CC daily 54 – M 5.7-11 – Delight in keeping consciousness in spiritual sound vibration

Thank you. Chaitanya Charitamrita, Madhya Lila, chapter 5, the activities of Sakshi Gopal, text 7. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, during his journey to Puri, has come to Katak where there is the deity of Sakshi Gopal.

And he has danced in front of Sakshi Gopal and it is described that he did not continue dancing throughout the night. It was Katakshani for some time he danced. Why was that? That will be revealed now.

He wanted to know the story behind the deity. Any special pastimes associated with the deity? He wanted to know more about the deity. So, he stopped the dancing kirtan and then the kirtan in terms of Katha was going to begin.

It began. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu spent the night over there. So, the pastimes of Gopal, which had happened in the past, with great joy he heard the pastimes.

So, in one sense, Chaitanya Charita Amrit demonstrates spiritual life to us through the activities of Lord Chaitanya and his devotees. The Bhagavad Gita says in the Chatushloki that my devotees, their consciousness stays, their thoughts stay in me, their lives are dedicated to me and they delight in enlightening each other about me. So, now, this enlightening each other is what we will see in this particular pastime.

The previous place, Ramuna, was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who spoke the pastime. Now, he had heard that pastime from his spiritual master, Ishwara Puri, who had heard it from his pastime, Madhavendra Puri, who was the central character, was an important character in the pastime of Kheerchor Gopinath. So, he himself had heard it.

Now, in this case, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had not come to Sakshi Gopal to Katak earlier and he had not heard the pastime before. So, he heard it. So, the important point is we keep our consciousness in Krishnakatha.

Who is speaking and who is hearing is not as important as let the spiritual sound vibration keep flowing and whatever is required to keep our consciousness absorbed in spiritual sound vibration is what we should do. So, joyfully, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu heard the pastimes with great joy. So, we use the word Nityananda Prabhu and we use Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

So, that is the convention that we have in ISKCON. If you look at Chaitanya Charita Amrit, the convention is Nityananda is usually referred to as Gosai or just Nityananda and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is usually referred to as simply Prabhu. And so, that convention we see in this verse and the next verse we will see.

Nityananda Prabhu had travelled to various holy places before he came to Navadvip. He was staying in Ekachakra Gram and Brahmana came and asked for an assistant from Adaya Pandit, his father and with the, actually it was not Brahmana, it was Sanyasi. Sanyasi asked and Adaya Pandit, although he was devastated at thought of separation from his beloved son, he agreed and just as Dashrath had given his son Ram to Mishwamitra, so he gave his son and Nityananda Prabhu with that travelled Sanyasi travelled to various places and eventually during his travels, took him to various places where he would wait for, where he would relish Krishna's pastimes and he was waiting, waiting for Chaitanya to manifest his bhakti and just and soon after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu manifested his bhakti, Nityananda Prabhu came to Mayapur to Navadvip and was almost inseparable from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu since then.

Nityananda Prabhu in his previous travels had come to while travelling he had come to Katak, Sakshi Gopal, Dekhi Bari Katak, Ahila he had come to Katak to see Sakshi Gopal and Sakshi Gopal Ere Katha Shuni Lok Mukhe Sehi Katha Kahe Na Prabhu Shune Maha Sukhe Sakshi Gopal Ere Katha so the pastime of Sakshi Gopal Shune Lok Mukhe so the people spoke that pastime in general people want to talk about something and everybody wants to have a sense of identity so if say India's favourite sport is cricket then if some foreigner comes to India and asks about India they will tell oh do you know our country is a defending cricket champion in the world or we have got the person who has scored the maximum number of centuries or whatever people in general need a sense of pride not in a egoistic sense but in a sense of having an identity so the spiritual culture gives people well a sense of spiritual pride and that means a sense of pride in their spiritual glory in the glory of their saints in the glory of their holy places in the glory of their deities in the glory of their scriptures and in that way the need for identity and dignity is served through spiritualization and that's what happened here that people they were spiritually proud of the glory of their deity and naturally they told the past time of the past time of Sakshi Gopal so as devotees we need to find something that gives us dignity in our spiritual identity we feel proud to tell yes Shila Prabhupada travelled at such an old age all over the world and it's such phenomenal outreach whatever it is we need to have some spiritual something which makes us spiritually proud then we will not look for some something that will make us materially proud and then we will not get entangled in our material identity so the local people told about the past time over there and that same past time so who spoke the past time Chitra Mahaprabhu great happiness he heard the past time so Chitra Mahaprabhu was eager to relish hear and relish the glories of the Lord and as the glories are revealed he relished them more and more so Shila Prabhupada explains that there is a ecstatic relationship between between Sakshi Gopal Diti and Jagannath Diti Premakalah there is a quarrel between the two and at that time the Diti was in Katak but then now it is not in Katak now it is so he was in Katak for some time then he was in Jagannath near the Jagannath temple and then because there was Premakalah between Sakshi Gopal and Jagannath then the Lord was situated in Satyawadi and that is where this village which is some distance of 11 miles that is where the Diti is situated so now Purve Vidyanagar Doita Brahman Tirtha Karibare Duhe Kari Lagaman in the past in Vidyanagar there were two Brahmanas who had decided to go on a pilgrimage they wanted to earn more Punya, get more Punya and behold the beautiful Deities of the Lord and enrich themselves in Bhakti Gaya Varanasi Prayag Sakal Kariya Mathura Te Aai Ladoo Hain Anandit Haiya so they went to all the standard pilgrimage places there is Gaya where there is a magnificent deity of Vishnu's face and then after that they went to Varanasi where there is Kashi Vishwanath there is Triveni there are many holy places in Varanasi and then they went to Prayag and then after Triveni Sangam and then Sakal Kariya, so these like this all were the holy places and then finally Mathura Te Aai Ladoo they came to Mathura the place where Krishna had performed his very intimate pastimes Anandit Haiya and both became delighted to be in the very place where Krishna had appeared and performed his pastimes so Mathura refers not just to the geographical city of Mathura but it refers to the whole district of Mathura they came there and then how they travelled in Vrindavan and what all extraordinary events happened will be discussed in the next talk. Thank you.