20230423 Sunday Feast Address

The following is a Sunday feast class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on April 23rd, 2023 in Dallas, Texas, USA.

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

Hariḥ oṁ tat sat!

Jayapatākā Swami: I am very happy to be here in the temple established by Śrīla Prabhupāda. Gaura-Nitāi, Rādhā-Kālacāndajī, Jagannātha Baladeva Subhadrā Sudarśana cakra. Today is a very special day. Yesterday we had the Akṣaya-tṛtīyā. Some people are observing it today. And it was today that Brahmā created the first tree, and anything you do for Kṛṣṇa stays to your credit forever.

I was thinking, how the first 14, 15 or 16-years Lord Caitanya was known as Nimāi Paṇḍita. And He was the most brilliant scholar. He was the greatest Paṇḍita although He was very young. And He was not particularly devoted. He would argue, he would go up to Gadādhara and ask some questions. And He would ask such a question that even one would not be clear what should be the answer, and then He would give the answer. No matter what the person would say He would always defeat Him. All the devotees wished that Nimāi Paṇḍita would become a devotee. But they tried to avoid Him because He would defeat everybody. Although He was the Supreme Lord, He kept Himself hidden. He was enjoying pursuit of education. One Keśava Kāśmīrī Paṇḍita came and challenged all the paṇḍitas of Navadvīpa to argue with him, otherwise sign a paper that they were defeated by him. I AM THE BEST PAṆḌITA IN THE WORLD! DIG-VIJAYA! Nimāi Paṇḍita was thinking that Keśava Kāśmīrī was too proud, but if He defeated him then people would take his wealth and hurt him and that would be a big disgrace for him. So He was thinking how can I defeat him, and humble him in such a way that he maintains his dignity. So Nimāi Paṇḍita, He had hundreds and thousands of students and He would always give His class by the side of the Ganges. It so happened that Keśava Kāśmīrī, he went to take his bath and worship whatever. He said, “Oh, who are you?” Lord Caitanya said, “I am Nimāi Paṇḍita.” He said, “Oh, I heard about You, You teach grammar to the kids!” He was very proud and dismissed Him. Lord Caitanya said, “Yes, I am teaching. I heard you are a great paṇḍita. Would you be able to compose some verses in praise of the Ganges? I would like to hear 100 of your verses.” So Keśava Kāśmīrī, he started to rattle off verse after verse, glorifying the Ganges. Hour and a half nonstop, 100 verses. After he finished Nimāi’s students were very impressed, wow! How he composed a 100 original verses in Sanskrit just like that boom, boom, boom! Then Nimāi Paṇḍita asked him, “Very nice, you are truly the greatest scholar in the world. Can you tell Me what are the good and bad parts of your composition? Keśava Kāśmīrī said, “Bad part, there is no bad part. What do you mean bad part? I AM THE GREATEST! There are no bad parts,” Keśava Kāśmīrī said. Lord Caitanya said, “No, no, this verse 57” Nimāi Paṇḍita quoted verse 57. Keśava Kāśmīrī remembered all of the verses, because he had just composed them, but Nimāi, as Keśava Kāśmīrī composed, He memorized them! And then of course this is the detail given in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta. But we are doing compiling all the books we could find on Lord Caitanya, and some details are given in other books. Then He told all the good things of verse 57 - allegories, metaphors alaṅkāras, then He told all the bad things. He said, “One thing you said, bhavānī bhartū, bhartū means the husband. Bhavānī means the wife of Lord Śiva. So you are saying the husband of the wife of Śiva. It is contradictory. Does Bhavānī have another husband?” So like this He found out some points and in this way He defeated Keśava Kāśmīrī. Keśava Kāśmīrī, he was speechless! Anyway, Lord Caitanya was praising him and Keśava Kāśmīrī went back and he prayed to Sarasvatī Devī, “Why did you allow me to be defeated by a boy?” And then she appeared to him and said, “You see, He is my husband! I cannot defend you against Him.” So the husband of Sarasvatī is Lord Viṣṇu. And Keśava Kāśmīrī, he went to Lord Caitanya’s house and surrendered to Him. And he realized who He really was. Lord Caitanya, Nimāi, He instructed him that he give up this type of materialistic arguing with people and to make the long story short, Keśava Kāśmīrī became a great ācārya in the Nimbārka Gosvāmī sampradāya.

So like this Nimāi Paṇḍita kept Himself hidden but when His father passed away, He said He wanted to go to Gayā to do piṇḍī for His father. Most Hindus in Northern and Eastern India go to Gayā and do once a life piṇḍī for their deceased father, mother or forefathers. How many of you have been to Gayā? This year, maybe for the fourth time, I went with a group of devotees to Gayā. First time was with Śrīla Prabhupāda. Second time I went there, they showed me a book, they had asked Śrīla Prabhupāda to sign it and I was there. Anyway, Lord Caitanya when He went there He met Īśvara Purī and He asked for initiation. Īśvara Purī was the dear disciple of Mādhavendra Purī. And he had visited their house some times. Then He asked if I can take initiation from you. He said, “You are a great paṇḍita, Nimāi Paṇḍita, how can I give You initiation?” He said, “If you don’t give initiation, then what is the use of My living?” Being threatened like this he gave Him initiation. So then he did the piṇḍī for His father and He started chanting and dancing Harināma in ecstasy. Actually, His first ecstasy was in Gayā in Bihar. There he crossed the Phalgu river and said, “I am going to go to Vṛndāvana, Vṛndāvana Bihārīlālā Śrī Kṛṣṇa kī jaya! But then a voice came from the sky and said that, “Now is not Your time to go to Vṛndāvana. You go have to go back to Navadvīpa and start the saṅkīrtana-yajña.”

Anyway, Lord Caitanya turned back and on the way back He was in Kānāi-Nāṭaśālā. Which is now in Jhārikhaṇḍa. There Lord Caitanya He was sitting down and He saw a cowherd boy playing on His flute in the distance and He looked. The cowherd boy came closer and closer! He was wearing a yellow dhoti, playing on His flute, the cowherd boy was wearing a turban with a peacock feather on His head, He realized it is Kṛṣṇa! He came closer and closer playing on his flute, dancing! Then He came right up to Lord Caitanya and embraced Him! And Lord Caitanya was experiencing ecstatic symptoms, and Lord Kṛṣṇa He ran away! Lord Caitanya ran after Him. Then He went by a tree and disappeared behind the tree. Lord Caitanya was there going around the tree did not see Him and He started rolling on the ground, crying in separation. Somehow by Lord Caitanya’s mercy, this holy place Kānāi-Nāṭaśālā, is under the sevā of ISKCON. The Rāmānandīs were worshiping the Deity there but they were told that if they ever failed to protect the Deity, they should give it over to the greatest ācārya in the Gauḍīya sampradāya. So the Deity was stolen. What greater neglect can there be? The Mahanta, 99 years old, he came down to Māyāpur because he heard A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupāda was the greatest ācārya in the Gauḍīya sampradāya. So he wanted to give Kānāi-Nāṭaśālā to ISKCON. He was sitting outside of my office on the ground, 99 years old. We offered him and asked him, “Do you want prasāda?” And he said, “No I only take fruit.” So we asked him, “What do you want?” I sent the General Manager to talk to him and found out that he wanted to give us the temple in Kānāi-Nāṭaśālā. So anyway, we got that.

Lord Caitanya He came back to Navadvīpa. He was changed, he went as Nimāi Paṇḍita, the great scholar, and He came back as Gaura Hari the great Bhakta. Haribol! And He asked all the devotees to come to Śuklāmbara Brahmacārī’s cottage. He had a cottage by the Ganges river. So, then Lord Caitanya told them, you don’t know what it is like to have achieved Kṛṣṇa, to have gotten Kṛṣṇa and lose Him! He was, it was just unbelievable. He was praising Gadādhara, you are a great devotee from birth, but Me, I was Nimāi Paṇḍita, I was wasting my time. And He was just crying and all the devotees, they were very happy! That Nimāi Paṇḍita had become a devotee.

There are many pastimes of course. And Gaura Hari, He would chant kīrtana, He would be ecstatic, He would roll on the ground. So, Mother Śacī, would be calling for Nimāi to come home and take His dinner. And three neighbors approached her, “Your Son, He has something wrong with His airs, vāyu-doṣā.” One said, “Give Him some green tender coconut, dāb. That will cool the brain down.” Other said, “No, no, he needs daśamūla-taila, He needs oils put on His head. Third one said, “He is really gone, just tie Him up and keep Him at home.” Śacīmātā said, “Nothing is wrong with my Son.”

Lord Caitanya, Gaura Hari, He asked Śrīvāsa Ṭhākura, “Can I ask you a question?” And Śrīvāsa said, “Sure. What is your question?” He said, “You see, I think I have a disease. Whenever I hear anyone chanting the holy name of Kṛṣṇa, My voice chokes up, My hairs stand on end, sometimes I faint and I cannot help but I cry and sometimes I am laughing. So do I have a disease?” Śrīvāsa said, “Yes, You have a disease. I would like that disease also. You have the disease of love of Kṛṣṇa!” Haribol! Haribol! Haribol! “So people will not understand what You are doing, what is happening.” So I will come here with You in the evenings, chant in my garden and will invite selected devotees who would appreciate. so that is how His evening kīrtanas in Śrīvāsa’s Aṅgan, garden, had started.

His Holiness Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami, he would read all these pastimes and it was something very wonderful! But I know you are all waiting to take your Sunday feast. So I will just tell one more pastime. How it seems some of the Hindu brāhmaṇas, they complained to the Chand Kazi that, “This Nimāi Paṇḍita, He is chanting the holy name of Kṛṣṇa out loud. These are meant to be chanted silently in japa, He is chanting out loud. It may lose the power. There is no such thing”, anyway, this was the speculation at that time of the Hindus. The Chand Kazi being a Muslim magistrate, he was a bit amazed, how the Hindus were also complaining about Nimāi Paṇḍita. The Muslims were complaining and everyone was complaining So he went and told the devotees to stop the kīrtana. Then he broke the mṛdaṅgas, and told, “If you don’t stop I will convert all of you to Muslims.” They did not know what to do. They reported to Lord Caitanya. Lord Caitanya said, “NO ONE WILL STOP THE SAṄKĪRTANA MOVEMENT!” And He sent Advaita Gosāñī to one side of Navadvīpa and Śrīvāsa Ṭhākura to another side, then He had Haridāsa Ṭhākura take another group and He went with Nitāi and Gadādhara. The śāstra said, there were millions of people. I mean there were countless people, floods of people. People, they wanted to see Lord Caitanya chanting and dancing. He was in this house of Śrīvāsa. But now He came out and He all the people of city of Navadvīpa came out and His chanting penetrated the entire universe went beyond they could hear it in the spiritual world. Śrī Śrī Gaura-Nitāi kī jaya, Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Kālacāndajī kī jaya, Jagannātha Baladeva Subhadrā kī jaya!

So like we see that Kṛṣṇa had the Kurukṣetra war, that also in Vṛndāvana, He danced with millions of gopīs. And He had 16,000 wives in Dvārakā. So in caitanya-līlā this kīrtana with hundred or thousand maybe millions of people, that was an amazing demonstration. And Indra and Vāyudeva came down from Svargaloka and when they saw the Supreme Personality of Godhead chanting and crying in ecstasy, they fainted, it was just overwhelming! When then became conscious, they took human form and joined the kīrtana. Haribol! Haribol! Haribol! The kīrtana was going on with different groups and there Lord Caitanya’s kīrtana. Śacīmātā told Nitāi and Gadādhara, keep watching Lord Caitanya from crashing to the ground. Because He would become totally oblivious and just faint in ecstasy. There was a group of atheists for instance, they were laughing at all the devotees. But when they saw Lord Caitanya dancing, it was like too much, they themselves became ecstatic! Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! They started rolling on the ground. But this kīrtana according to the Caitanya-bhāgavata or something, it went on like for a day of Brahmā, although the clock stood still, it went on and on and on. And the Apsarās from the heavenly planets, they started raining down small conch shells and flowers. The whole ground was strewn with flower petals. How the situation was I cannot fully explain it! The Chand Kazi, he heard the kīrtana from a distance. “Kī haiche? Is it a Hindu wedding or what?” He told the soldiers and go and tell them to be quiet. So the soldiers went out and saw a multitude of people, they became frightened what could they do? They took off their turbans, tried to hide their beards and they chanted Hare Kṛṣṇa and raised their hands!

After that, what happened is of course is mentioned in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta. Lord Caitanya arrived at the house of the Chand Kazi. And some of the people were saying, kill the Kazi, burn his home! The Kazi came out and said “Your grandfather used to call me chāchā, that means by village relationship You are my Nephew, then why are You coming with an angry mood to Your uncle’s house?”. Then Lord Caitanya said, “Why are you keeping your Nephew, standing in the street?” So this way, he invited Lord Caitanya to come up on the veranda. Lord Caitanya told all the people to sit down. He had a discuss with the Chand Kazi. And they discussed many things. Lord Caitanya asked, “The bull is like your father, he plows the fields, why do you eat your father?” The Chand Kazi said, “Well, you Hindus, you do gomedha.” Lord Caitanya said that, “In the previous ages they would take an old cow, sacrifice it and give it a new life. A new life, a young body. But in Kali-yuga such brāhmaṇas are not available, therefore it is prohibited.” Like this, they were discussing and the Chand Kazi said, “Since I broke your mṛdaṅgas, I had a dream last night. Half man, half lion came and He came on my chest, and He told me “You never stop My chanting of the holy name again. If you do, I will finish you.” He scratched my chest and then the Chand Kazi opened his shirt and showed his chest still had the scratch marks. So like this, finally the Chand Kazi gave instruction that I and my descendants will never prohibit the chanting of the saṅkīrtana. So the whole matter was settled amicably.

I came to Māyāpur in 1970. And I met a descendant of the Chand Kazi. Although he was a Muslim, he was very favorable. So, the Chand Kazi made this idic that his descendants will always support the saṅkīrtana. Like this, Lord Caitanya had so many amazing pastimes!