20181128 Śrī Krishna Caitanya Book

Nama Om…

Mukham karoti vaachalam…

So today we are continuing with the compilation of the Sri Krishna Caitanya book and we are now in the second book where the Lord He went to Gaya to perform the rituals for His deceased father. There He saw the actual footprint of Lord Vishnu but He didn’t feel ecstasy. So He wondered why I don’t feel love of Krishna? Then He got initiation from Ishwara Puri maharaj. Then when He went to see the lotus footprint of Lord Vishnu He felt ecstasy and then He started to dance and chant the Hare Krishna maha mantra. So many things happened but eventually he went back to Navadvip. On the way at Kanainaathshaala which is along the Ganges, He had darshan of Krishna. In fact, Krishna came and embraced Him and then He ran off. So since that time Lord Caitanya is feeling great separation. His ecstasy was categorized as maha bhaav, the ecstasy that Radharani and Madhavendra Puri felt for Krishna. So now that He has come back to Navadvip, He first revealed His situation to the vaishnavas, and now He was talking to His students. So we will start from there when He had completed His talks and description of philosophy to the students. So the students they were absorbed and amazed as they heard the Lord’s explanation with undivided attention, eka mone. Prabhu Caitanya He firstly became overwhelmed explaining the Absolute Truth. So both the students and Lord Caitanya were fully focused on what the Lord was speaking. 

Lord Caitanya established the transcendental position of Krishna thru every word He spoke. And He said Krishna is Satya. That the Lord should explain in this way is nothing wonderful because the Lord would naturally explain in this way. Lord Caitanya is Krishna Himself but in the mood of a devotee. So when He talks about Krishna He does so in a very authoritative way. So any teaching manifested from the spiritual world and received by the eternally pure saints of hearing, which is anointed with the ointment of love, is certainly non-different from the Supreme Lord Krishna, the primeval Absolute Truth. So therefore it is not very wonderful that the Supreme Lord Shri Vishwambhar who is devoid of the four defects which the conditioned souls have namely, mistakes, illusion, cheating and imperfection. So He will explain the meaning of each word in the shaastra through the eternal pure complete, eternally liberated spiritual and most important vidwad rudhi. Remember, there are three ways of understanding the Absolute Truth. Vidwad rudhi, saadharan rudhi and aagya rudhi. Vidwad rudhi is based on the shaastras and liberated souls. The saadharan rudhi is something in between. The aagya rudhi is the mistaken, illusory energy’s deception understanding of the Absolute Truth which is wrong and incomplete and bewildering to the living entities. 

So for a moment Lord Vishwambhar He regained His external consciousness and He was embarrassed, so He gave some response. 

How is My explanation of the sutras today? His students they all said, “we have not understood anything”. 

You have explained every word in relationship to Lord Krishna. Who is the proper recipient to understand Your explanations?

Vishwambhar smiled and said “listen you all brothers, tie up your books today and let us go to take bath in the Ganges.”

According to the Lord’s instructions, they tied up their books and went with Lord Vishwambhar to take Ganges bath. 

Lord Vishwambhar, He played and sported in the Ganges waters. It looked like the full moon had arisen from the middle of the ocean. 

So Lord Vishwambhar sported in the waters of the Ganges and was witnessed by the supremely pious residents of Nadia. 

The demigods, Lord Brahma and others, they desired to see that form of the Lord. That Lord in the form of a brahmana, He was playing in the Ganges. 

All the people who were bathing in the Ganges at that particular main ghat, were all looking at the lotus face of Lord Gaurachandra. And they were gazing at His lotus 

face. The ghat is the stairway to reach from the bank to the water and it facilitates the bathers as otherwise where there is no ghat the Ganges earth bank becomes muddy and soft. So these ghats are stairways erected on the bank of the Ganges. So that would facilitate people to enter into the Ganges to bathe. So all those people who were using the ghat, they gazed at lotus face of Lord Caitanya or Vishwambhar as He bathed in the Ganges. 

Remarking to each other all the people said these fine words, “glorious are the mother and father of such a son.”

So the Ganges became more and more jubilant as the Lord’s lotus feet touched her. With extreme delight, she manifested waves. 

The Ganges danced to worship the Lord whose lotus feet are served by the unlimited universes. So in the form of waves the Ganges was dancing as an offering to Him. 

The Ganges was known as the daughter of Jahnu muni, encircled the Lord on all sides and in the form of waves she showered Him with her water while remaining unseen. 

So we will stop here and in this beautiful poetry given in the next verses, Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur says, this reveals the genius of the author, the poetic genius of Vrndavandas Thakur. So this part of the Caitanya book has some verses from the Caitanya Bhagavat. Prabhupad said that eventually to read the books on Lord Caitanya in the original text, people from around the world will learn Bengali language. Certainly the sweetness in Bengali is incomparable. We are trying to give out the English rendition but it is just to make it accessible to people from a wider audience. But the original poetry is in Bengali and is very beautiful. But those who know Bengali can appreciate it. 

Any questions?