Sankirtan churns feelings of separation and union to increase attraction to Krishna

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu ki Jai.
Hare Krishna Sankirtan is about relishing Krishna’s presence in his absence. The Sankirtan that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu performed is extraordinary not just because it involves exuberantly singing and dancing in order to get spiritual attainment but along with that it also involves a very extraordinary in fact unique meditation in the whole religious revelations that have been revealed by Lord Chaitanya. What is so unique? Actually when Lord Chaitanya is performing his pastimes he is both the Lord and the devotee.
He is the Lord himself but he has come in the mood of a devotee. He is Krishna but he has come with the complexion and the mood of Srimati Radharani and actually he is Krishna but he is not acting as Krishna he is in the mood of the devotee. So he is in intense separation from Krishna.
So Lord Chaitanya is Krishna but he is in the mood of Srimati Radharani and which mood of Srimati Radharani? The mood of Radharani when she is feeling intense separation from Krishna and that intense separation an attempt to relieve it is made through Gopis. So just as the Gopis they danced when Krishna was present with them in the rasa dance and before that in the rasa panchadhyay verses 29-33 in chapter 30 the Gopis become mad because Krishna has left them and they enact the various pastimes in recollecting they enact those pastimes and there also they move sometimes they move rapidly violently not violently in terms of hitting anyone but with very intense emotions they don’t dance at that time but when Krishna comes back in the 32nd chapter they have discussions and 33rd chapter there is dance so in the rasa leela the dance is a celebration of union with Krishna but in gaur leela the dance is a celebration of separation from Krishna the Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his associates are feeling intense separation from Krishna actually it is not only separation because Krishna is non-different from his name abhinnatvam naama naami the padma purana says that the name and the naami the person who is named they are non-different so at one level Lord Chaitanya is experiencing separation from Krishna and because of that he starts dancing in ecstasy and that dance is at one level an expression of the intense devotion at another level it is a call for Krishna Krishna I am dancing for your pleasure please come and Krishna comes as the holy name and Krishna comes as the holy name what happens to Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is extraordinary his body undergoes all these kinds of transformations and those transformations are a small manifestation of the transformations that are happening internally in his heart his heart is going through a stormy panorama of emotions wherein he is experiencing the richness of Krishna prema in all its variety sometimes he experiences intense union with Krishna the next moment Lord Chaitanya and all this gamut of emotions which Chaitanya Mahaprabhu exhibited in Sankirtan he exhibited especially for the whole world to see when he would perform dance in front of Lord Jagannath Rathyadra and whoever came to saw him over there was stunned even Pratap Rudra he heard from Sarun Bhattacharya about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s glory but when he saw Lord Chaitanya dancing his heart was conquered Lord Chaitanya’s dance in Rathyadra and he realized this kind of emotion has never been seen before so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu when he is performing Sankirtan he is performing at an extraordinary level of consciousness now when we perform Sankirtan it is at a maybe a physical or a mental level of consciousness it is maybe an obligation cultural obligation oh because it is Kirtan we are unwittingly knowingly or unknowingly participating in this glorious process which Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has given and the more we participate in it the more we advance the more we become purified till at one time we will come to the level when we will also start relishing glimpses of that oceanic ecstasy that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is relishing so what happens in Sankirtan is initially we are separated from Krishna and whereas Chaitanya Mahaprabhu feels separation from Krishna that is why he dances and sings to feel his union actually we don’t even feel separation from Krishna we feel quite happy over here so we start chanting to start feeling separation from Krishna we do Sankirtan we get some divine experience we feel something special and then we feel I want that more and then that creates a little seed of separation and then as we keep dancing and feeling separation the feelings of union also increase and in this way through dynamic interplay of separation and union our attraction to Krishna increases till we develop pure love for Krishna this is the magical dynamism of Sankirtan separation and union forever churning to increase our attraction to Krishna thank you