CC daily 143 – M 6.207 – Sarvabhauma’s ecstasy overload makes him swoon

In contrast with and in a measure far far greater than what happened with Keshav Kashmiri.

That we will discuss in our future talks. Thank you. On hearing the hundred verses that Sarovar Bhattacharya had composed for glorifying Lord Chaitanya, Sune Sukhe, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu became happy.

Prabhu Tandre Kaila Linga and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu embraced him. Sarovar Bhattacharya became unconscious. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu embraced him.

Sarovar Bhattacharya, out of great ecstasy, became unconscious. Premaveshe haila achetan. Chetan refers to consciousness.

Achetan refers to losing one's consciousness. That emotion may be positive or it may be negative, whichever way it is. But when there is an extreme experience of emotion, that causes great, that causes havoc in life.

Havoc in the sense that the body can bear only a certain level of emotion. And now we may say emotions are experienced by the mind, not the body. Yes, that is true.

But whatever is experienced in the mind is also channeled into the body. That's why when people are angry, that emotion of anger in the mind, but that expresses itself as some facial expression, some hand gestures, clenching of teeth, biting of teeth or frowning of the brows or clenching of the fists or whatever. So the point here is that if the experience of emotion is too intense, then the body cannot sustain it and when the body doesn't sustain it, then the person falls unconscious.

So here, Lord Chaitanya has demonstrated his divinity to Sarubhauma and then he has demonstrated his mercy also. Of course, the demonstration of divinity is itself mercy. But Sarubhauma is swooning here because of an ecstatic devotional overload of emotions.

First of all, for a scholar, just to see extraordinary scholarship is thrilling. Of course, anyone can be impressed by scholarship, but a person who is a scholar, when that person sees impressive scholarship, then that thrill, that appreciation is enormous. Just like a person who is an avid cricket fan and that person sees some spectacular batting and the appreciation, the thrill is far greater.

So first of all, just seeing the phenomenal scholarship of Lord Chaitanya gave a great thrill to Sarubhauma. Then after that came the realization, oh such phenomenal scholarship cannot be present in anyone except God and that in realization, this is God. That gave a further stunning thrill to him.

And then as if that were not enough, then after that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu revealed an extraordinary darshan where Chaitanya Mahaprabhu manifested various forms which demonstrated his divinity. And we can just imagine seeing phenomenal scholarship, understanding the phenomenal scholar to be the supreme person and then getting the darshan of the very cherished Vishnu murti and Krishna murti. The forms of Vishnu and Krishna, these are privileges that are worth dying and not just dying, they are worth dying million times over.

They are such rare and precious blessings. And Sarubhauma got these blessings and then he naturally wanted to reciprocate. A natural devotional response of a worshipful heart is to glorify and reciprocate through that glorification whenever any special mercy is given.

And Sarubhauma does exactly that by glorifying Lord Chaitanya. And as he glorifies Lord Chaitanya, the result of that glorification is that he not only himself has the ecstasy of glorifying the Lord, but he has the far far greater ecstasy of seeing that the Lord is pleased. Sometimes when we say give a class or sing a kirtan, now if we try to absorb ourselves using our best ability, using our purest devotion and try to glorify the Lord, the Lord becomes so pleased that actually even if we don't perceive the Lord's pleasure, but still we ourselves get great fulfillment because of that absorption in the devotional glorification.

But further, none of us have such an experience, but imagine that we could tangibly perceive that the person whom we are trying to glorify, our worshipable Lord, that Lord is pleased with us. And when that Lord is pleased with us, that is such a phenomenal experience, phenomenally thrilling experience. And not only is the Lord pleased with Sarubhauma, but the Lord actually expresses that pleasure not just through a smile on his face, but through an immediate and intense heartfelt embrace.

Embrace is a sign of intimate affection. Normally when there is formal greeting, there may be shaking of hands or holding of hands or there may be waving of hands, but the physical contact that is there in embracing is an expression of intimate affection. And of course the Lord's body is not physical, but still the Lord has a body which is transcendental and the bodily contact that is there in embrace, that indicates great affection, great pleasure.

So Sarubhauma, not only is he able to glorify the Lord in an extraordinary way, but he is able to see how pleased the Lord is with the glorification and is able to see how the Lord has actually embraced him. The thrill that runs through his body and his mind and his heart is so intense that it just overloads, not in a negative sense, but in a supremely positive sense. It overloads Sarubhauma Bhattacharya's system, his heart, and he swoons in ecstasy.

So such a swooning, there are various words, swooning, fainting, falling unconscious. The point of it is that there is such emotion, such intense ecstatic emotion that Sarubhauma just can't bear it. This can't bear it doesn't mean that he is unhappy, he is so supremely happy.

When this finite soul contacts the infinite soul and then the infinite's infinite happiness starts flooding the finite's finite heart, then that is life's most fulfilling experience. And that supremely fulfilling experience is what Sarubhauma Bhattacharya is having and it naturally causes him to faint in ecstasy.