CC daily 167 – 6.245 – Recognizing spiritual position as more important that material position reflects devotional realization

Chaitanya Chaitanya Amrit Madhya lila chapter 6 text 245 Bhattacharya kahe Tandre kari namaskare Tomara sambandhe prabhu krupa kaila more Bhattacharya kahe so Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya spoke here Tandre refers to Gopinathacharya kari namaskare he folded his hands offered obeisances to Gopinathacharya and he said that because of you the Lord has had mercy on me this reveals the profound transformation of Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya and the deep humility that he has Sarvabhauma was a champion scholar earlier it was mentioned that Sarvabhauma even had his own disciples at one time when there was a discussion between Sarvabhauma and Gopinathacharya about the position of Lord Chaitanya that debate became heated and as a discussion first went on first became a debate and then the debate became heated and at that time it is mentioned that Sarvabhauma also had his disciples and those disciples tried to defend Sarvabhauma and they debated against Gopinathacharya so the point is that there was no mention anywhere of Gopinathacharya’s disciples at all so whereas Sarvabhauma had disciples Gopinath did not have any so yes Gopinathacharya was also devotee a respectable person but still among the two Sarvabhauma was far far more accomplished more famous he was not just a celebrated scholar in terms of erudition but he was also a very influential person in terms of the position that he had in the Jagannath’s temple as well as in Maharaj Pratap Rudra’s entourage he was an insider in Pratap Rudra’s entourage and he was an insider in the administration of Jagannath so he was politically intellectually religiously at a very high position far higher than anything that Gopinathacharya had politically he was close to the king intellectually he was a celebrated scholar and religiously in terms of position in the religious organization he was one of the administrators one of those in the administrative position in Jagannath’s temple and in spite of having all this he in one sense put it all aside to devote himself to Lord Chaitanya and now it’s one thing to accept somebody whom we do who were never known before nobody except oh you’re a great person you are greater than me it’s like it’s like that person we never had a relationship with that person before and then when the relationship is developed if the relationship is developed primarily centered on understanding that person’s exalted position and that’s how the relationship has been primarily and that’s the foundation of the relationship and it’s relatively easy to accept that nature of the relationship so for example for Sarvabhauma to accept that okay he had initially some misunderstanding about who Lord Chaitanya is but eventually when he understood Lord Chaitanya’s position then for him to accept Lord Chaitanya’s divinity and to use the body that himself told that is definitely remarkable but still it is understandable because he had got darshan of Lord Chaitanya he had as Krishna and he had also I have seen him for himself the phenomenal scholarship of Lord Chaitanya but for a person to accept before another person who was in the past lower than oneself to accept before that accept tell that person and to acknowledge before that person that you were right and I was wrong that is not easy that requires substantial amount of humility and also requires a substantial amount of conviction about the incorrectness of one’s previous understanding and the indisputable correctness of one’s present understanding only with such a such a clear conception only when Sarvabhauma is not only intellectually convinced that oh I was wrong in the past and now I am now I have been given a correct understanding but also because he considers his being granted a correct understanding such a precious gift he considered such a precious gift that he feels that it is worth anything that there is such a valuable gift that I cannot possibly conceive of anything less or more anything less important or anything more important so trying to preserve my position in my relationship with Gopinath Acharya is not important for me what is important for me is to focus on my relationship with the Lord and to reorient all my relationships in the light of that divine relationship so Sarvabhauma here reorients his relationship that is his spiritual relationship in the light of that relationship with with the Lord so what he does is that he accepts that not only is the Lord merciful to me but that he tells Gopinath Acharya here it is because of you that the Lord has been merciful to me at one level Sarvabhauma could have claimed that it was not that Gopinath Acharya introduced Lord Chaitanya to Sarvabhauma yes in the sense that the formal introduction happened through Gopinath Acharya but Sarvabhauma had already met Lord Chaitanya before and he had not only met Lord Chaitanya, he had met Lord Chaitanya in the sense that Lord Chaitanya had soon fallen conscious due to the ecstasy of taking darshan of Lord Jagannath at that time Sarvabhauma had stopped the misinformed guards from chastising Lord Chaitanya for the guards had mistaken him to be an upstart and then Sarvabhauma had taken Lord Chaitanya to his own home and offered all hospitality so here he is not just talking about the formal introduction but he’s talking about the transformational revelation so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was distressed to see his devotees distressed that when the devotees saw that Sarvabhauma is not ready to accept Lord Chaitanya’s divinity the devotees felt distressed and when the devotees felt distressed Lord Chaitanya felt that oh I have to remove my devotees distress and to remove those devotees distress and to grant and they desired that Sarvabhauma be illuminated and because Chaitanya Mahaprabhu wanted to please them so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu illuminated Sarvabhauma so Sarvabhauma is taking such a humble devotional understanding of his transformation of his elevation and he’s humbly offering obeisances to Gopinath Acharya and attributing his transformation to him thank you