Devotion amidst persecution – Lord Chaitanya delivers Chand Kazi part 3

Hare Krishna Welcome back to our last session on the Gaur Leela series we have been discussing on the topic of Devotion Amidst Persecution and in that connection we discussed till now about the socio-political setting in which Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's descent in past times took place and how Chand Kazi tried to stop the Harinam Sankirtan and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu took Horshila Bhakti which Lord Thakur later called as the first civil disobedience movement he took that against Chand Kazi and he went into his passion, into his stronghold and the Kazi tried to flee but when he couldn't he hid in his house and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu knocked on the door and he finally came out and then they were all to have a discussion so we will focus in today's talk there was not so much in the specifics of the discussion as on the principles underlying it so the Kazi first told that actually I didn't persecute you this time because he said that Lord Narasimhadev had come in a vision to him and had warned him so then from that point when he accepted that he was not going to interfere in Sankirtan then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu asked him that you you also drink the milk of a cow and yet after that you kill a cow so when just as a mother offers milk, the cow also offers milk so why do you by killing cows why do you do something equivalent to killing your own mother so the Kazi tried to dodge the question by counter questioning he said but even in your religious rituals also there is the killing of animals including cows there are animal sacrifices where animals are sacrificed so why are you finding fault in our scriptures Chaitanya Mahaprabhu then replied that yes there are these provisions but there are several conditions within it firstly Chaitanya Mahaprabhu reports how that these are not meant to be done in Kali Yuga Ashwamedham Gavalambam Palapaitrukam Sanyasena Kalopancham Viparchaye it is said that five things are forbidden in Kali Yuga so one of them is Ashwamedham Ashwamedham Gavalambam the killing of horses in sacrifice the killing of cows in sacrifice the acceptance of Sanyas the offering of sacrifices to one's ancestors and the continuation of one's progeny through one's in-laws Kalopancham Viparchaye so in the scriptures there are universal principles and there are specific practises so the principle is that people whatever situation they are in their consciousness is meant to be elevated higher towards God and what practises will lead to the elevation of consciousness that will vary according to time, place, circumstance Manu Samhita which Prabhupada often referred to as the law book for humanity, there also it is said that these Dharmashastras, these rules which are given they are not necessarily universal so there is Manu Samhita, there are many other Smritis also Dharma Smritis which give different rules according to time, place, circumstance the principle is that we are all sick in material existence and we need treatment to be cured, but what the form of the treatment will be will depend on the background, will depend on the circumstance will depend on the nature of the infection so we all cannot just if we find a sickness we cannot just go to a medical book, find out what are the symptoms, this is the disease, this is the medicine and take the medicine we need a doctor similarly if we go to scriptures the Vedic scriptures especially are not uniform, they are omniform uniform means there is only one form omniform means there are many many forms, in fact all forms we could say what it means is that the scriptures give different instructions for different levels of people and what may be a useful instruction for people at one level may not be a useful instruction at another level so people who are in Tamoguna for those people they are anyway going to do Tamasic activities, they are anyway going to say eat meat slaughter animals for the purpose of eating meat so Tamasic scriptures create a facility where there is indulgence with regulation so for example if it is said that ok you want to eat meat then you can kill a goat yourself and you have to cut it into 7 parts, give 6 parts of each charity and you have to do this only once a fortnight in a Mavasya and after that you can take one part and while it is being killed one chants a mantra in the ears of the goat essentially the very word Mamsa Mamsa is the Sanskrit word for meat Mamsa, it is actually separated in two parts Mamsaha, I and Saha is he or they or it Mamsa means that I will become that that means now I am killing this goat and I am consuming this flesh but the karmic chain is such that we will get a reaction and the reaction will be that this goat will eventually become a human being and we will become a goat and we will be killed so there is awareness within the mantra itself that there are going to be consequences and then one does it this way so if in a community of people where everybody is eating meat 3 times a day there if somebody eats meat once a fortnight that person becomes a saint in that community you are so renounced, so self controlled what happens by this is that people understand this is something which is higher level so some people are inspired by the scriptures to come to that level and then others aspire to come to that level and they as their consciousness awakens because of following the religious rituals they also rise from Tamoguna towards Rajoguna and eventually towards Satoguna and ultimately towards transcendence so such statements in scripture about animal sacrifice they are concessions they are not recommendations concession means what you want to do what A wants to do and B allows what a patient has diabetes and the doctor says don't eat sugar because I cannot live without sugar so the doctor says ok take one sweet once a week and the doctor also gives medicines and suppose the patient throws away the prescription of the medicines and says the doctor told me to take sweet once a week now that was not the instruction of the doctor that was the concession so in various religious traditions it happens that what people are told they interpret according to their convenience when they interpret that way they make the concession into instruction and they neglect the instruction so that is what had happened with the animal sacrifices and that's why the scriptures predicting this would happen in Kali Yuga said that these are forbidden Jayshree Mahaprabhu said yes they were given the scriptures they were meant to elevate people to a limited degree from lower consciousness to higher consciousness but because they are likely to be misused in Kali Yuga so they are not allowed and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu further said still even when a cow is killed it is not that a young healthy cow is killed it is an old cow who is already given milk and then further the understanding is that when a cow is properly sacrificed in ritual then that cow gets elevated to a higher body in fact any animal that is sacrificed in animal sacrifices that if it is done properly then the soul is elevated to a higher level of existence so in that sense it is actually beneficial for that animal also but it is not done with solely with the craving for eating meat so then the Qazi he asked several questions and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu answered them one by one so Chaitanya Amrit does not go too much into the details of the discussions between Chand Kazi and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu but at the end point as the discussion goes to and fro Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is phenomenally learned and interestingly he quotes not only from the Vedic scriptures he quotes from the Quran also talking about how God has a personal dimension see we usually think of personalists and impersonalists so those who accept God to be a person is a personalist those who accept God as not a person they are impersonalists so now Islam falls somewhere in between the two why is that? we usually associate personality with a form if you are a person you must be having a form so what Islam holds is that God is a person but without a form whatever that means so there are personalists and there are impersonalists so Islam falls in between because there are times when Allah speaks to Muhammad and Muhammad when he talks about Allah Allah spoke this so it's clearly he talks about it as a person but they hold that he is a person but he doesn't have a form or there are in the Quran itself references to Allah's eyes and Allah's mouth and Allah's hands and Allah's legs so they try to explain all this metaphorically but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu quoting the Quran itself explained how God is a person how God has a form and the Qazi gets stunned into silence and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu explains systematically how the essential principle that is given in the Quran that is similar to what is given in the Vedic scriptures but the Vedic scriptures give a far more detailed and deeper revelation and then at the end of it interestingly the Qazi he fell at the feet of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu he surrendered to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and he started chanting the holy names but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and the Qazi discussed and then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu basically the Qazi they decided do not disturb the minds of common people the Qazi knew that if he as a person in such a respectable position if he started openly practising Bhakti it would create a furor in the Muslim community over there basically he decided that he would devote himself to the Lord privately but externally for the sake of social convention he would continue to practise Islam but he assured Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu that never again will your Sankirtan be interrupted sorry this is in the Gaudiya tradition the first example of interaction what we could call as interfaith level so now Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has many different kinds of interactions now his interactions can fall into three broad categories there are conversations there are there are discussions, there are instructions and there are transformations so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had elaborate philosophical instructions are given to Rupa and Sanatana Goswami they fall in chapter 19 to 25 of the Madhya Leela then there is also transformations there primarily we have Sarovar Bhattacharya and Prakash Anand Saraswati these two people they became transformed by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu they were not devotees earlier but they became devotees Rupa and Sanatana they were devotees but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu instructed them how to go forward and third is like a discussion which he has with Ramananda Raya which is in the 8th chapter of the Madhya Leela so in the Chaitanya Mahaprabhu goes into elaborate philosophical discussions primarily in the Madhya Leela whereas this comes in the Adi Leela in the 16th chapter this particular pastime so now there are couple of other interactions also of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu with Muslims one is when he is going on North India and second is when he is just about to go towards Bengal or he goes from Bengal towards Orissa at that time he meets some tall collectors so the tall collector when he sees Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in such ecstasy ecstasy he becomes completely captivated and totally captivated he falls at the feet of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Chaitanya Mahaprabhu profusely blesses him and he says that at that time the tall collector will create a lot of trouble but he assures that no tall collector will create any trouble for him and similarly Chaitanya Mahaprabhu goes to North India at that time also he falls in a ecstatic trance and he becomes unconscious and at that time one Muslim priest with a Muslim prince they are travelling along Bijuli Khan he sees and he says this saint is lying down on this ground and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu his attractiveness was so universal that even this Muslim king he feels I should protect this saint and he immediately catches all the associates of Lord Chaitanya and he says you have given poison to this saint so that you can steal away his wealth the devotees are thinking first they thought that this Muslim they may harm Lord Chaitanya but now they are threatening us he says no no no we are his servants they have not given him poison why is he falling unconscious like this he says no he is in trance he says no you have stolen from him you have given him poison so the devotees don't know what to do about that they are arrested then the devotees are chanting loudly and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu suddenly jumps up and awakens and they say what happened he says oh these people have given him poison he says no no no Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says no they are my associates and then they start having a discussion and then again Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as the discussion moves on he completely transforms his people and they surrender their life and they become Pathan Vaishnavas and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu tells them to share the message of love of Krishna now after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu we see in our tradition the first acharya actually our tradition's history has three broad phases one is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his immediate successor the Goswamis where the foundations were being established and then it went on through Vishwachakra Thakur till Baldevidya Vaushayan and then after that there is Bhaktivinod Thakur whose prominent period comes about 3-4 decades after Baldevidya Vaushayan and at that time the whole socio-political dynamics have changed because as I told in my first class that when Islam was ruling India it was a political ruler but it was never an intellectual competitor to the Vedic tradition but by the time Bhaktivinod Thakur came at that time the western thought system had also come to India and many Indians were being attracted so Bhaktivinod Thakur was the first person in our tradition who brought the tradition in a dialogue with modernity and Bhaktivinod Thakur wrote many important books Chaitanya Shikshamrut is one of his most important books and in that he raises the question of how do we understand that there are so many different religions with so many different faiths so he explains, he gives the example of looking at a mountain and if there is a tall mountain and different people look at the mountain from different perspectives so he says Plato looked at that mountain from the west, from the east and Patanjali looked at the same mountain peak from the east and similarly great thinkers have looked at the absolute truth from different perspectives and based on where they are looking and based on their language, based on their culture they have described the vision of the same absolute truth in different ways so he says that actually a very beautiful statement Bhaktivinod Thakur makes one of the statements he says is that suppose if we happen to go to a place of worship of say some other religion, say if we go to a mosque or a church, what should we do over there so Bhaktivinod Thakur says that when we go over there we should stand there and be there in a mood of reverence he says that here is the same worshipable god whom I am worshipping but he is manifesting in a way that is different from what I am familiar to and seeing how he is attracting people in this manifestation my appreciation for the lord's mercy is increasing and my attraction to the lord in the manifestation that I am familiar that is increasing so if we see some people devoted to god in their own way, we see that god has manifested in a different way to attract these people and it is the same lord whom I am worshipping so we are attracted to the lord in a particular manifestation in the manifestation of Krishna, seeing him manifesting in other manifestations, if we have a fragmented understanding of god, then we think maybe they are worshipping a false god or we may start thinking maybe I am worshipping a false god if we have a fragmented understanding we become insecure but when we have an integrated understanding we understand that the one god manifests in different ways to different people, then our understanding remains holistic so in any of the earlier classes did I talk about polymorphic bi-monotheism? no, ok so in the world's religions, the religions are broadly classified into monotheism and polytheism monotheism means there is one god, polytheism means there are many gods so now the monotheistic religions are primarily Judaism, Christianity, Islam these monotheistic religions say that those who are polytheistic they are so primitive, how can there be many gods god means he is supreme and there has to be only one supreme so they had the experience of polytheism in Greek and Rome before these Abrahamic religions came so they say polytheism is primitive and monotheism is more advanced and they often classify the Hindu tradition as polytheistic but we will see that whatever are the describers for glorifying god that are given in the Bible or the Quran the Bhagavad Gita uses similar describers I am the alpha and the omega of all things it says in the Bible and in Bhagavad Gita Krishna says among alphabets I am A I am the beginning, the middle and the end of everything I am the beginning, the middle and the end of everything so if you look at the way god is glorified the describers glorifying god are remarkably similar and the describers are actually the describers of the same one god that is talked in the Abrahamic religions also but the difference is that whereas there is one god in the Abrahamic religions Vedic tradition tells us yes there is one god but that one god manifests in many forms advaitam achyutam anadhim anantarupam so he has many many forms so the Vedic conception of god actually the categorisation itself monotheism and polytheism it has come from a particular thought system and that categorisation does not apply to the Vedic world view Vedic conception of god but still if you want to explain the Vedic conception of god in that world view the Vedic conception is neither polytheism nor monotheism it is polymorphic monotheism polymorphic morpha means form, polymorphic means one god who manifests in many forms but it is not just polymorphic monotheism there is all over the world there is increasingly assertive feminist movement so these feminists argue that why should god always be male god should be female so in fact there is a whole sect there is a whole church where Jesus is depicted as a female with female bodily parts so now this is actually taking material sexuality and imposing on something higher so now if you see the Vedic tradition the Vedic tradition is inclusive god is not just male god is a divine couple so god is not just Krishna, it is Radha Krishna it is Sita Ram, it is Lakshmi Narayan and just as the mother the child knows the mother the most and the child and the mother are most intimately connected similarly the feminine potency of god is considered more merciful she is the means by which we access god so the Vedic conception of this there is one god but he is a divine couple so he is not just male ultimately god transcends material gender because the gender that we have it is a characteristic of our material body and god does not have a material body but the gender polarity that is there in this world where does it come from? it comes from the gender polarity that is there in the spiritual world and that is god as a divine couple so the Vedic conception of god is not just actually monotheism it is one god but he always manifests in two forms so it is bimonotheism so the Vedic conception is polymorphic bimonotheism and actually it doesn't stop there if you see in the Abrahamic religions they have the conception that there is one true god and anybody else whom we are worshipping they are all false gods so we should worship the true god and we should reject the worship of all the false gods in fact they say that all the false gods not only should their worship be rejected but that worship should be stopped it should be destroyed and that's why in these religious traditions whenever they would conquer any kingdom the first thing they would do is they would go and bash up all the idols that they would think they were idols and their idea is that actually god is beyond representation so any way that god is represented then that is a concoction that is a concoction because god is beyond human representation so when god is beyond human representation any representation is a concoction and people get attached to the representation and instead of worshipping god who is represented by that representation people start worshipping only the representation and in that way the representation of god becomes a competitor to god that is their idea and therefore they say if the true god is to be worshipped his representation has to be destroyed now so there is one true god and there are false gods now the problem with this conception is that first of all who says that god is beyond material representation yes god is not material but they argue that if you depict god through matter then god is unlimited you are limiting him yes we could say that is true but if you say that god cannot be depicted in matter you are also limiting him because there is something that god cannot do to say that he cannot manifest through matter and more importantly when we say that god cannot manifest through matter not only are we limiting god we are also limiting our access to god isn't it? our senses are currently material we can't perceive anything spiritual so god will become utterly unaccessible to us forever however if we say that god cannot manifest at all in matter and further it is not that we represent god in matter because god's descriptions are given in scriptures and based on that we create a representation and invoke god's presence over there so I am not going to go into deity worship over here but suffice it to say that they had the idea that they had one true god and there are false gods so false gods have to be destroyed so that the true god will be worshipped but the Vedic understanding is there is one true god and he also has assistants so the devatas in the Vedic tradition they are not false gods they are true gods and they are for those who cannot worship Krishna within the Vedic tradition there are other objects of worship given and by worshipping them gradually people will get elevated and eventually they will come to Krishna worship so there is one true god but he can be worshipped at various levels people in Tamoguna can be worshipped in some way of course if people are fortunate and they associate with merciful devotees then even people in Tamoguna can start worshipping Krishna and they can become elevated but the point is that god makes himself accessible at various levels it is not that god says you have to worship me otherwise you are going to go to hell forever if you worship me that is the best but if you can't worship me then you do whatever you can and you can have limited elevation so there is multi-level worship of god so the Vedic conception of god is multi-level polymorphic bimonotheism so actually when we are forming a relationship with god there are three things there is an understanding of ourselves, there is an understanding of god and there is an understanding of our relationship with god and in the Vedic tradition all three are given much more clearly than in other traditions the three things are what? if there is any relationship, there is A, there is B and there is a bond of affection between A and B who are we? this itself is in the bible the word soul is frequently used but what the soul is, is not very clear the word soul is often used in a metaphorical sense to refer to our non-material essence if there is something non-material within, that is the soul but that the soul is actually a concrete higher dimensional being that is not talked about so clearly and because of that they have the conception that there will be bodily resurrection bodily resurrection means that when there is final deliverance and judgement those who have been faithful to god they will go back to heaven and they will be there in the same body as they are now so now this actually leads to lot of problems because the conception of heaven is like a perpetual family reunion so you go to heaven and you will have your grandfather and you will have a great grandfather and you will have a grandmother and your grandaunt and everybody will be there so now basically the life that we try to enjoy in this world and we are unable to enjoy that life we will be able to enjoy in heaven now this leads to several problems for example, if we have a grandfather or a grandmother now our vision of them has always been they are always old so are they going to be eternally old in heaven that will not be heavenly for them to be old forever no no, in heaven everyone is young then the grandfather and the grandson both are of the same age how will the relationship go on suppose somebody dies some children die when they are one year old or one month old but they never had a young body so how will the resurrection take place our most complex is what happens, because all the relationships in this world are supposed to go on over there so suppose a man and a woman marry and suppose the woman dies and the man marries again now he has two wives so when they go to heaven will he have two wives there so the whole thing is when we try to eternalise the material it leads to logical incoherence so the relationships we are having in this world they are real, in the sense that we are souls, they are souls and we have a real relationship with others but this is not the eternal relationship the eternal relationship is centred on God so what happens, the conception of the self itself is not very clear so I was once going by train and that time in the train there was a Christian preacher he was talking very aggressively to people so their idea is that anybody who is not surrendering to God and their idea that the only way to surrender to God is through Jesus he says they are going to go to hell and now this is not necessarily the idea of all Christian religions but majority of them and their further idea is that if anybody is teaching the doctrine of a false God there is a special hell reserved for them so of course, so then he started trying to preach to me and then I took Srila Prabhupada's standard argument he says, yes you should follow Jesus then why don't you follow the ten commandments thou shall not kill, why do you kill animals and now this is a question which often stumps them so usually when you don't know the answer, the standard strategy is dodge the question so he said, if you are concerned about life if you are concerned about not killing life then why are you concerned only about the animals why are you not concerned about the infants who are being killed by abortion I said, so you are also opposed to abortion he said, yes of course, it is a living person there, how can you kill the person so I asked him, earlier he had been telling that I had told him the same example which Bhaktivinoda Thakur gives that the same God is seen from different ways he says, no Jesus is the only way then I asked him, see you say that we have to accept Jesus as our saviour thereafter we will go back to Jesus we will go to God but then what happens to the children who are aborted they had no opportunity to accept Jesus as their saviour and if anybody doesn't accept Jesus as their saviour they go to hell, so will they go to hell he said, no no, they are innocent so God will rescue them and they will go to God because they are innocent I said, what is the purpose of life, to go back to God he said, why not abort everyone he said, no how can you do that he said, see if we abort them they will surely go back to God but if we let them take birth, they may not accept Jesus as their saviour then they will go to hell he said, no no, you cannot abort like this he said, yes that is true, we cannot abort, certainly we cannot abort but why, so what happens when there is lack of philosophical clarity there are a lot of logical contradictions that come up so our point here is not to criticise any religion our point is to recognise that there are revelations given of different degrees so Srila Prabhupada would be very simple sometimes people would ask him that now I am talking about Christianity primarily but basically if you see Christianity and Islam in many ways they are similar their conceptions of God are fairly similar their emphasis on who is the path to God, that is different so Christians hold that Jesus is basically in the Abrahamic tradition what happened is Moses was considered to be a prophet and after that it was described, another prophet will come and he will conquer the world so later on when Jesus came, some people accepted that Jesus was a prophet so Christians the followers of Moses are Jews then those Jews who accepted Jesus as a prophet they became Christians, then some of them later when Mohammed came, they accepted Mohammed as a prophet they became Muslims, now this has just been going on first Moses was taught the prophet, then Jesus was taught the prophet then Mohammed was taught the prophet, so Mohammed came and said I am the seal of all prophets there is no more prophets after me that was his idea, so he stopped it so now the conception of God is largely similar just that who they consider the prophet is different so Srila Prabhupada had a simple question he said that if you want to worship God and if you find that there is greater knowledge of God given in a particular tradition why not take that, we are not here to convert you from one religion to another simply you can become more devoted to God to give a simple example, suppose a student is studying computer science say in some university in Australia and that person comes to know that say in MIT in America computer science is more advanced so will that student say that no, I will study computer science only in my college not in any other college if a student starts saying like that, then we will ask them are you interested in college or are you interested in knowledge isn't it, so the question is are we interested in religion or are we interested in God so religion is like a college and that college is meant to give us knowledge and knowledge of God so that's why we see that the trans-sectarian nature of the Bhagavad Gita when it says sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja give up all varieties of religions and surrender to me what this means is, there are some Hindu scholars who just can't digest the idea of giving up dharma how can God tell you to give up dharma so in some versions of the Bhagavad Gita, they have changed the Bhagavad Gita and they say sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja give up all dharma and surrender to me their idea is that they think we have to give up dharma yes, Krishna says we have to give up dharma, that is definitely true but when Krishna says dharma, he says our religion should not come in the way of our going to God so when Krishna says sarva-dharman parityajya, he doesn't mean that you have to accept adharma what he means is, give up all those dharmas that stop you from doing mam ekam saranam vraja the purpose of dharma is to surrender to God so if any dharma stops you from surrendering to God, then give that up and those forms of dharma that help us to surrender to God, definitely we accept so Arjuna did not become adharmic, Arjuna did his kshatriya dharma he was adharmic, but the principle is God is not equal to religion God is the purpose of religion and God is greater than all the religions that are devoted to Him so when God is equated with religion, not just equated with religion when God is restricted to religion then that leads to sectarianism and conflicts so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, coming specifically actually what I discussed till now was a broad difference between the Abrahamic and the Vedic conceptions of God now within this broad Vedic conceptions of God Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's speciality I said there are three things in the process of bhakti there is the understanding of the soul there is the understanding of God and there is the understanding of the relationship that's what is required for loving God loving God is talked about in all religions so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's speciality is called as Mahavadanyayavatar now why is that? within the Vedic tradition the knowledge of Atma was already given and the knowledge of Bhagwan Krishna that is also given in the Vedic scriptures Chaitanya Mahaprabhu describes it or Chaitanya Mahaprabhu explains the glory of Krishna in much sweeter ways how Krishna is all attractive that is described in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition in a very sweet way but more importantly Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's special mercy is in the connection between the two so the soul is here, God is there and God is at the spiritual level of reality soul is at material level of reality so what is the process by which the soul can be elevated from the material level to the spiritual level that process Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has made most accessible and relishable so the process of yoga was always there but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu made it universally accessible accessible means before Chaitanya Mahaprabhu there were many bhakti saints and there was the broad Vedic path but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu very strongly emphasised that anybody from any background can chant the holy names and can become elevated with chanting of the holy names not only elevated but a person can become perfected sthana sthana na dekhi na dekhi patra patra Chaitanya Mahaprabhu would not see what is the right place Chaitanya Mahaprabhu would not see what qualification a person has what qualification a person doesn't have just gave his mercy to everyone and this Chaitanya Mahaprabhu especially demonstrated when he went on his tours when he went to South India, when he would go on a South India tour he would go to a village and he would be performing kirtans and in his ecstasy of kirtans he would just go and embrace someone and that person whom he would embrace that person would become sarcha with spiritual energy and they would start dancing in ecstasy and they would go and touch someone and they would start dancing in ecstasy and like that it was a current of bhakti that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu spread to everyone and hundreds and thousands of people would be dancing and singing in ecstasy and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in this way made the process of bhakti accessible he went around and just told everyone chant the holy names so there is a story in Chaitanya Chaitanya Mahaprabhu where there was a kurma brahmana this brahmana he when he saw Chaitanya Mahaprabhu ecstatically dancing he was very attracted to him and invited him please come to my house for prasad and he served him and his whole family served Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and after that when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had taken prasad he went to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said that I am afflicted by the continuous waves of misery in materialistic life therefore I wish to renounce materialistic life and please make me your assistant let me travel with you Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said never speak like this he says the potency of bhakti is universal and wherever you are you stay there and chant the holy names sometimes there is this conflict between grahasthas and brahmacharis and brahmachari may say the renouncer order may say that the renouncer order is better the householder order is better and sometimes when this conflict comes up the focus goes on grahastha or brahmachari but what is lost is that both are ashrams so both are means where the ashram of the lord is to be taken and we keep that focus in mind and different people will take ashram in different ways if you focus too much on this is grahastha this is brahmachari that is actually the grahastha and brahmachari the varanas are basically attainments of society according to various material circumstances but the soul is the same and the soul can always take shelter of Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself was a sanyasi and he had great sanyasis who were the Goswamis but then he had equally great grahastha devotees so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's usual instruction to people is wherever you are situated be situated there but focus on hearing about Krishna and by hearing about Krishna you will become attracted to Krishna so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu told the Brahmins there is no need for you to renounce the world stay where you are, chant Krishna's name and hear Krishna's glories by that you will become elevated, by that you will become liberated so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu made the process of bhakti accessible accessible means he went travelled, instructed, inspired electrified people with bhakti and not only accessible, he made the process of bhakti relishable relishable means what? that the holy name is always Krishna the holy name is nondifferent from Krishna at the same time this nondifference is not always perceivable to everyone that perceivability of the nondifference that varies depending on the person's consciousness so when we chant the holy names we may think of the holy name as an ordinary sound vibration so what Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did was he invested the holy name with the potency of his mercy and because of that the sweetness of the holy name becomes more easily relishable for us and so the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra this mantra is chanted in general in the broad Hindu tradition also and many of the early Prabhupada started Krishna Consciousness movement in America at that time initially most of his followers were Americans but as the temple started being built then many Indians started coming and for Indians kirtan was a normal part of their life but many of the first disciples of Sri Prabhupada who were Indians they said that when we went to these kirtans in America mostly done by westerners they found that there was a spiritual energy in the kirtan that was not there in the kirtans when we would do it in India in India the kirtan would be more like a part of a religious performance there is aarti, there is kirtan and some people participate, some people don't participate but it's more of we observe but Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu when he would perform in his tradition when kirtan is given, kirtan is not just a performance it is a participation and it is an active participation and the participation is so active that actually even onlookers they get transformed, they get elevated they experience extraordinary ecstasy so I'll conclude with one story there are many stories of course of kirtan and there is a special potency of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu that manifests through kirtans so we have kirtan festivals everywhere so once there was a kirtan festival in Russia, it was not exactly a kirtan festival it was a folk song festival and the devotees went there they said we will go here with the folk song from India and the folk song was Hare Krishna and when they were doing these kirtans at that time many people came and in all the other places it was a performance here it was participation so all the crowd started waking up more and more and more and everybody's plan was they started the programme around 6.30 so about one hour kirtan, 7.30 they would go to class, till about half an hour, one hour and then after about one hour kirtan, at 9.30 they would get to work so now most of the people, almost all the people were new so they had put the Hare Krishna Mahamantra on a big poster bar so that people could see and sing and they were singing and what happened at around 7.30, so people were singing the kirtanier was singing, the people were singing at around 7.30 the kirtanier stopped singing but the people kept singing because they had no idea that this kirtan was exactly responsive or what and the devotees saw, they were so jubilant, they just continued kirtan so it became 8, it became 8.30 it became 9, it became 10 and the devotees were singing, their throats were exhausted the devotees were playing madang, their fingers were exhausted but their hearts were jubilant it became 11, it became 12, it became 1 at 1.30 the amplifier started giving out smoke and then they stopped the kirtan at that time and then people went away and the next morning they were chanting at around 7 o'clock a young couple came over there and they were Russian, they didn't know English so they asked the devotees to talk something we have some questions and this young couple they said that actually, you know, we just married we have come on our honeymoon, so we came for this festival and yesterday night, when we were singing the song that you were singing, that was the best night of our honeymoon so we felt so happy we never felt such happiness so we wanted to know, what was the song that we were singing so they had no idea they knew this was obviously something religious but they had no idea what this song was so this is what we mean by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu made the holy name accessible and relishable we don't even have to understand the language of the holy name the sound vibration acts in the spiritual level and attracts and transforms people so the ecstasy of the holy name and the ecstasy of the remembrance of Krishna is accessible and relishable for everyone at the same time there is a caveat, caveat means there is a warning you know, what it says is we say Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, in the Shikshashakam, the second verse is naam naam akari bahuda vijasarva shakti sathrarpita niyamita smarane nakarana that in the chanting of the holy names, there are no rules this is said in the second verse and in the next verse it says trunadapi sunichena tarorapi sahishtina amanina maalena kirtaniya salari first you say no rule and then you give a very difficult rule be humbler than a blade of grass, be more tolerant than a tree give no respect to give all you know give all respect to others, expect no respect for oneself this is almost like an impossible rule so what does it mean? is there no rules or there is this impossible rule so the point is that there is for entry into the holy name, there is no rule but to come to the level of constant chanting constant chanting is not just possible just by mechanical verbal repetition of the chanting we can chant for some time, we can try to chant as much as possible, we should try to chant as much as possible but constant chanting is not just an activity of the lips, it is an activity of the heart and that activity of the heart happens when the heart is truly humble, devoted to Krishna so what this means is see if you are at the material level of consciousness and this is spiritual level of consciousness so when we say Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is merciful, that does not mean that he brings the spiritual down to the material level yes, the process for rising to the spiritual level comes down to the material level but still we have to develop we have to rise to the spiritual level if we don't rise to the spiritual level then we stay at the material level, it is not that Krishna keeps us at the material level but it is that suppose if we have not developed love for Krishna and Krishna takes us to the spiritual world we will go to the spiritual world and everybody is absorbed in Krishna's pastimes and we will be thinking of our bank balance in the earth so Krishna never takes away our free will so it is for us we have to consciously redirect our love towards Krishna if we strive to redirect our love towards Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's mercy will make the redirection very easy far easier than what it would be otherwise but that redirection is something which we have to do so when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is saying that you have to be humbler than a blade of grass, be more tolerant than a tree if we see or look at these as separate virtues the thing that I should get no respect for myself offer all respect to others what is my existence, who am I if we think of these separate from love separate from love then these will seem like impossible virtues the point of these humility, tolerance, respectfulness the point of all these is to convey a state of absorption in Krishna when we are absorbed in Krishna we don't care whether we are respected or not respected even if there are difficulties we tolerate them because we are absorbed in Krishna we want to develop humility, tolerance but these are not independent virtues our focus is to develop love for Krishna and love essentially means absorption in the beloved even in material life when people say they fall in love you don't stand in love so fall in love means what it is not that a lover does pranam to the beloved but what fall in love means is that one loses one's self consciousness one loses one's self absorption and one just falls into whoever one is absorbed in so the idea is similarly we as souls we are meant to become absorbed in Krishna and when that absorption in Krishna is there naturally there will be humility, tolerance and so when we are absorbed in Krishna naturally there is the redirection of heart that which we have to do nobody else can do that for us one devotee asked this question we are supposed to chant the holy names but then our utterance of the holy name is not pure so if instead of I chanting 16 rounds can I hear Prabhupada's japa for 16 rounds the point here yes Prabhupada's japa is pure but Prabhupada's japa is expressing his bhakti and his bhakti is meant to invoke our bhakti his bhakti is not a substitute for our bhakti so every soul has to consciously choose to love Krishna and we have to we have to rise to the spiritual level but when we strive to rise to the spiritual level by the mercy of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu we will find that the progress will be very fast and that's why we see that there are many traditional Hindus who are religious and they live religiously but often they are attached to small things they are not able to give up those small things some people may be attached to tea, some people may be attached to this some people may be attached to that but people start chanting Hare Krishna and it's amazing one of Srila Prabhupada's early followers, Hayagriva Prabhu he had gone to one lecture which a Mayavadi was giving and Mayavadi gave about 30 minutes lecture and there was a break and like that he was giving a seminar but after every 30 minutes there was a break so during the second break the devotees went behind to meet this Mayavadi and he found that he was smoking so he said and he offered them also, would you like to smoke? so he said no, we are the followers of Srila Prabhupada and we follow the regulative principles, no meat eating, no intoxication no gambling, no illicit sex and no smoking so he said oh since when have you been following it? for the last 5 months so this Mayavadi he said, I have been teaching Mayavadi for the last 30 years and I am still smoking so what happens is by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's mercy the higher taste becomes very easily available the higher taste becomes accessible and that's how the lower taste is easy to give up is relatively easy to give up so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's mercy is such that he has made the process to go to the higher consciousness easier and he has made the process sweeter and if you just strive according to our capacity to absorb ourselves in his mercy, in the process that he has given up in the holy name, in the remembrance of Krishna we will over time start seeing magic in our heart the attachments that are there, the attachments that seem to be holding on to us they will fall apart and we will march onwards so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has opened the doors of Vaikuntha Chaitanya Siddhartha Amrit says that sometimes there is a charitable person a charitable person normally gives charity but suppose that charitable person is very happy at that time, in the great happiness charitable person will give great charity and suppose the charitable person is madly happy, you know some extraordinarily joyful event has happened, the charitable person is madly happy then that charitable person will give charity like a madman so he says, God himself is always charitable but when God takes the mood of a devotee he becomes even more charitable but when God takes the mood of his topmost devotee it is Radharani, at that time he becomes madly charitable and that madly charitable manifestation is Lord Chaitanya and it is our fortune that he in his divine madness he has blessed all of us with his mercy he has given all of us the opportunity to take to the process of bhakti there are some great souls who went out in search for God and then they found God, but for most of us or at least for me I never went out in search for God no, devotees came out in search for me so, actually it is by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's mercy that he has got his, what is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's name? Chaitanya Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's name is called Divyonmar divine madness, and in his divine madness he has given the topmost ecstasy to everyone actually Prabhupada has taken that ecstasy and has made it accessible for people all over the world and we all are also recipients of that mercy coming through Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, through his followers especially Prabhupada and through his movement so, we can all pray that we can accept this mercy and treasure it we may not realise its mercy right now but by hearing, when we absorb ourselves in it we will realise it more, we will relish it more and then we will also become absorbed in this Divyonmar this divine madness, the doors for the spiritual world have been opened but by following this process lifelong, we will walk through the door and we will attain Krishna as our goal so thank you very much, Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu Ki Sri Prabhupada Ki Gaur Bhakta Vinda Ki Dai Gaur Premanand Ki are there any questions? to actually go out in public and do chanting but they did it out of their excitement but then when they got into trouble with the Qazi Lord Chaitanya actually goes and helps them overcome the situation how can we understand it in terms of you just mentioned he is the most munificent incarnation in terms of, its a plot by ok so the question is Lord Chaitanya he told the people to chant but they became excited and chanted in public and the Qazi disrupted it and then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu helped them at that time so how does this past times narrative relate with Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in Mahabalani Ayam so yes, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's mercifulness was that he asked everyone to chant now, there is no rule against public chanting but in that particular point Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not tell them to chant directly in public but when the Qazi stopped the kirtan he did not just stop in public, he said wherever I hear kirtan I will come and stop it so then even the devotee's kirtan was being threatened so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is Mahavadanyaya at the same time his mercy by his sweet will descended at a particular time I think it was in Australia only Prabhupada, when he was in Australia, after the class one girl was asking Swamiji, why have you why did you not come before Prabhupada replied, we were waiting for you to be born so, why the lord performs a particular pastime at a particular time Chaitanya Mahaprabhu could have come 1000 years ago he could have come 100 years ago why he decided to start manifesting his sankirtan pastimes at the age of 20 why not 21, why not 19 we understand that Krishna is an individual and as an individual he has his own sweet will and he acts by his sweet will so, it is his supreme independence by which he arranged this pastime in a particular way but I also mentioned that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu first manifested himself as a scholar and he established himself as a scholar and then when he gave up scholarship for devotion then the glory of devotion was demonstrated through the trajectory of his career Chaitanya Mahaprabhu took some time to establish himself as a precocious scholar and then he manifested bhakti so, in this particular pastime Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not see who had started the kirtan he focused more on the point that kirtan itself was being threaded and he countered it and that is how through this countering Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself performed sankirtan and bhakti and that became the primary mode of preaching for him for the rest of his life Any other questions? So, thank you very much for your kind attention Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu ki Jai Srila Prabhupada ki Jai Gaur Bhakta linda ki Jai Sri Gaur Premananda ki Jai Srila Prabhupada ki Jai.