From Sri Mayapur Candrodaya Mandir!
Date: March 8th, 2012, Sri Gaura Purnima
Verse: Caitanya-caritamrta Adi 1.4
Speaker: HH Sivarama Swami
anarpita-carim cirat karunayavatirnah kalau samarpayitum unnatojjvala-rasam sva-bhakti-sriyam harih purata-sundara-dyuti-kadamba-sandipitah sada hrdaya-kandare sphuratu vah saci-nandanah
TRANSLATION: May the Supreme Lord who is known as the son of Srimati Saci-devi be transcendentally situated in the innermost chambers of your heart. Resplendent with the radiance of molten gold, He has appeared in the Age of Kali by His causeless mercy to bestow what no incarnation has ever offered before: the most sublime and radiant mellow of devotional service, the mellow of conjugal love. Adi 1.4
(om ajnana, etc.)
HH Sivarama Swami: Caitanya-caritamrta is based on 14 seed verses which glorify Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Lord Nityananda, Advaita Acarya and the spiritual masters. This is the fourth verse and it constitutes Rupa Goswami's blessings upon Vaisnavas. Later on, Kaviraja Goswami points out that this is the mangalacarana, or auspicious invocation. In a mangalacarana, you have three things, you establish the object of worship, then you offer obeisances, and offer blessings.
This is a blessing describing Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He says, "May the Supreme Personality of Godhead who is known as the son of Srimati Saci-devi be transcendentally situated in the innermost chambers of your heart."
Interestingly enough this is not written by Krsnadas Kaviraja Goswami, but this is a verse written by Rupa Goswami. So he is not giving his blessing, he is giving Rupa Goswami's blessing. When Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu was in Jagannath Puri, at that time Rupa Goswami had come there and was residing there with Haridas Thakur. Lord Caitanya had brought his associates, particularly Ramananda Raya who was a great poet and dramatist. He wanted his associates to test Rupa Goswami's compositions.
Srila Prabhupada also points out he wanted to see their reaction, how they would react to hearing the beauty of Rupa Goswami's writings, which in a transcendental sense would eclipse their own. Would they be in some way envious? Of course they weren't. They all glorified Rupa Goswami's writings.
So there are these two dramas, most famous dramas of Rupa Goswami, the Lalita Madhava and the Vidagdha Madhava. Ramananda Raya began by asking what the nandi-sloka of this drama is. Nandi-sloka is the invocation, similar to these verses, to invoke blessings and good fortune on the hearers. And after that, what is your worshipable Deity, describe the glorification of your worshipable Deity, and then this is the verse that is found in that Vidagdha Madhava.
It is interesting they don't cite reference. Kaviraja Goswami's fourth verse is taken from another text but he doesn't footnote it. Nowadays, you can't get away with that, you have to reference it. It was known amongst the Vaisnavas who these verses were from. At that time the readership in one sense were more educated. Practically most of the verses quoted by the acaryas in their books or commentaries--sometimes Jiva Goswami in the Sandarbhas makes an exception--but generally they just quote the text. They say padme, in the Padma Purana, or in the Skanda Purana, but they don't give the verse number, they don't give the canto, you should know where it was from as a reader. Nowadays we have to be very particular, not only we have to give the verse number but you have to give the edition because who knows if it's bona fide. Things have changed.
Here Kaviraja Goswami is introducing, he is giving Rupa Goswami's blessing. Because amongst all of the Gaudiya Acaryas, Rupa Goswami is our Prabhupada who is giving us
sri-caitanya-mano-'bhistam sthapitam yena bhu-tale
He is establishing the mission of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Part of that of mission is that all of Caitanya Mahaprabhu's followers, as His Holiness Jayapataka Swami Maharaja had pointed out, not only do they take Caitanya Mahaprabhu mission of spreading Krsna consciousness to everyone, and themselves being examples of Krsna consciousness, but they also take Lord Caitanya within their heart.
Srila Prabhupada spoke on this verse here in Mayapur, some time in the end of March, I think in '75, and he said that unless you accept Lord Caitanya within your heart, you cannot understand Krsna, you cannot understand Krsna's pastimes. Krsna is very difficult,
manusyanam sahasresu kascid yatati siddhaye
Without Caitanya Mahaprabhu's mercy, more or less Krsna becomes impossible to understand.
And we see that in India, we see it even among other sampradayas, what to speak of in the West. Scholars dedicate their lives to studying and reading about Krsna and yet they don't understand. They do the same about Caitanya Mahaprabhu, they approach him in a very scholastic way and are not willing to surrender to him in any way whatsoever, it is extremely difficult for them to really surrender at least while they are alive.
I remember in Hungary, when I first went there it was still a communist regime so we would go incognito. Then in 1989 the Berlin wall came down and everything opened up we could travel in devotee clothes and go around and preach as a devotee.
One of the first university programmes I did, I got into an argument with the Indologist. There are not many Indologists in Hungary. She was a lady, and it was a long argument because I was there for three days and every day we would meet and talk. She would take me to her class and I would speak and she would try to correct me and then I would say "No, no, that is not what I meant."
And then we would talk in private and it went like that for fourteen years or so. But we were very nice. She actually supervised giving PhDs to quite a few of our devotees, but she would never openly admit to being too favourable.
Unfortunately she left her body relatively young from Alzheimer's. When she left her body, her husband, who was an Egyptologist, he came and said my wife's will was to give you her library. It was 2500 books. She had books she had received from Basham, she was one of Basham's disciples. That at least was an admission. The university, ELT, which is the prime university of Hungary, she was a professor there and at several other universities, they came and were extremely upset, they were obviously expecting to get the books. But they gave the books to our Bhaktivedanta Theological College. So at least she appreciated, but she waited until. . . she didn't want to be humiliated in front of the academics so she waited until she left her body and willed it. But generally they won't understand.
Kaviraja Goswami also says,
kathancana smrte yasmin duskaram sukaram bhavet (Adi 14.1)
Things that are very, very difficult become very, very easy if you remember Caitanya Mahaprabhu, but if you forget Lord Caitanya then the easiest thing becomes very, very difficult. Of course the most difficult thing is to understand Krsna. Sri-caitanyam namami tam, there is nothing more difficult than Krsna, but even understanding Krsna becomes very easy.
Srila Prabhupada gave us as the example, that we don't have any historical or cultural background for the most part. By we I mean devotees from western backgrounds, but still he says we understand Krsna, you are dedicating your lives to the Krsna consciousness movement. That happens by Caitanya Mahaprabhu's mercy.
Here Kaviraja Goswami writes:
anarpita-carim cirat karunayavatirnah kalau
Arpita, anarpita, not bestowed. He says what Caitanya Mahaprabhu has given has not been bestowed for a long, long time. This is interesting because just prior to Caitanya Mahaprabhu's appearance Lord Krsna is appearing, 4500 years earlier. But even Krsna didn't give. It hadn't been given for a long time, meaning that even though Krsna personally appeared, he bestowed love for himself upon his associates, but for the most part Krsna was not directly accepted or recognized by the people in general. And although he liberated many personalities, on the battle of Kuruksetra all the millions of warriors who were there and able to see Krsna, then Srila Prabhupada points out that they received their original forms when they left their bodies. And they all left their bodies because aside from the Pandavas and a few others, nobody walked off that battlefield alive.
They were able to attain liberation but they were not able to receive what Caitanya Mahaprabhu here is distributing. And what is that, sama-arpayitum, Caitanya Mahaprabhu is giving. Just like we have kirtana and sankirtana, the prefix san means it is complete. So not only was it not given for a long time, but now Cm is giving it completely? What is he giving, unnatojjvala rasa, which Srila Prabhupada translates as the conjugal mellow of his own devotional service.
Later on in the third chapter of this Adi-lila, then Kaviraja describes this verse. He doesn't actually describe the conjugal mellow specifically, but rather he describes vraja-bhakti, or spontaneous devotional service. He points out that particularly in friendship, in parental affection and conjugal love, this is actually what Caitanya Mahaprabhu actually came to give. Lord Krsna showed it, but he didn't give it, or he gave it only to a very few associates. But Caitanya Mahaprabhu came and he distributed, Krsna-prema pradayate, to anyone who was willing to accept his mercy, karuna.
There are different words or terms used for mercy. Sometimes the word daya, or the word krpa, sometimes karuna. Even just hearing the word karuna, it is a more intimate form of mercy. Krpa is more, like often people say please give me your krpa, some stranger will come up to you, "Give me your krpa," it is a more formal thing, something that you give. Karuna is something that is very heartfelt, you give to someone who is very close. This is one of Caitanya Mahaprabhu's unique characteristics, that he considers all, especially Bengalis, there is one verse by Rupa Goswami where he says that Bengalis are actually his family members. . . but Caitanya Mahaprabhu actually considers all conditioned souls on the level of family, not very formal. Sarva-dharman parityajya is a formal declaration. . . rather very heartfelt, so he gives his karuna which is something very, very rare. Something that Krsna doesn't give in other incarnations, he only hits about or hints to in Bhagavad-gita, and this is Caitanya Mahaprabhu's mission. This is his, what Srila Prabhupada says, is external, the external cause of his appearance.
The two subsequent verses talk about the internal cause, the confidential cause. Elsewhere Srila Prabhupada calls it the real cause of Caitanya Mahaprabhu's appearance. So there are these two things, there is what is the internal purpose that Caitanya Mahaprabhu is trying to achieve and is something that he is relishing himself, and the other is what he is giving or bestowing to all others.
This verse is somewhat synonymous with the well-known verse in Srimad Bhagavatam that is quoted throughout all of Srila Prabhupada's books.There Maharaja Nimi is asking who is the incarnation for this age and what is the process of worship. Karabhajana Muni replies:
krsna-varnam tvisakrsnam sangopangastra-parsadam yajnaih sankirtana-prayair yajanti hi su-medhasah (SB 11.5.32)
This is about Caitanya Mahaprabhu and his particular mission, what is he achieving. It describes his transcendental features. Prabhupada calls it the most famous verse about Lord Caitanya. Lord Caitanya is being described as krsnavarnam, this word varna has different meanings. Just like Krsna says catur varnyam maya-srstam, so varna means category.
In the verse that preceded it, it ends "tac-chrnum", Karabhajana Muni talks about the previous ages, he gives the incarnations and mantras by which they are worshipped and also the sacrifice which is appropriate to them. Then he says "Now listen to me." Just like Krsna in Bhagavad-gita also says tac-chrnu,
mayy asakta-manah partha yogam yunjan mad-asrayah (Bg 7.1)
When someone is about to say something very important then he attracts that person's attention by saying, "Listen to what I am going to say." Then he says krsnavarnam, yes, he is the same category as Krsna. Srila Prabhupada also usually translates this word varna as someone who is always saying the word Krsna, that is also krsnavarnam, on one whose tongue the name Krsna is always vibrating. But he is tvisa-akrsnam, means that his complexion is not blackish, the prefix a means not. It is something else, he has a different complexion. What is that complexion? We know his complexion is golden.
When Srila Prabhupada quotes this verse, he always quotes another verse, which I forget. When Nanda Maharaja was having the birth ceremony of Krsna, suklo raktas tatha pitah idanim krsnatam gatah, when Nanda Maharaja was taking Krsna and Balarama for his name-giving ceremony, at that time they were performing it in the goshalla because they were afraid that Kamsa would find out if it was some big public ceremony. So they did it in private and Gargamuni was present. He spoke this verse. He was describing Balarama and then he described Krsna, asavarnam, again this word varna, he says your son has appeared as a white incarnation, red incarnation, yellow and now, idanim, appears in a blackish form.
It is interesting that the chronology there is suklo rakta tatha pita, Satya-yuga is white, then red incarnation and now he is appearing in, . . . ? Srila Prabhupada says sometimes he appears as Lord Ramacandra. Just like whenever Krsna appears, Caitanya Mahaprabhu appears and preceding them Lord Ramacandra appears. Once every 28 millenniums those three incarnations appear.
First he says Lord Caitanya, pita, yellowish or golden complexion. So akrsna is that he is not blackish, he is pita, yellow golden. But now he is appearing in this darkish complexion. . . . In Kali-yuga the yuga-avatara is always blackish, except when Caitanya Mahaprabhu appears. And the change in the chronology was given to emphasise that Krsna is appearing now in this blackish form as he is svayam-bhagavan, but the golden-complexioned one is the same as this blackish-complexioned one.
In Caitanya-mangala, Locana Das Thakur gives this very nice description between Lord Brahma and Narada Muni. Narada Muni asks what is the evidence that Caitanya Mahaprabhu is actually of the same category as Krsna? What is the sastric statement that says that? Lord Brahma said I meditated on this for a long time and I came to the conclusion that this is what Krsna himself says in the Bhagavad-gita:
yada yada hi dharmasya glanir bhavati bharata abhyutthanam adharmasya tadatmanam srjamy aham
paritranaya sadhunam vinasaya ca duskrtam dharma-samsthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge (Bg 4.7-8)
He says, why does Krsna say yuge yuge? Because I appear to do three things, in this age and in the next age, yuge yuge. In this age, and in the next age.
So that is a very nice explanation. This is what Lord Brahma meditates on, these kind of philosophical concepts. So Krsna appears, but after Krsna, in the same category is Krsna-varnam tvisakrsnam.
Kaviraja Goswami gives us this blessing, meditate on Caitanya Mahaprabhu, sada hrdaya kandare, kandara means like a cave. Srila Prabhupada translates like that, in the cavity of the heart. Always keep Lord Caitanya in your heart. This is the blessing that we are receiving, to somehow or other keep Lord Caitanya in our hearts. It's not a very difficult thing because Lord Caitanya is karunaya, he is very merciful, he is very beautiful, sango-pangastra parsadam. These words are described or defined in different ways, different acaryas give various explanations of who are the sanga, who are the upanga, who are the astra, who are the parsada. But generally they all agree that the astra, the weapon, Caitanya Mahaprabhu's weapon is his beauty, his extraordinary beautiful form:
suvarna-varno hemango varangas candanangadi
His suvarna, his bodily hue is very, very beautiful, he has very long arms. You can just imagine, as Srila Prabhupada said as our Panca Tattva, unless something happened over the last 500 years in terms of the size. . . Caitanya Mahaprabhu was seven and a half feet tall and Bengalis are really not known for their height, unless something changed. I know in England, between the First World War and the Second World War, the average height of men was about three inches higher. But in those two world wars so many of the men lost their lives that the average general height decreased. But generally the Bengalis are intellectuals, they just think out the wars and let the Punjabis and others do the fighting.
When we used to come into Calcutta, for many years right outside Dum Dum Airport, there was this big sign: Welcome to the City of Intellectuals. Now they took it down, I don't know if that means anything.
Imagine Caitanya Mahaprabhu, seven and a half feet tall, that's tall by any calculation, but especially in a state where generally people are of a smaller stature. He was very, very beautiful, his shoulders are like that of a lion, nyagrodha-parimandala, his arms are reaching down to his knees, and his features are just so beautiful, his eyes are very long.
I remember when I was in Jaipur ordering the Gaura Nitai Deities for Hungary, and I asked the murti-wallah who was carving the Deities, "You have to make the eyes larger." He said no, this is the size. I said they have to be larger, sastra says the eyes have to be larger. Anyway, he made them larger.
We had experience before when I had them paint Ramacandra green when we were ordering the Sita Rama Deities which were originally supposed to be for Chicago but they ended up in Bhaktivedanta Manor, and I asked him to paint Lord Ramacandra green. He said, no he also black like Krsna. Finally, we were paying the bill, so he had to paint him green. And all the murti-wallahs came and thought it was very entertaining that Lord Ramacandra was green. Prabhupada says he is green like a parrot.
Caitanya Mahaprabhu's beauty is his astra, we have this word in English, disarming. It's a weapon, it just disarms you. So one weapon is that you counteract someone else's weapon, but Caitanya Mahaprabhu's beauty and his kindness and his qualities, his humility, if you just consider. . . .
Lord Caitanya, when he went to Isvara Puri's birthplace, he took dust and for the rest of his life he would every day eat a little bit of that dust. This is Caitanya Mahaprabhu's astra. If we keep Lord Caitanya always within our hearts then Krsna consciousness becomes easy, chanting Hare Krsna becomes very easy, and by Lord Caitanya's grace then we get to back home, back to Godhead.
How long does this class go to? 8:15. Yajnaih sankirtana prayaih, praya means almost. The way to please Caitanya Mahaprabhu is not very difficult. There is this very wonderful letter that Srila Prabhupada wrote. I don't remember to who, but it had to do with worshipping Deities. He says, yes, you can worship Deities, but if you just have a picture of Panca Tattva, he says you can keep it in a drawer, you take it out, you chant Hare Krsna to him and you put him back in the drawer, he says Panca Tattva are so merciful that just do that, then they will save you, they will deliver you. That is enough.
To worship Caitanya Mahaprabhu, to keep him in our heart, and to have him manifest all of the wonderful treasures that he is giving to us requires mostly to chant Hare Krsna. Mostly means hearing Srimad Bhagavatam and Bhagavad-gita. Srila Prabhupada gave very, very short classes. 18 minutes, 20 minutes, 25 minutes, 30 minutes is like a long class. And sometimes when he had his disciples at a certain point he would say, "Ok, now chant Hare Krsna."
Yajnaih sankirtana prayair, and Deity worship. So Deity worship is also there and obviously hearing Srimad-Bhagavatam, but mostly chanting Hare Krsna. And if we chant Hare Krsna, we apply ourselves in japa, we chant together in kirtana, but most importantly that we chant Hare Krsna by taking the holy name out on the streets, chanting it for the benefit of others. Narada Muni says that this has 100 times greater benefit. Harinama-sankirtana has 100 times more benefit than that which benefits ourselves. And the varna, the category of that chanting Hare Krsna, distributing books, distributing prasadam. . . .
Once Srila Prabhupada visited Montreal in 1975. I was distributing books and he was sitting at the airport, and I wanted. . . Srila Prabhupada came in the morning and then he got a telegram that Indira Gandhi was willing to meet him. So he immediately arranged to get on the plane and he was off by the afternoon. He was there for no more than four or five hours. I asked Srila Prabhupada what is more important, book distribution, prasadam distribution or chanting Hare Krsna? And he knew what I wanted him to say, which was book distribution. So he said that they are all equally important. I said I know, but of the three, Srila Prabhupada, which do you prefer? And he said they are all equally important. Prabhupada wouldn't budge.
So yes, distributing prasadam, distributing Krsna's holy name, distributing transcendental knowledge by Srila Prabhupada's books, by speaking about Krsna, by doing that type of sankirtan Lord Caitanya is very easily pleased. And when Lord Caitanya is pleased, then our success in Krsna consciousness is guaranteed.
Then this unnatojjvala rasa, Rupa Goswami uses this word, ujjvala. He gave a further explanation on his Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu in his Ujjvala-nilamani, describing the transcendental exchanges between the gopis and Krsna. He called that the Ujjvala-nilamani, the blazing sapphire. On one hand that refers to Krsna, and also ujjvala refers to, as it describes here, the blazing loving transcendental exchange between Krsna and his associates. Caitanya Mahaprabhu came to give this very rare thing.
Srila Prabhupada would glorify it, quoting this commentary on Srimad-Bhagavatam:
aradhyo bhagavan vrajesa tanayas, tad dhama vrndavanam
That the original mellow, the adi-rasa, is the original parakiya, or conjugal mellow, which is kept very secret due to its confidential nature. Caitanya Mahaprabhu, through the teachings of Caitanya-caritamrta, gave us the opportunity to hear about that and cultivate all of these aspects of spontaneous service, which are the real treasure of Goloka Vrindavan. Sriyam means treasure.
I'll stop here unless anyone would like to add something or ask something. Gokulananda Prabhu? Gokulananda Prabhu is my siksa guru. He pulled me out of the material world, taught me how to distribute Prabhupada's books. I was sitting in a vegetarian restaurant with my wife and he walked in selling BTGs. And I saw him from the other end of the room and I said "Oh, no." And he saw me and he said, "Peter!" Thank you very much. This was in Montreal. (applause)
I was reading Srila Prabhupada's books twelve hours a day, and the day I came in after the morning programme and was doing my reading. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and said what are you doing? I said I'm reading, I read Prabhupada's books quite a bit. He said, well, we've got some news for you. Here we distribute Srila Prabhupada's books, we don't just read them. And then he took me out and showed me how to distribute BTGs, and we got arrested in the afternoon and spent the afternoon in jail. (laughter) I didn't know this is what Krsna consciousness was about. . . .
The question was the reference for Narada Muni saying that sankirtan is 100 times more potent. No, I can't remember the reference, but it's there in one of our sloka books. You have it, Kratu Prabhu? It's there, it may be pancaratra, but it is there, it is not an obscure reference.
Devotee: Thank you, Maharaja, for a very nice glorification of Lord Caitanya. Could you give us a little glimpse into Lord Caitanya's audarya-bhava, his mood of giving Krsna to the whole world which is considered higher than madhurya. Or within madhurya that audarya is present within Radharani's heart and how Lord Caitanya exhibited that.
HH Sivarama Swami: Here this is audarya-dhama. And I think what you are emphasizing, not necessarily that audarya is higher than madhurya, but the fact is that madhurya becomes inaccessible to us without madhurya. So in the conclusion to Prarthana, Narottam Das Thakur says that this path of vraja-bhakti is very slippery and very difficult.
Here it is achievable without effort. Audarya means mercy. The mood of the followers of Caitanya Mahaprabhu is that we worship Lord Caitanya in the mood of servitude, bas. There is no other relationship that Gaudiya Vaisnavas have with Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Even Lord Nityananda declares this, everyone is a servant of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. By serving him, his munifence and kindness is that automatically devotional service becomes manifest, achieved.
So in that sense the audarya is most visible in the fact that something that is very difficult or more or less impossible for people to access in Kali-yuga can, without risk, be easily achieved by serving Caitanya Mahaprabhu. That's why Srila Prabhupada put so much emphasis on serving the Krsna consciousness mission without necessarily making some kind of completely independent effort in cultivating vraja-bhakti. This is because within Lord Caitanya's service automatically vraja-bhakti naturally comes.
That is what is stated right here. He is giving it. Karunayavatirna kalau, this is his audarya, this is his karuna, Lord Caitanya's mercy is if you keep Caitanya Mahaprabhu in your hearts, chant Hare Krsna, serve his mission, then naturally those gifts of pure devotion and the things that Krsna came to show, they will naturally come, naturally manifest.
One last question.
Devotee: Maharaja, earlier in the class you mentioned how the people on the Battlefield of Kuruksetra attained liberation. I was wondering if you could explain, as the vast majority of those didn't understand Krsna's actual position, what was the nature of their liberation and what destination did they attain?
HH Sivarama Swami: Prabhupada states, as well as other commentators, that they achieved their original forms. By dying on the battlefield, by seeing Krsna, what liberated them was the fact that they were actually able to perceive Krsna. They saw Krsna driving Arjuna's chariot and that vision of Partha-sarathi, seeing Krsna at the time of death:
yam yam vapi smaran bhavan
and at the same time dying on the battlefield, meaning that they were then freed of the results of their sinful activities, they were able to attain an original form. What that original form is, that I have not heard elaborated. But I would suggest that is not particularly the same type of benefit that one would achieve by serving Caitanya Mahaprabhu. But still they were actually able to achieve that type of perfection. They saw Krsna as they left this world. Although they may have been all differently situated, many of them antagonists, but everyone appreciated, once again, Krsna's beauty, and Krsna's humility. That Krsna was willing to take the role of a sudra, a chariot driver is a sudra's business, just in order to serve Arjuna. And everyone appreciated that. That appreciation was their faith and from there they were actually able to move forward.
Time for greeting the Deities. Thank you very much. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu ki jai!
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