20240305 Śrī Caitanya Śikṣāmṛta | First Stream — the beginning

Jayapatākā Swami: […] but the pūjārīs were a bit late, they took bath in the Ganges and had darśana of the Deities, so I could only go at 7.30. So this class was late. But tomorrow class should be okay, earlier. I will say my praṇāmas and then read from His Divine Grace Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s Caitanya-śikṣāmṛta.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram
Harihi oṁ tat sat

Śrī Caitanya-Śikṣāmṛta

The Nectar of the teachings of Śrī Caitanya

Today’s chapter is: First Shower — General description of determining the religion of highest goal.

First Stream — the beginning.

Respectful obeisances unto Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa.

The materialistic rules are the principles —

Unfortunately, those who do not accept the Supreme Lord also make certain rules

for the conduct of life. All those rules can be called principles. A principle which does not have the thought system of the Supreme Lord, that principle, however beautiful in other ways, is not capable of accomplishing the purpose of human life. That principle is completely materialistic principle.

The principle with faith in God is the actual rule —

If faith in God and duty towards God are arranged, then that principle is honored as the rule of human life. Rules are of two types, primary and secondary.

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Jayapatākā Swami: The purpose of human life is to develop love of Kṛṣṇa. So the paṇḍitas make some rules and abide that to Kṛṣṇa but they don’t exactly know what Kṛṣṇa’s thought process is and they speculate. Therefore, it doesn’t actually serve the purpose. It may sound very nice, but it doesn’t fulfill the purpose.

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Primary and secondary rules —

When pleasing the Lord is the only purpose of life, then the rule which directly aims at that purpose is called primary rule. A rule which aims at that purpose with some separation is a secondary rule. An example will make this clear. Taking bath in the morning is a rule. After taking bath in the morning, if the body becomes gentle and disease-free, the mind becomes steady. The Lord can be worshiped when the mind is steady. Herein, the purpose of life, worshiping the Lord is after an interval (not separation-free), since the immediate (separation-free) result of bathing is the softness of the body. If the result of bodily softness and so on is accepted as the ultimate result of that rule, then the ‘purpose of worshiping the Lord’ is no longer achieved. As there are other purposes between the purpose of worshiping the Lord and the rule of bathing, all those other purposes remained in the form of separation. Where there is a separation, there is also a possibility of disruption.

Jayapatākā Swami: This is very interesting. Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “Cleanliness is close to Godliness.” But if people take a bath for some mundane reason, that is not devotional service. It is a secondary rule as Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says. I was telling the gṛhasthas, if they want to have a nice child, don’t pray to the Lord just for a nice child. Pray for a Kṛṣṇa conscious child, for a healthy, long lived, suputra. And train your child to be a nice devotee. So Śrīla Prabhupāda was saying that he wanted his gṛhasthas to have children as ācāryas. Because he said, we need a lot of ācāryas. Only the gṛhasthas can produce children. So that means that the gṛhasthas have to think of Kṛṣṇa and pray to Kṛṣṇa, like Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura did. And he got Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura as a child and Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura was an ācārya. Husband and wife, Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura and his wife, they prayed to Lord Jagannātha, and Lord Jagannātha’s ratha stopped in front of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s house. Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura and his wife offered at the lotus feet of Lord Jagannātha, the baby, and Lord Jagannātha’s garland fell over the baby. So, it is not an accident. It is actually a very purposeful attempt and so in the book by Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī, Sat-kriyā-sāra-dīpikā, he is one of the six Gosvāmīs, he wrote the garbhādāna-saṁskāra. I did not memorize it, I would tell you, being a sannyāsīs did not have a need. But every gṛhastha should know, memorize, be completely committed memorize, every time they have a connection with the husband, they should do the garbhādāna-saṁskāra . But I was also realizing that Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura said if every child we had was a pure devotee, then he would get married and have a hundred children! There is no guarantee, even the devotees, they did not have every child as a devotee. Like Advaita Ācārya, He had six sons, three of them were pure devotees, three of them were smārtas.

Lord Nityānanda, He had seven children, but Abhirāma Ṭhākura, when he bowed down to them, they died because they were not worthy of being Lord Nityānanda’s child. And then Lord Nityānanda had a boy who was Kṣīrodakaśāyī Viṣṇu’s avatāra and his name is Vīracandra. So he tolerated the praṇāma of Abhirāma Ṭhākura. And Lord Nityānanda had a daughter by Vasudhā who was actually the Ganges and she survived the praṇāma of Abhirāma Ṭhākura. But she was not drinking any milk from her mother, and she was fasting. Then Lord Caitanya told Jāhnavā Devī to give her initiation. And then she gave her initiation and then she took milk from her mother.

One thing is, it is not guaranteed that every child will be a pure devotee. But if you pray for a pure devotee, if you do the garbhādāna-saṁskāra then some of the children may be a pure devotee. Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura he had, one ācārya Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda and the brother of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura was Lalitā Prasāda Ṭhākura and Śrīla Prabhupāda went to see him twice, I was with him. Śrīla Prabhupāda considered that since he is the brother of my guru, I have to be very respectful. But when he was alive, he had the possession of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s birthplace. Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted that birthplace to be nicely developed because Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura whose book we are reading because he was a very, very, very, great personality. Haribol!

I was thinking that here Kṛṣṇa, Balarāma, Mahā-Viṣṇu, They had descended into Navadvīpa dhāma, into this world, as devotees! Kṛṣṇa said, “I enjoyed so much in Dvāpara-yuga, I would like the people of Kali-yuga to also enjoy nicely!” His mercy on you Kali-yuga residents is to give you love, give you happiness. And how the Lord, although He has all money, all wealth, all beauty, etc. He comes down as Caitanya Mahāprabhu to show what is the love, what is the happiness that the devotees realize. This is so amazing! Most religions don’t even understand that God is a person. And the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He comes down for different reasons. And how He comes down as a devotee. So why do we want to be anything else, other than a devotee? And we can actually enjoy, we can have all happiness, if we simply involve ourselves as a devotee. Try to do all our activities as devotional service. What do you think? Lord Caitanya established the saṅkīrtana movement. And He made people immediately by His glance, to experience love of Kṛṣṇa. So, Lord Caitanya was the most merciful avatāra. But then He came as a devotee! He met the challenge of Rukmiṇī, “You know everything but one thing, You don’t know how much Your devotees love You!” So, He said, “Alright, in Kali-yuga I will come as My devotee,” He said that three times. He came as Lord Caitanya, Nitāi, Advaita. Actually, some of the kīrtana dancers they were actually viṣṇu-tattvas. Some of the associates of Lord Caitanya, they came from the Vaikuṇṭhaloka, the spiritual world. So we heard in the last few days about separation and Lord Caitanya was feeling separation of Rādhā Kṛṣṇa. We can feel separation from Rādhā Kṛṣṇa, Lord Caitanya. We got both! Actually, somehow Lord Caitanya is saying that if you feel separation that is a more intense form of love. So everyone should try and do everything in devotional service – that is the secret.

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Thank you. Question is when will the class end!

Today and tomorrow are supposed to be the worst days in my astrological chart. Different disciples had chanted ten lakhs of Dhanvantri mantras. These South Indian pūjārīs, they are going to chant two lakhs more and pray to Dhanvantari to heal me, let us see what happens! Hare Kṛṣṇa!

Kṛṣṇa matir astu!

I will tell you later but I am very grateful for all the devotees who are giving books but I was at the LA-RGB, the Latin American RGB, they are saying in some of their countries there are so many gangs, even in ordinary shops they have guards with machine guns because there are so many gangs in the country that you are risking your life. With all these gṛhasthas who are working and saving their money, buying some books of Śrīla Prabhupāda and going out and selling them, they are risking their life. Like that in India we might be selling more books, but I don’t think everybody is risking their lives. I will talk to His Holiness Bhakti Vijaya Bhāgavata Swami if anyone wants to sponsor books for South America, where it is so difficult, there it is very meagre they sell the books at half price or something. They just have to tell Bhakti Vijaya Bhāgavata Swami at these books are for South America. We need books for India but in case anyone has extra possibility they can keep a percentage for South America. People living in Australia, America, Malaysia, Canada, they can send money directly to the Spanish BBT. So I was asking from India we cannot send some money out, they print the book in India maybe we can collect the money and give it to the printer. Anyway, this is the idea I don’t know any more details. I just thought that it is something wonderful that we can help devotees who are risking their lives to distribute Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books! But, in India we are doing amazing! They distributed at the Rāma Mandir 2 lakhs of Bhagavad-gītā and 2 lakhs of other books, one lakh of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Jivani.