20190128 Advaita Ācārya’s Vision of The Lord’s Universal Form (Part 1)

Come join us as His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja reads from the new Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Book on January 28th, 2019 in Chennai, India.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānandaṁ mādhavaṁ śrī caitanya iśvaram

Hariḥ oṁ tat sat!

So today, Monday, the 28th of January, 2019, we had the physical therapy in the morning,with Benny, and voice therapy with Lakshmi Narayan. Then in the evening we went on the cycle, Ekarani was counting, and up to here we had 540 cycles. Then I gave a short darśana to the Malaysian, Kuala Lumpur devotees. Now we are having the class. This is about Advaita Acharya’s vision of the Lord’s Universal Form.

Now this is from the Caitanya Caritamrita, so we will read you Prabhupāda’s Translation:

“Thereafter the Lord delivered love of Krishna to His mother Śacī devi, nullifying Her offence at the feet of Advaita Ācārya. Thus there was meeting with Advaita Ācārya who later had a vision of the Lord’s universal form.”

Jayapatākā Swami: So this is explained now, Advaita refused to forgive Śacī-mātā because He thought, she was the best of the devotees, and He became ecstatic in glorifying Her, and fainted in ecstasy. She took the dust of His lotus feet on the advice of Lord Caitanya, put it on Her head, and in this way She was forgiven. And Lord Caitanya said, now My mother’s offence at the lotus feet of Advaita Ācārya has been rectified and She may have love of Kṛṣṇa without difficulty. So Lord Caitanya made His mother an example of Vaiṣṇava offence. Now we should be very careful not to offend another devotee, not to blaspheme a devotee. All devotees are very dear to Kṛṣṇa; therefore, we should be careful not to offend a devotee. Even the husband and wife, both are devotees, they should also be very careful, not to offend each other. Of course it is not condoned morally to hit one’s wife, but if one does that, being a Vaiṣṇava, not only is he guilty of a sin, but he is also guilty of an offence, because his wife is a Vaiṣṇavī. We saw in Māyāpur, one husband and wife, wife was chasing her husband down the road with an iron pan, a cooking pan. She was from Suriname or somewhere. Anyway that would also be offensive. So this was covered in the last chapter.

Caitanya Bhāgavata, Madhya Kanda

One day Advaita was dancing in the mood of a gopi. And everyone was performing kirtan with great enthusiasm. This is from the 

Lamenting in separation, Advaita mahashay danced. Again and again, with a straw in His teeth, He fell to the ground.

Advaita, He rolled on the ground in the mellow of pure love of Krishna, as devotees in all the four directions were chanting very joyfully.

Six hours passed by and He was still dancing without any stopping. The Lord’s devotees became exhausted, after chanting and dancing, for such a long time.

So they all together, pacified Advaita Acharya. They sat around Him in a circle.

After Advaita Acharya sat down, somewhat pacified, Srivas, Ramai and other devotees, they went to take their bath.

As Advaita prabhu’s separation steadily increased, He rolled around, alone, on the ground of Srivas’s courtyard.

 Vishwambhar prabhu, He was at His own house, engaged in some activities. He understood the lamentation that Advaita Acharya was experiencing.

The ever blissful Lord Gauranga, who relieves the lamentation and suffering of all the devotees, He came to where Advaita prabhu was rolling on the ground.

Seeing Advaita prabhu’s lamentation, He grabbed His hand. He took Advaita Acharya inside the Vishnu temple, and He sat down there with Advaita Acharya. At that time, there was a Vishnu temple in every Hindu’s house, and particularly in every brahmana’s house. And some houses there were also halls like Chandi mandapas in which ritualistic ceremonies were performed. So Lord Vishwambhar took Advaita by the hand and brought Him inside the Vishnu temple, closed the door, and sat down with Advaita.

The Lord smilingly said, listen Acharya, what is Your desire? Tell Me! What do You want to be done?

So Advaita Acharya replied, You are the essence of all the Vedas. I simply want You Prabhu!! What else could I want? What else could I ask for?

Lord Vishwambhar smiled and said, I am here! I am right here! Tell Me, what else do You want from Me?!

Advaita prabhu replied, whatever You said Lord is completely true! Susatya! You are the subject matter of all the Vedas and the Vedanta.

Still, I want to see some of Your transcendental opulences! Lord Gaurahari replied, so what is Your desire? Tell exactly, what You want to Me? ? Advaita replied, Lord, what You previously showed to Arjuna, that, I have a strong desire to see that form You displayed to Arjuna!

As soon as Advaita spoke these words, He saw a chariot, surrounded by armies, engaged in huge warfare, on the battlefield.

He saw on the chariot a handsome, blackish, personality, with four hands, holding conch shell, disc, club and lotus.

In the unlimited Universal Form of the Lord, He saw at that time, moon, sun, oceans, mountains, rivers, and forests.

So we will stop here, and tomorrow we will hear more about the Universal Form.

Question: Why Advaita or Arjuna wanted to see the Universal Form of Kṛṣṇa? Why don’t they ask to see His supremacy form of Kṛṣṇa in Vṛndāvana?

—Rukmini Ramana das

Jayapatākā Swami: Lord Caitanya asked Advaita what He wanted to see and He told Him, I want to see the Universal Form. I want to see Your vaibhava, Your glories. Why He did not ask to see something else, what can I say? The Lord asked Him, what He wanted to see and He said! In the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, the Lord asked Maitreya what He wanted to see? And he said, he wanted to see, how His material energy worked. He did not ask why did you want that? Why not something else? If you want to see Krishna in Vṛndāvana, very good! And I hope that your desire will be fulfilled, but we cannot say why different people ask for different things! They ask what they want! Now when Maitreya asked for this, the Lord smiled. He sees Kṛṣṇa Himself and he asks to understand the material nature! Now, why? What can we say? That is what he wanted to see! The Lord smiled, because he could ask for anything. He could ask to be transferred to Goloka Vṛndāvana, but instead, he wanted to see the material nature. Then the Lord flooded His āśrama and he was drowning, and then he went through all the sufferings. And then, shuk! everything came back to normal. So the Lord showed that by His material energy, He can create this type of illusion. We may ask, so why did Maitreya ask for that? So these type of questions are not reasonable, because everybody is an individual and they ask for whatever they want. You can think if the Lord asks me what I want, I definitely want to serve the Lord. I want to see His beautiful, all attractive form! I want to serve Him, so like that you think if the Lord asks you. I will give you anything you want. If want to be a king, I will make you a king. If you want mystic power, I will give you mystic power! If you want to merge in the Brahma-jyoti, then you can do that! What do you want? What will you ask for? Good question!

We would like to congratulate Ajīta Gopīnātha Dāsa and his better half, Rādhā Rājeśvarī Devi Dāsī, it is their wedding anniversary today. Let us all give them a big Haribol! Haribol!

HG Mahāvarāha Dāsa: We also would like to share a very sad news. One of Guru Mahārāja’s disciples, Lileśvara Gaurāṅga Dāsa, he is from Curitiba, Brazil, 22 years old brahmacārī. In an attempt of robbery by some people outside, this brahmacārī reacted to the attempt of robbery and due to that he was badly injured and admitted to the ICU. And we got the news that he left his body. He was a very good bhakta. He joined ISKCON in 2012 and he was very good, very active and sincere devotee, sincere brahmacārī as well, and due to this untoward incident, unexpected, he left this world. So we want Guru Mahārāja and along with guru maharaj, and with his request, devotees online now, we pray along with Guru Mahārāja we pray for his soul to reach the lotus feet of the Lord. (Mahāvarāha Dāsa prabhu showed a picture of the devotee with Guru Mahārāja on his phone to the audience).

Jayapatākā Swami: Let us all chant Hare Kṛṣṇa for his successful destination to the spiritual world.

śrī kṛṣṇa caitanya prabhu nityānanda
śrī advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādī gaura bhakta vṛnda

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