CC daily 140 – M 6.204 – Sarvabhauma’s transformation is not just intellectual but all-encompassing

This more in our next talk. Thank you. Sarovam, first is Vishnu and then his form is Krishna.

Sarovam, Bhattacharya is so astonished, so ecstatic, so elated and he immediately falls down to offer Dandavats, Dandavata Kari and then he rises and starts offering prayers to the Lord who is being so merciful and enlightening in him with wisdom and enlightening him with this special darshan. Normally when we go to the temple, we offer obeisances before the deity and then we offer prayers to the deity. So similarly Sarovam is doing the same thing because the deity is non-different from Krishna and Krishna is actually the same all-attractive Krishna who manifests in the deity, whom we serve with such great reverence.

That same Lord is manifesting directly in front of Sarovam. So he is overwhelmed with amazement and delight and gratitude and awe and thrill and he is offering prayers to Sarovam. He is offering prayers with folded hands.

In the Bhagavad Gita also, when Krishna reveals his four-handed form, Arjuna is delighted and Arjuna offers obeisances and after offering obeisances, Arjuna gets up. Arjuna then offers praises and then he requests Krishna. Arjuna first requests Krishna, please show your Vishwaroopa, then he asks who are you when he sees the Kalaroopa.

Then he offers obeisances, prayers and then he requests that please show your Saumya Roopa. So Krishna shows the two four-handed form and then shows his two-handed form and returning to the form which he had generally began with. So in a roughly similar way, here Sarovam gets not so much a Vishwaroopa darshan but a Vishwamitvapta darshan.

This is how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is so extraordinarily scholarly and with that understanding of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's extraordinary scholarship, he understands that this scholarship doesn't come from any ordinary human being. It comes from the Supreme Lord and he feels gratified, he feels a moment and after that he moves on to start offering prayers. So Sarovam Bhattacharya is also an amazing character here.

He is a phenomenal scholar and although he is propagating, teaching Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Vedanta as is explained by Shankara, we have to understand that Shankaracharya also did not reject Bhakti entirely. Even in his writings, he did talk about Bhakti as a means to Mukti. Of course, in some of his devotional poetry, Shankar also gives glimpses of how he is more than that Bhakti is not just a means to Mukti, the Bhakta is the highest transcendentalist and Bhagavan is the highest truth.

But that is only occasional and that is mostly in his devotional works. It is not in his philosophical, systematic analysis. So, over the centuries since Shankara, other thinkers, even in the atheistic lineages are recognizing that for general people, the path of Jnana is not so realistic.

So, they have actually recommended the path of Bhakti and Sarovam, if we look at the cultural context of how he was, although he was an impersonalist, he was also a person who would quite diligently respect the culture of temple worship, image worship. He was one of the chief priests of Jagannath Puri, not in the terms of doing worship, but in terms of having some kind of managerial authority over there. So, he also acknowledged and even practiced to some extent the devotional path.

Chaitanya Bhagwat explains that actually Sarovam was just a devotee and he was simply acting as an impersonalist. So, whichever way it is, that is what Chaitanya Mahashree, Bhaktananda Thakur also says in his writings. So, the important point is that here, Sarovam Bhattacharya is his transformation, his liberation, his conversion.

The word conversion has a decidedly negative connotation nowadays, but actually what Sarovam Bhattacharya is going through is a transformation of his innermost being. It is not just that he is accepting Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as God, yes, we will see that he is doing that, but along with that he is accepting the supremacy of Bhakti and the supremacy of Bhagavan as the highest manifestation of the absolute truth. And that is what makes this transformation so phenomenally consequential.

He is not just, because even among impersonalists, one scholar may defeat another scholar. And in the defeated scholar may convert from the previous brand of Mayavad to the new brand of Mayavad, of Advaitavad, whichever category the victorious scholar belongs to. So, there the conversion happens, and at that time, even because the impersonalists consider their Guru to be liberated, to be manifestation of Brahman, so they may even accept, in any other philosophical conversion also, Sarovam may have accepted the victorious scholar as God.

But in that case, he would not have accepted the glory of Bhakti or the glory of Bhagavan. Therefore, even from the perspective of formation that has happened in Sarovam, that is groundbreaking, that is, he is, the impersonalists, the Advaitins accept Bhakti, but they accept Bhakti as a tool to Mukti. And they consider Mukti as the highest perfection, and their conception of Mukti is merging into the absolute, going beyond the form to the formless.

So, when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu demonstrates the primacy, the supremacy of the personal manifestation of the absolute, that manifestation, that understanding, for Sarovam Homa to accept it, is to, at one level, reject the very conception that he had not only accepted, but propagated and championed, and that is, to be able to do that, it is said that a person convinced against his will is of the same opinion still, which indicates that people may be defeated in an argument, but still they try to somehow or the other hold on to their own opinions. But here, Sarovam Homa's dramatic transformation demonstrates that he, his conversion is not just superficial, it is complete, it is encompassing his whole being. And that pervasive transformation, how pervasive the transformation is, that will be demonstrated in the praise that he will sing of Lord Chaitanya, as will be demonstrated in the subsequent verses.

Thank you.