20181103 Śrī Krishna Caitanya Book

Nama Om…

Mukham karoti vacalam..

Before we continue with the Caitanya Book compilation, I just wanted to mention to all of you, in some places the upcoming Monday and in some places the day before or after, is the holy day of Diwali. I was wondering why on such an important day for Sanatan dharma followers, few people come to the temple. I found that they generally stay home and receive relatives and friends who come visit them and they themselves visit others at their home. So one year we took Prabhupad deity and visited 25 homes in one day. We did the Damodar puja, got the family to offer lamps. Thaey would give us their cookies and sweets and we would give them some prasadam from the temple. So like this we went from house after house after house. From morning to night. 25 houses. The next day was also a holiday for some of the Hindus and so  we went visiting another 25 homes. In two days we covered 50 houses. They were so happy to see the devotees coming and chanting. The visit may be took 5 minutes. In fact one of the devotees had in his home noodles. The devotees had had so many sweets and they were overdosed. Having noodles was a great break for them. So they all sat down and had their lunch. Then we went on to visit more homes. So when you take a deity of Prabhupad or go with a kirtan party, this is a good way to of visiting your congregational devotees’ homes during Diwali. I think it was all arranged in advance by telephone that we were coming. So Diwali could be another great opportunity to perform Damodar puja and cultivate new and old members. So we were discussing Lord Caitanya met with Ishwara Puri maharaj at the holy place of Gaya where Lord Caitanya had gone to perform shraadha or pindi for His deceased father. So He is offering some homage to Ishwara Puri. He says that holy place are not equal to you, because you are purifying even the holy places. Since Lord Caitanya had mentioned that going to all the holy places there is a song by Bhakti Vinod Thakur and people go to Gaya, Mayapur, Puri, Ayodhya, Mathura, Dwaraka but after visiting the holy places their mind is still agitated. They should visit the holy places and find out the saintly people who stay there and hear from them. In this way they can achieve great benedictions. Lord Caitanya went to Gaya and performed the shraadha ceremony for His deceased father. He said that just by the ceremony the father is delivered but by meeting with a pure devotee of the Lord millions of forefathers are delivered. So He was glorifying serving a vaishnava, hearing from a vaishnava.

Oh spiritual master, it is my great good fortune that I am seeing your divine lotus feet. Please tell Me how by the power of bhakti I can dry up the ocean of material existence? So generally people visit holy places to ask for some material benedictions but the real purpose is to find one’s spiritual master and find out how by bhakti yoga how to cross over the ocean of material existence. 

So Lord Caitanya prayed to Ishwara Puri, please give Me devotion to Lord Krishna’s lotus feet. So how will I be able to cross over this ocean of repeated birth and death?

From the ocean of material existence, I pray to you to please deliver Me. I surrender My body to you.

So taking shelter of the lotus feet of the spiritual master is the main entrance to the practice of devotional service to the Lord. The spiritual master (Guru maharaj quoted from the Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu but there was no repletion so not clear)

If someone wants to achieve the ultimate eternal benefit to be free from the material bondage he needs to take shelter of a bona fide spiritual master who is the manifestation of the Supreme Lord. He will be liberated from the ocean of anarthas by surrendering to the spiritual master. 

Unless one takes shelter of a bona fide spiritual master, who is fixed in the Absolute truth, there are two paths the argument afflicted living entities and the Vedic way. The argument afflicted people are basically godless and they are forgetting the spiritual master and taking shelter of the people who have material defects. Tendency to make mistakes, tendency to be illusioned, tendency to cheat and imperfect senses. So there is no scope for them in taking the shelter of the lotus feet of the spiritual master. They are envious of the spiritual master and Krishna. They are guru droha and Krishna droha means killers of the guru and Krishna. So they are determined to merge into the ocean of material sense gratification and they justify this by their argumentative nature and they are unable to take shelter of the Vedic way with a bona fide spiritual master. So He wanted to propagate this great truth and educated people that Jagatguru Sri Caitanya Gaurasunder considered Himself a surrendered soul at the lotus feet  of the guru and thus instructed everyone about sharanagati in the form of full self-surrender and humility.  So those who are using argumentation to try to prove that the spiritual master is insufficient, a spiritual master who is fully surrendered to Krishna and whose all endeavors are meant for the pleasure of Krishna, have no possibility of being delivered. 

Lord Caitanya said to Ishwara Puri, I beg that you make Me drink the nectar of Krishna’s lotus feet. So one is recommended to associate with more advanced devotees or the spiritual master who is more advanced than one’s self and develop their particular kind of affection for the Lord. In this way one can take full shelter of the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord and His representative the spiritual master. Someone sees that the only object of service are the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord In this way those practitioners want love of Godhead. So the Supreme Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu in His pastimes accepted Ishwara Puri as His spiritual master, who is himself the recipient of Madhavendra Puri’s mercy. In this way Lord Caitanya received the mercy of the guru parampara. So Krishna acted as a devotee taking shelter of a spiritual master. So He acted as a disciple and He begged from Ishwara Puri who acted as His spiritual master. These prayers were offered by Lord Caitanya to Ishwara Puri because he had kept his spiritual master, Madhavendra Puri, fixed in his heart.  As a result, He got full non-duplicitous mercy.

Ishwara Puri said listen dear Nimai Pandit. I know without doubt that You are an expansion of the Supreme Lord. Ishwara Puri, he was the Lord’s associate and servant of the mahabhaagavat guru Madhavendra Puri. He was constantly engaged in chanting the holy names of Krishna. So he followed Lord Caitanya’s Shikshashtakam lesson, to offer respect to others without expecting any respect for one’s self. He said to Lord Caitanya that I know you are directly the Supreme Personality of Godhead. All the devas and controllers are simply Your expansion. However, since Lord Caitanya was acting as a devotee He took the role of a disciple. So Lord Caitanya acted as the disciple who received mercy from the disciplic succession of Lord Vishnu. So the jiva is the eternal servant of Krishna, His thathastha shakti and part of the difference and non-difference. The living entity is in the bondage of the material world as long as they accept themselves with some material designation and do not surrender to guru and Krishna.  So in this way due to attachment of the material body and mind one is in material existence.  The Lord is present in everyone’s heart as the Supersoul and the living entity is an infinitesimal soul and the Lord’s fragmental part. The Lord is independently potent, fully cognizant, and the living soul is a minute, liberated spiritual spark. 

Does anyone other than the expansion of the Supreme Lord possess the learning and characteristics that You have?

So we will end here tonight.

So Ishwara Puri is glorifying Lord Caitanya.

Sometimes Lord Caitanya is glorifying Ishwara Puri and sometimes Ishwara Puri is glorifying Lord Caitanya. In the last verse Ishwara Puri is glorifying Lord Caitanya. So in this way pure devotees end up glorifying each other. So I went to the Gaya and saw the place where Lord Caitanya met Ishwara Puri. It is called the Ganjam Matth and half of it was taken over by the mayawadis and half of it was open where Ihwara Puri met Lord Caitanya. At that time the district collected was willing to give us this half to develop but at that time we did not have much support to develop that holy place. Now some lady is donating her house, a Pink Kutir or something and it is not far and it is in a very posh area of Gaya. So there is an opportunity to develop many of the holy placer of Lord Caitanya and His associates. Prabhupad wanted that the Gaura mandala bhumi be revealed tto he devotees from all over the world., So we are compiling a book that will give directions and photos of how to reach these Sripaats. Gauranga Priya maharaj did some big research and wrote a book in Bengali. So we are translating that to English and adding phtos and making it to international standards.  I think it was translated by Bhakta Jana Priya prabhu. Recently they purchased a drone to take aerial shots of these holy places. So there is a lot of service to facilitate the devotees from around the world to visit the  holy place of Lord Caitanya’s associates and Lord Caitanya’s pastimes. So please remember to do your Diwali cultivation and get many people to offer Damodar light.. Get a whole bunch of sweets and give sweets at their house and they will be very happy if you take a sweet from their house, That is what Diwali is, visiting everyone’s house. Haribol!