CC daily 55 – M 5.12-16 – Let the Lord’s beauty steal our heart

Chaitanya Chaitanya Amit Madanila Chapter 5 Entitled The Activities of Sakshi Gopal Text 12 Van Yatraya Van Dekhe Govardhan Dvadasya Van Dekhe Sheshe Gela Vrindavan Van Yatraya they, after the Brahmanas who had gone on the pilgrimage had come to Mathura, in Mathura district, they went on a pilgrimage of the various Vanas Vrindavan has 12 Vanas, so Vrindavan can refer to one particular one in that place and it can also refer to a village within that one and it can also refer to the larger area which includes all the 12 forests so Van Yatra, they went on a Yatra of all the places Dekhe Govardhan so during that Yatra they beheld Govardhan and then Dvadasya Van Dekhe Dvadasya Van Dekhe they saw the 12 forests and then then after that Gela Vrindavan they came to Vrindavan so, Shri Prabhupada explains in the purport that actually the 12 forests of Vrindavan, Dvadasya Gana, as they are celebrated in poetry, that on the Yamuna's eastern side there are 5 of those and on the western side there are 7 so Bhadravan, Bilvavan, Lohavan Bhandiravan and Mahavan are on the eastern side and Madhuvan, Thalavan, Kumudavan Bahulavan, Kamyavan, Khadiravan and Vrindavan are on the western side so now there is a place called Panchakroshi Vrindavan Panchakroshi Vrindavan is actually the town Panchakroshi Vrindavan and now the Panchakroshi Vrindavan is situated in the forest of Vrindavan which extends for around as Prabhupada says 32 miles from Nandagram extends from the town of Vrindavan up to Nandagram and Varshana on two different sides so essentially there is a Vrindavan town then that Vrindavan town is in a forest which is also called as Vrindavan and that forest is a part of 12 forests and the whole area of the 12 forests is also collectively referred to as Vrindavan so it is described after they beheld the various forests of Vrindavan then they came to the Vrindavan Panchakroshi the town named Vrindavan and then Vrindavane Govindastane Mahadevalai Se Mandire Gopalere Mahasevahai Vrindavane Govindastane that at a place where the present Govinda temple is Mahadevalai there is a magnificent there was a magnificent temple at that time Devalai, Alai means home Himalai is the place where Hima Hima is snow resides so here Devalai means the place where the Lord resides there is a temple Mahadevalai magnificent temple is there Se Mandire Gopalere Mahasevahai Se Mandire in this temple Gopal there is a deity of Gopal and Mahasevahai excellent high class magnificent service is performed in this temple now Krishnadas Kaviraj has stayed in Vrindavan for many years that he wrote and he knows this temple very intimately we can just contemplate and try to imagine his ecstasy as he is putting into written form for the memory for the recollection of devotees for millennia the places that are so close to his heart, the places about which he has cherished memories and the places that are abodes of ecstasy for so many, during his times and before his times and through his books those places are going to continue to be of ecstasy to people who just read those books even if they don't come to see those places so it's like a person describing one's own home or one's own intimate places, this is what he is describing of course, Krishnadas doesn't think of Vrindavan as his place, he thinks of it as Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami thinks of it as Krishna's place and he is fortunate that he thinks, I have a fortune to stay in this place so in the Vrindavan Panchakroshi what are the important places to see? there is Keshighat the place where Keshi was killed and Kaliyarada from Keshighat Kaliyarada, the lake and the Ghat which is there where Kaliya used to live Kaliya used to live not exactly in the Yamuna river but in a in a small, in a lake which was connected to Yamuna but not directly to Yamuna that area is now dried up mostly but that is also a place of pilgrimage so in those places the two brahmanas bathed they beheld Gopal and usually most temples had some places for tourists for pilgrims it was understood at that time that pilgrims have come for doing Punya by coming to the beheld the temples and they would need a place for staying so the temples themselves had facilities where people could stay more or less in the temple premises so so Gopalasoundarya the beauty of this Gopala deity was so much that for both of them it stole away their mind so in this world sometimes when say a man sees the beauty of a charming, of an attractive woman then his mind gets captivated and he just keeps seeing her in his mind's eye again and again and again and that's how people imagine that they are falling in love now this is actually a distant and often distorted reflection of the soul's original and pure attraction for Krishna and just one darshan of Krishna is enough to captivate the heart of a devotee and the devotee again and again thinks of Krishna so what happened they were in a pilgrimage so it was not like a hasty pilgrimage, you go to this place then rush to that place then rush to that place you have to squeeze in as many pilgrimage places as possible before we go back to our jobs and our schedules you know they had planned in such a way that they had taken substantial time out for pilgrimage so when they were charmed enchanted, captivated by the beauty of Gopal they decided oh the vibes in this place are so wonderful let us stay here for some more time so because they got some joy over there so they stayed there for a longer time and Krishan Das Gagraj Goswami doesn't go into precise historical details he says more time they stayed there what is the time? 2 or 4 days basically they prolonged their visit so here what happened next now Krishna Das Gagraj Goswami takes a close up of these two brahmanas who are they and what is their interrelationship among those two one was elderly and naturally in a cultured society the younger healthier people want to assist the elderly people so the other was young he would assist that elderly and he would help that in his various activities so the devotee culture is a culture of service and that service is not just spiritual, spiritual service we help others to chant we help others to understand Shastra we help others to learn devotional service that is good but if somebody is interested in Bhakti then even the body of the person serving that body can also be a part of the service so a service that is a part of Bhakti so we serve devotees not just fact segregating things I only serve the soul and not serve the body now we were the relationship the person is a complete person right now we can't divert the soul from the body as long as we are an embodied existence neither for ourselves nor for others so we see a devotee's bodily weaknesses as not material and therefore to be neglected, we see them as opportunities for us to render service and that's how this younger brahmana was serving the elderly brahmana during the journey what happened next will continue in our future talks.