-gītā, suddenly he was smiling. How many people you know never smiled? So many people in this world who are frustrated and sad and don't smile. But if they had Kṛṣṇa in their life, they would smile. You have to exercise new muscles. Someone told me that after coming to Kṛṣṇa, his face muscles were aching because he never smiled so much. (jokes and laughter)

So, after this, the whole family, they all became convinced that if he is smiling, it must mean that his consciousness is happy. His soul is in a good situation. So now the sister also began reading Bhagavad-gītā.

sarva-dharmān parityajya
mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja
ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo
mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ
(Bg 18.66)

Like this, so she got all the family members: mother, sister, brother, everyone to be reading Bhagavad-gītā. As long as they were reading Bhagavad-gītā their father was smiling. When they stopped reading, *makes a sad face* (laughter). Even the nurses said, “This is first time we have seen somebody die with a smile on their face!”

The father passed away, but he passed away in happiness. When someone hears the Bhagavad-gītā and leaves their body, they go back to Kṛṣṇa. There are many confirmations of this. Bhagavad-gītā is very powerful. So, even any one chapter of Bhagavad-gītā is enough to deliver one.

You know the glories of the fifth chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā? This is a bit of a long story. There was a Kṛṣṇa conscious man. He had a son. But the son was not so interested in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. He was more interested in music. He wanted to be a musician. So the parents, they trained the son in music. And the son became a very expert musician, a good singer, a performing artist. So, gradually he became a success as a musician. He became invited to the king's court to perform. In those days, to be a King's Royal performer was like a hit parade. They didn't have the disks, CDs, or all these modern stuffs. So, if you were performing in the King's Court, then you were at the top. So he became recognized as the Royal Musician. Practically, he was like the king amongst the musicians. But he was married man. But he was handsome. When he was singing, the women became attracted to him, and he got some opportunities to associate with other women. And in those opportunities, he sometimes committed adultery against others wives. And the wife figured it out. And the wife became angry with him, which is natural. And then you know, he did what husbands do in those situations. Begged for forgiveness. “I will never do it again. It wasn't my fault; it was an accident. It is difficult as musician.” Then it was happening again and again.

So, then the wife thought, “In order to get my husband, I should do the same thing he is doing. I will also have a boyfriend.”

So initially her idea was to force the husband to come back, to be faithful. But it wasn't a good idea. She had a boyfriend. Then the husband got angry with her. “What are you doing? Why are you going out with another man?”

“Who are you to say? You are going out with other women, so I am going out with another man, what is the problem?”

“You are a woman.”

“So, if I am a woman, it means that you are a man, you can do all the sinful things? You promised not to go out again.”

But something unexpected happened to the wife. She became attached to her boyfriend. And she couldn't stop seeing him. Human emotions are very dangerous. That's why in Vedic cultures certain restrictions about mingling between men and women are there, which Prabhupāda mentioned here in this verse. But in the West, it is a different social custom. So, finally the wife became very angry at her husband, that the husband was trying to interfere with my happiness. And one day after a big fight, when the husband was sleeping, she cut off the head of her husband, cut the body into little pieces and she threw it into the well. And people asked her, “Where is your husband?” 

“He went out for some music and never came back.”

And finally, they declared her a widow because he disappeared and never came back. She was a very fallen lady. When our musician friend died, he was taken by the Yamadūtas, to Yamaloka, to the kingdom of death and judgment. Many Christians believe that there is a final judgment. But according to Vedas, after every birth, when you die, there is an immediate judgment. At the end of the universe, there is a final judgment that who gets back to Godhead and who stays for the next creation. Those who go back to Lord Brahmā, the spiritual world, they get back. But this is a once-a-life judgment. Those who are pious people, they don't need to go to court, they immediately get transferred off to higher existence. Just like everybody driving in order doesn’t have to go to traffic court. Only those who break the traffic laws get caught. So there he was taken to this horrible place, he sees so many of the people in this hellish court, there were so many like different types of entities. Some with the body of lions, but they had the intelligence of human beings. Some were looking like half-men and half-women, horrific, with very thick, very short limbs and very strong muscular bodies. Everybody really was just waiting for the word; where to take him off, how to punish him. So then the judge Yamarāja said, “You were born in a good family. You rose up in your career as a top royal musician. You could not use that for God's service. But instead, you simply used it for sinful activities. So your next birth, you will take as a vulture. The vultures fly high, but they are looking down always simply for the dead cadavers and rotting flesh of the dead. A high flyer, low thinker.” Do you know any people like that in this world? So, in the future there may be many vultures and crows if we don't change their ways. So then he was flying high as a vulture. Meanwhile his widow, she was also doing her sinful activities. But she got some horrible, painful disease. She got piles, hemorrhoids, the intestine coming out through the anus, bleeding hemorrhoids. Can’t sit down, really painful. And finally, she bled to death through the anus for her sinful activities. Then her ātmā was pulled. The Yamadūtas come, and from the dead body they pull out the subtle body and the soul and drag it to the Yamaloka.  Now she was in the docket, she was in the court. Yamarāja, the judge asked, “What did she do, why she is here?” The accountant said, “What she did, she was acting like a pious widow, but she was having so much illicit sex with so many people. She killed her husband.” So after some rehabilitation program, she was assigned to a new birth. Yamarāja said that since you like to present yourselves as some very nice person, but actually inside you are very dirty, so you are very stupid. So, I am going to give you the birth of a beautiful female parrot. You’ll look beautiful but inside you’ll simply have a birdbrain. Now you understand the glories of the fifth chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā? Kṛṣṇaprema, do you understand it? I have not yet told it.

So the parrot was flying over the jungle, much higher than the vulture was flying. He looked down, saw the parrot, he got a flash. “That is my wife in my previous birth! My wife from the previous life, who murdered me in my sleep! Now I am going to get her!”

*swoop* He swooped down, grabbed her, then he said, “I am not just going to kill her, I am going to give her a slow death.” And he started to, just with his talons, he just started to rip her, little bit by little bit, and she was screaming *screaming sounds* and he was like HAHAHA! *evil laughter* It was hard work torturing his wife from the previous life. He became thirsty. He saw an opening in the forest. There were some bones, a human skeleton. There was a skull upside down filled with water, rain water. So, he said, “Oh nectar water!” For a vulture what could be better than water from a skull? He flew down and was sitting on the side of the skull, drinking the water. And the parrot was screaming *screaming noises*. A hunter heard the sound of the parrot. Using his bow and arrow *flying arrow sound* and shot both, right through the parrot and the vulture. They both died. They fell in the water of the skull. The Yamadūtas took the souls back to the court.

[end of audio]