Why did Lord Chaitanya not initiate Tukaram M in the Hare Krishna mantra?

From: Sagar Gawali

Why did Lord Caitanya not give Hare Krishna mahamantra to Tukaram Maharaj when he himself initiated Santa Tukaram Maharaj? Does the chanting of mantra ‘Ram Krishna Hari’ carries the same potency as that of chanting Hare Krishna mahamantra?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question from Sagar Gowrit Ruhu. Why did Lord Chaitanya not give the Hare Krishna Mahamantra to Karam Maharaj when he himself initiated Santukaram? Does the chanting of Ramakrishna Hare carry the same potency as that of chanting the Hare Krishna Mahamantra? Answer, Lord Chaitanya was very sensitive and attentive to every devotee’s individual mood and he inspired them accordingly.
For example, Murari Gupta, an intimate associate of Lord Chaitanya, was a devotee of Lord Ram. And in an informal way, Lord Chaitanya said that, why don’t you worship Lord Krishna? And when he couldn’t do that, Lord Chaitanya appreciated the single-minded devotion to Lord Ram. Similarly, in South India, when Lord Chaitanya went and saw a devotee of Lord Ram lamenting because of the fact that Sita had been abducted by Ravana, then Lord Ram actually brought back from a distant place a scripture with the passage which described how Sita was not actually kidnapped, it was only a Maya version of Sita, Maya Sita that was kidnapped.
And in this way, he solaced the Ram bhakta. He did not tell the Ram bhakta that you should become a Krishna bhakta. So, there is the sensitivity to individual emotions and the inspiration to continue devotion according to that individual rasa that is exhibited in the pastimes of Lord Chaitanya.
So, taking his example, we should not try to impose Gaudiya Vaishnavism on all branches of Vaishnavism. If somebody is connected with a bona fide Vaishnava sampradaya and is practicing devotion so diligently, then that person should be encouraged to continue on and that person’s devotion to the Lord should be appreciated. So, by performing devotional service to the Supreme Lord in any of his manifestations, be it Vishnu, Ram or Krishna, the person can get liberated and attain eternal existence depending on which form of the Lord one is attracted to, one will go to Vaikuntha or Ayodhya or Goloka Vrindavan.
But from the point of view of our bondage in material existence, that hardly matters. So, if we are attaining eternal life, we are attaining eternal happiness, that is the perfection of our existence and that perfection can be restored even by the Ramakrishna Hari Mantra. So, there is a slight difference in the sense that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, when he taught the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra, he explained that Hare refers to Radharani and so the mood becomes of conjugal mellow, whereas in Ramakrishna Hari, the Hari refers primarily to Lord Krishna only and his name as Hari, to Lord Vishnu or Lord Krishna.
So, in that sense, the call to the divine couple is not there so much in Ramakrishna Hari Mantra as it is there in the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra and of course, the special revelation of the conjugal relationships between Radha and Krishna is a distinctive revelation of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and that comes with the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra. So, in that sense, the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra is especially potent, but that does not mean that we should emphasize this Mantra and other Vaishna Mantras. No, if somebody is connected with a particular authorized tradition and is chanting Ramakrishna Hari, if that person does it diligently, you can attain liberation through that also.
So, just as we see with respect to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu not trying to make a Murali Gupta or a South Indian Ramabhakta into a Krishna Bhakta, we see that Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, according to the individual inspiration and the mood of Tukaram Maharaj, inspired him to worship him in a different way. So, every soul has a Swarupa in the spiritual world and the Lord actually, according to that individual Rasa, inspires that soul. So, the very fact that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, in his pastimes as given in Chaitanya Charitamrta and other places, shows that he encouraged devotees according to their moods.
Similarly, he does the same with Tukaram Maharaj and we shouldn’t actually be asking this question, why he does like this? That would imply that this is the only way and other ways are false. We see the broad-mindedness in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s tradition, in his outreach and his sharing of God Consciousness with people and we also appreciate that God Consciousness, that broad-mindedness. And that same spirit is evident in his initiation of Tukaram Maharaj, where he gave him the Ramakrishna Hari Mantra and through the Ramakrishna Hari Mantra, Tukaram Maharaj spiritualized Maharashtra for centuries and centuries to come.
So, we appreciate the Mantra and we appreciate the mood in which it is chanted and we understand that it is a gift of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, according to the individual Rasa and mood of the particular exalted devotee,