Devotion amidst persecution – Lord Chaitanya delivers Chand Kazi – Part 2

Jai Krishna Hare Krishna So welcome back to a second day of Gaur Dina. Yesterday we discussed about the provocation by Chand Kazi wherein he threatened the devotees that if they performed publicly their religious activities he would have them punished. And the punishment he threatened them with was conversion.

And the devotees were so distraught by this that they felt that staying here would be impossible. For anyone to relocate from one place to another especially for a full family it's not at all an easy thing. And the devotees the very fact that they were considering this demonstrated how dear the Sankirtan was for them.

Hare Krishna How dear the Sankirtan was for them because of which they felt that we cannot move without Sankirtan. And if to continue on in Sankirtan means we may have to give up our present homes, our present social circles, our present security, whatever. They were ready to do all that.

But Shri Yathani Mahaprabhu assured them that he would personally counter the threat of the Kasi. And he told all the devotees that all of you go home, take lunch and after taking lunch you assemble in the main street of Navdeep. And there from every family one person let every family make one torch, giant torch.

The plan was that they would look at this throughout the afternoon and then in the night they would march to Simolia which was the place where Chand Kasi's house was there. And as the news spread one by one Nimai Pandit is going to take a procession and the news electrified everyone. And that day everybody was filled with so much spiritual energy that nobody in Navdeep felt any physical hunger.

So instead of taking lunch each family was busy preparing not just one torch, as many torches as they could. And then assembled at that time. They all came and Shri Yathani Mahaprabhu after he had dispatched the concerned people, the devotees they looked at him in amazement.

Nimai Pandit he had never done anything like this before. First of all there are many firsts here. First of all going publicly against the Islamic government itself was provocative.

On top of that Lord Chaitanya planning to dance publicly to perform Sankirtan publicly. He had not done this before. That was also astonishing and Yathani Mahaprabhu asking the whole town the whole district of Nadia to be mobilised for this purpose.

That was entirely unprecedented. So in the past people had not even been able to observe the Kirtan. Now they were going to be able to not only observe but also participate in it.

So then the Lord decided that he because it was going to be a big procession he said we will have multiple centres of attraction. We will have multiple groups of Kirtans just like when we have Rath Yatra sometimes a long procession is there. Then we may have one group performing Kirtan in one place another group in a different place.

So like that everywhere the sound of the holy name. So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu looked around. His closest associate Nityanand Prabhu Nityanand Prabhu immediately read Lord Chaitanya's mind.

He said my dear Lord I cannot be separated from you. He said I will be in your group only. Please don't be sent anywhere.

Nityanand Prabhu and Advaita Acharya they had a transcendental rivalry among themselves. They had sweet relationship but that sweetness was often expressed in ways that might seem conflictive. So Advaita Acharya said if the Avadhuta is going to be with you I will also be with you.

So then the Lord said both of you will be with me. And then he asked Haridas Thakur to form one group. He asked Shiva Thakur to form one group.

Actually then Lord Chaitanya persuaded Advaita Acharya. He said that I cannot Chaitanya Mahaprabhu would reason with Advaita Acharya and say that you know I cannot make Nityanand Prabhu understand but you should understand. So he asked Advaita Acharya Advaita Acharya was actually from that place itself.

He was elderly. So he said you form your own group. Advaita Acharya agreed to his own group.

So along with Lord Chaitanya there were like we have in Panchatattva Nityanand Prabhu on one side Gadadhar Pandit on the other side. So the two were there in his group. And like that the various groups were formed.

And all the people hundreds upon hundreds soon the number became thousands. They all assembled. And then the kirtan started.

And as the sound of the holy name spread it's in the whole of Navadweep resonated with the sound of the holy name. And finally Lord Chaitanya appeared in the midst. And then he started dancing.

And when he started dancing all eyes were just centred on him. The Lord arranged in such a way by his mystical potency that although there were thousands and thousands of people and there was a huge crowd in the streets but everybody they could behold Lord Chaitanya to their heart's content. And he appeared to be like a mountain of gold.

Lord Chaitanya was tall majestic and with a golden complexion. So he appeared like a blazing and moving mountain of gold. And when he raised his hands to dance it appeared like that from that mountain there were two giant peaks.

Normally a mountain has one peak but this appeared to be like a mountain with two peaks rising further up. Or it appeared like these were two pillars of gold which seemed to rise high up into the sky and they seemed to be sustaining the sky itself. As Lord Chaitanya as he sang the holy names the sweetest sound was emanating from his lips and inundating everyone.

As he continued singing as he continued dancing tears started coming from his eyes and the tears just kept flowing incessantly and people were amazed. One of the observers commented that the Ganga that had earlier come from his feet was now emerging from his eyes. People as they came to know that Nimay Pandit was going to perform a Sankirtan.

It was a festival so all the people had decorated their houses. The small banana trees were put and they had flower pendants in front of their houses and they came out of their houses to welcome the Sankirtan procession and as this went on Lord Chaitanya had decided that rather than going straight to the house of the Qazi they would go to various parts of Navadweep and then round and round they would go attract more and more people and then they would go straight towards at the end towards the palace of the Qazi and as the people were going out people would come out to see this procession and they would be so captivated that they would forget everything else and they would join the procession so there were thieves in Navadweep and they thought oh this is a great opportunity everybody is so captivated by this procession that nobody will obstruct us and thieves from various parts of the city they heard oh this procession is going on so they all came there but they did not know that Lord Chaitanya was the ultimate thief as they came closer and closer to the procession the sound of the holy name that magnetic power that sweet sound stole away their tendency to rob and they also joined the kirtan and they also started dancing and singing with Lord Chaitanya and associates everyone was mesmerised and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as he went across passed through many bathing ghats passed through many houses passed through many temples was kept on and on in the procession and all along his ecstasy was growing more and more sometimes he would jump high up into the sky and in this particular procession Shachi Mata was not there but whenever Shachi Mata his mother would think of Lord Chaitanya dancing in ecstasy and jumping high up she still remembered Nimai as the baby who had played on her lap and for a mother that a baby while playing may fall and break a limb that is the greatest fears so that same fear would be there for Shachi Mata even now and when Lord Chaitanya would jump high up into the sky she would fervently pray pray to the Lord O Lord Vishnu if I have ever done any pious credits please protect Nimai if he falls on the ground let him not break any limbs let him be unhurt and miraculously Lord Chaitanya would fall on the ground again and again but nothing would happen to him and her anxiety would be there with her even when she was not seeing Lord Chaitanya in this procession Nimai had told that Shachi Mata should not come with us so her heart was there with Nimai and she was thinking about him and Nimai was jumping high up into the sky and falling on the ground and rolling on the ground and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was in ecstasy when he would perform kirtans what exactly do we mean by ecstasy? ecstasy is not just feeling yes, feeling is one part of it and when we use the word ecstasy we often talk about feelings of some indescribable joy that fills the heart when we have some intense spiritual experiences so ecstasy which Lord Chaitanya experienced has multiple levels so to understand what this ecstasy is let's consider a metaphor suppose there is a multiple storey building say two storey building there is a ground floor and there is a first floor and on the first floor there is a river of sweet rice there is a river of sweet rice and the people on the ground floor are not able to go to the first floor because the sweet rice is flowing down from the first floor to the ground floor so people are here and they are wondering where is this coming from but they can relish this delicious sweet so the first floor is like the spiritual level of reality the ground floor is like the material level of reality right now we are in the material level of reality and from the spiritual level the nectar of absorption in Krishna the nectar of sound vibrations connected with Krishna the nectar of the sweet names of Krishna that flows down so where we are at the material level of consciousness there the holy name becomes accessible and here the holy name becomes relishable and it is as if our consciousness is transported somewhere else when we are absorbed in something we forget everything else the different people can have absorption in different things somebody may get absorbed in a cricket match somebody may get absorbed in reading a book somebody may get absorbed in daydreaming so there are different kinds of transformation there are different kinds of absorptions which might be there so the fact of absorption indicates that now our consciousness has the capacity to go away from our circumstances to somewhere else we might be in a physical condition somewhere else but if we are absorbed we are in terms of consciousness no longer in those circumstances sometimes a devotee says actually chanting, meditation all this is very difficult I can't do this but I don't have the capacity to meditate so do you have the capacity to worry? it doesn't require any capacity it is a natural activity that happens but no the principle of worrying is the same as the principle of meditating because what happens when we are worrying see our thoughts take us away from the circumstances we are at one place but we worry what is happening there what is happening there so if we have the capacity to worry we have the capacity to meditate the only difference is what is the object on which we are focussing our consciousness when we are worrying about something usually there is something we are attached to because of which our thoughts are with that object and that is why we worry about that object or things connected with that object that person, whatever it is so the problem is not a lack of capacity we all have capacity but the problem is that we don't have an attraction to Krishna right now so if we had an attraction then that absorption would be possible for everyone and that absorption is a matter of cultivation can all of you come little ahead please the devotees may keep coming in so the absorption is a matter of cultivation rather the absorption comes by attraction and the attraction is a matter of cultivation so if we as a habit we chant Krishna gradually that taste for Krishna will develop so in Sanskrit the words for worry and for meditation are similar there is chinta and there is chintan and both are related with chitta or chitta consciousness when it goes in a particular direction there is chinta chitta goes in another direction there is chintan contemplation, meditation so all of us have capacity to meditate and what happens is the spiritual descends to the material level golokera premadhana harinama sankirtana so from goloka the holy name has come down to our level of reality but when they are very advanced devotees there is not just the spiritual streaming down to the material level for our consciousness to perceive it is the consciousness itself that gets elevated to the spiritual level so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu when he would have spiritual ecstasies his ecstasies would be broadly of three broad categories Krishan Das Kairajan classifies it as he would be in ecstasy but he was in external consciousness he was in ecstasy he was in partial external, partial internal consciousness he was aware of the circumstances but also lost internal and third he would be in completely internal consciousness experiencing something else itself when he would be in complete internal consciousness that means he is physically at the level of material reality but the consciousness has gone somewhere else and this would be in three categories there would be he would have visions sometimes he would be literally transported that means not just visions but also experiences and third is there would be transformations in his body itself so vision means Chaitanya Mahaprabhu once he was in Jagannath Puri at that time he was talking with devotees and the devotees were talking with him and suddenly Chaitanya Mahaprabhu disappeared where has he gone? we were talking with someone and suddenly said this god thing was here what happened? they looked around and Lord Chaitanya was streaking towards the forest and they all ran towards the forest and there Lord Chaitanya had gone near a tree and he just fainted over there fallen down and fainted devotees chanted the holy names normally our consciousness is attracted to whatever it finds attractive so for example if we are hearing this katha over here but if suddenly there is smell of some halwa if our consciousness finds that more attractive then the consciousness will go there so the devotees knew that when the Lord Lord's consciousness had gone to the spiritual level nothing would attract him back to the material level except the holy name so the holy name is non different from Krishna so what they would do when Lord Chaitanya would become unconscious they would chant the holy name and then his consciousness would come back to the material level and when he came back to the material level of course at one level the Lord's consciousness was always transcendent so it was never at a material level it was always spiritual the word material and the word spiritual is used in two connotations see one is in terms of composition and the other is in terms of realisation or application composition means that the spiritual is made of sat-chit-ananda so the soul is sat-chit-ananda Krishna's body is sat-chit-ananda that is in composition and this mic, this table, this mic all these things are not sat-chit-ananda they are made of material elements earth, water, fire, air, etc composition there is a clear differentiation between material and spiritual after understanding this differentiation after understanding there is a difference between the body and the soul then the process of bhakti is a process by which we can spiritualise even the material when we spiritualise the material what does that mean? so for example, Prabhupada would say that now that his mic is being used for speaking Krishna's message the mic is spiritual but the mic is not made of sat-chit-ananda it is made of material elements but it is used for spiritual purposes so a pure devotee's body is spiritual yes but that does not mean that the body will not grow old it will not get deceased it is made of material elements and the material process will occur on it but it is spiritualised in the sense that it is used for a spiritual purpose so Lord Chaitanya's consciousness was always spiritual in terms of application that means wherever he was he was always remembering Krishna but in terms of the reality yes, when he was in this world he was aware of the things of this world that is the material level of reality where his consciousness was there so when the Lord came back to the material level of consciousness material level of reality we could say his consciousness which is always spiritual came from the spiritual level of reality that is the first floor down to the ground floor that is the material level of reality devotees ask what happened so Lord Chaitanya said I just saw Krishna over there Krishna was there in that tree and he was playing a flute and he was inviting me and then what could I do just charged over there but before I could reach Krishna he disappeared so like this at the spiritual level of consciousness there is alternate reality that is seen the reality that we see at this level there is a higher reality and sometimes that higher reality breaks down and appears at our level when some people have mystical visions some people's claims of mystical visions might just be imagination or sentiment but there is a higher reality and for some great saints that higher reality becomes accessible their consciousness breaks through so there is a ground floor here there is a first floor above in between there is a partition so for us we cannot break through the partition but sometimes for the great saints and of course for the Supreme Lord their consciousness breaks through the partition and they see something higher so there is an alternate vision so the spiritual ecstasy would lead to visions sometimes not only visions there would be a complete experience so Lord Chaitanya in this case he said I saw Krishna but when I went there he was not there another thing that would happen is that sometimes he would have completely different experiences one time he was doing kirtans and he felt completely unconscious he was unconscious for a long long time and finally the devotees performed kirtans for a long time and the Lord came back and the Lord said that why did you call me back no I was with Krishna no I was there in Vrindavan and I could see that Krishna was there with the gopis and he was performing beautiful pastimes and just as these pastimes were nearing their climax you called me back why did you call me back so here it was not just a vision that had broken through to his perception his consciousness was transported to a completely higher reality and thirdly this was the most dramatic that transportation of his consciousness to a higher level would lead to physical transformation in his body so there are pastimes of this happening with our acharyas you know Raghunath Das Goswami he was in ecstasy at one time and when he was in ecstasy his consciousness was transported to the spiritual world and there all the devotees were having a feast and in the feast there was sweet rice and he had so he also Raghunath Das Goswami he is a manjari in the spiritual world and he also had the feast over there and then his body he was habituated he would eat very little in this world he was a very great austere saint and he would just take a little curd once in a few days so his body was used to that austerity and when he took that sweet rice his body couldn't digest it and then the devotees his stomach is upset they called a vaid and the doctor you know Swamiji has eaten sweet rice the devotees felt angry he says what sweet rice this is blasphemy he says he doesn't even take anything more than curd how dare you say he takes sweet rice the doctor said I am telling you the truth I am also amazed I know he doesn't take anything else but this disease cannot happen this kind of stomach upset happens only because of sweet rice so then they wondered what to do so they went and told Raghunath Das Goswami this is what this Vaid they say he says that's right I ate sweet rice what? when did you eat? he said I was in the spiritual world and then Radharani had herself cooked sweet rice how could I say no to that I had to eat it then the devotees realised for him it was not just austerity not taking this it was sometimes when we do austerity I am so proud I am so renounced for him the austerity was primarily for Krishna's pleasure for Radharani's pleasure he was to give up his austerity he was ready to give up his austerity and take even the sweet rice so as devotees we are not our primary purpose is not austerity it is to please Krishna and for the purpose of pleasing Krishna if austerity is available we use that so this is a physical transformation this level of reality because of experiences that are there at that level of reality then he would be dancing in ecstasy sometimes his whole body would shrink and just as we have with Jagannath, Baldev, Subhadra what happened is that when they were absorbed when they Jagannath, Baldev, Subhadra how Krishna, Balram and Subhadra they manifested this form is when Rohini was telling the past times of Krishna in Vrindavan to the Dwarkavashis they were hearing they were so eager to hear that they did not want any distraction so suppose a very nice class is going on somebody is making noise we don't want any distraction so here Krishna, Balram they did not want any distraction so what they did was they literally withdrew all their senses their hands I don't want my hands to move because that will distract me I don't want my legs to move so that legs will distract me I don't want even my ears to move so like that all their bodily limbs sort of withdrew inside so that they could just focus on the sound vibration so something like that would happen to Lord Chaitanya with the same hands and legs with which he would be so vigorously dancing and singing when he would go into ecstasy those hands and legs would withdraw into himself and he would appear he was Gauravatar he would suddenly appear like Kurmaavatar the Kurma is a tortoise it withdraws its limbs sometimes into his body so he appeared as if he had withdrawn all his limbs into his body and he would be absorbed in ecstasy and sometimes the exact opposite would happen the spiritual energy would enter into his body and would ravage his body and when he would ravage his body Lord Chaitanya was already huge he was very tall almost 6 feet or more but when he would be in ecstasy the spiritual energy would permeate into his body it would appear as if his bones would come apart and his hand which was already long would become even more elongated he would be lying down in ecstasy and his body would be huge and it appeared as if his bones at all the joints were disconnected and the only thing connecting him was the skin and onlookers when they would see this would be stunned what kind of ecstasy is this so especially Chaitanya Mahaprabhu manifested this kind of extraordinary bodily transformations in the Ratha Yatra Parade which he would perform in Jagannath Puri in front of Lord Jagannath so actually the Ratha Yatra is itself a very esoteric festival but when Lord Chaitanya would perform as Ankita in front of Jagannath that would be an even more ecstatic festival why? because he is not this is a whole separate class I will just briefly mention there are multiple levels of exchanges happening over there at one level there are three levels of interactions there are the devotees and there is Jagannath there is devotees and Lord Chaitanya and there is Lord Chaitanya and Jagannath and all of them had their relationship and their dynamics so at one level Lord Chaitanya is a devotee and Jagannath is the Lord and he is a pure devotee he is attracted to Jagannath at another level Lord Chaitanya is Gopi he is Radha Rani and Jagannath is Krishna and Lord Chaitanya is attracting Jagannath to move towards Krishna to come back to Vrindavan for the devotees Jagannath is the Lord and Lord Chaitanya is their leader so he is like the spiritual master and they are seeing the spiritual master and along with him they are all performing Kirtan they are at one level pleasing Lord Jagannath at another level for many of the devotees the star attraction was not Jagannath it was Lord Chaitanya because Lord Chaitanya was not just a devotee he was a Lord and he was not just a Lord he was a Lord manifesting miraculous potencies so there Lord Chaitanya would form seven groups of Kirtan when he would form seven groups he would manifest in all seven groups he would manifest in all seven groups and when the king there Maharaj Pratap Rudra saw this he was stunned who can do such who can not only have such ecstasy there were yogis who may manifest in many forms but to have such spiritual emotional ecstasy to have such spiritual potency and to manifest multiple forms this must be the Lord himself now when the Lord performs miracles miracles are not against science they are above science science operates at a particular level of laws and they apply to all of us but when the Lord performs he can perform anything because they are above so here of course Lord Chaitanya did not manifest many forms but here also ecstatic transformations would happen so there have been many incarnations of the Lord and there have been many devotees of the Lord but Lord Chaitanya in his past times he is unique in the sense that he is God manifesting as a devotee but he is not just God manifesting as a devotee sometimes he would manifest as the Lord also so in a relationship there are two roles there is person A and person B there is a lover and there is a beloved and both of them relish that relationship if it is a relishable, lovable relationship from their side so Lord Chaitanya he is God who wants to relish the relationship from the side of the devotee so he is at this end of the relationship but he comes at this end of the relationship but even when he is at this end of the relationship still he is also here so sometimes within his role as a devotee he would manifest himself as the Lord so at one time he was just in ecstasy and from that ecstasy suddenly he came to external consciousness and he saw all these thousands of devotees are there all of them are dancing and singing and loud kirtan of the holy names and suddenly became angry and he said I am Narayan and just as in the past I have destroyed the demons I will destroy all those demons who disrupt the chanting of the holy names Lord Chaitanya spoke with such fury some devotees were alarmed some devotees were enlivened they also got the weariness from the Lord and there some of the devotees where is this Qazi bring him in front of me I will with my hands break his neck right now some devotees in the ecstasy they climbed up the nearby trees and they said let there be some Qazi they were dancing on the tree itself while climbing on the tree they were dancing and as they were dancing while climbing on the tree where are these Kafirs where are these Mlechas and I will jump on them and will destroy them and they will jump down and miraculously nothing would happen all of them jumped down from big heights and then at the next moment the Lord's mood will completely transform and not only would he think I am not even a devotee alas so I have no devotion so all around me everybody is relishing the ecstasy of the holy name but I have no taste I have no ecstasy how unfortunate I am Durudayivamidrasham as Lord Chaitanya would later sing so all these moods would just swing him in an ocean of ecstasy from one extreme to the other and all along he was reading the Kirtan and still marching ahead now he had a long as he was dancing he had a long Vajayanthi Mala and that garland up to his knees he had a sacred thread around his neck and with his lips when he would sing the holy names his lips were exquisitely beautiful and the sound that was coming out of his lips sometimes he would sob in separation from Krishna sometimes he would sigh in ecstasy sometimes he would sing sometimes his whole chest would come out out of not the exhaustion of the physical dancing it was because of the ecstasy of the spiritual emotion that he was experiencing when he would jump up into the sky and when he would fall on the ground it would appear as if the whole earth would shake and all along the path people had strewn flowers for the Lord to have a smooth pathway it appeared as if the earth she herself wanted to offer the best service to the Lord and she had strewn the whole path with flowers Lord Chaitanya went from place to place to place and wherever he went people became attracted people became captivated they started joining and dancing and yet as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu sent a flood of devotional ecstasy everyone was inundated except for the people who were proud and envious the proud and the envious what disruption is this Nimai doing when the Qazi comes to know about him I would like to see where this Nimai will hide all these people there are thousands where will they hide the Qazi our misfortune is that we are living in the same village as these people are living the Qazi's anger will attack not only them they will attack all of us and because of him our whole village will be destroyed as they were speaking like this they were getting more and more angry and yet at this particular point the devotees were filled with so much ecstasy they were completely unmindful of everything else and as they went from place to place to place they slowly started coming closer to the palace of the Qazi there was a thunderous sound the Qazi had been out of the town at that time and he came back in the evening and as he was in his house he heard this huge sound he said what is this sound this sound seems like the same Kirtan that had stopped yesterday but that is impossible those people were so scared they could not possibly have started the Kirtan today so what is this sound he was sitting in an assembly and told his servants maybe this is a marriage ceremony going on at that time when they would have marriages they would have huge amount of sounds and it would be a big big festival and they would have processions so he thought maybe this is a marriage ceremony going on and they said someone looked out some of them looked out from the balcony and he said Nimai is leading he said is Nimai getting married so he said no but this doesn't look like a marriage ceremony because Nimai is crying this is very peculiar Nimai is crying but everyone else seems to be happy he said what is going on he can't figure this out maybe some long lost relative has come back and that's why everyone is happy and Nimai is crying they are all speculating and then they said but if this is not a marriage ceremony but if some long lost relative is there why are they coming towards your house one of the servants asked yes they are coming this way only he told some of his servants you go and enquire find out what is happening over there so they went there and they said this sound is so great it appears as if our eardrums will split because of this and then they thought that they were the guards over there and wherever they would go they would have that power to tyrannise others so people would cover in fear but here they marched and nobody noticed them he said this is something different and as they went closer and closer they realised that not only this sound humilt us this energy whatever is there it is something mysterious just can't figure out what it is and they went closer and they started hearing the sound at one level they were hearing the sound Hare Krishna the holy name sounded loud Hare Krishna mantra was being sung but along with that they were also hearing some other sounds they were hearing the sound of Qazi Murdabad death to the Qazi they were scared and then at one level they were captivated by the sound of the holy name and they suddenly realised they are actually saying death to all of us and they were shocked they don't know what to do now should we run away and they had their long beards and the beards would be like a giveaway for them so they had turbans they took out the turbans and tied it around their beard so that nobody would notice and hiding their identity they tried to sneak away they thought if we just go straight to the Qazi's palace people will catch us and they went in different directions suddenly what happened they got attracted by the holy name and they also started joining the kirtan and they joined the kirtan and they started singing and the cloth which was covering their beard that cloth came off and the cloth came off and the devotees they at one level would have got angry on seeing these people but here there was such ecstasy and when they saw even these Muslims were chanting and dancing their ecstasy became so much they said yes today is going to be victory for Lord Chaitanya and they became all the more jubile they became all the more ecstatic and this energy increased more and more now some of the servants of the Qazi they are from a distance so when the first batch of servants went there and they went there they did not come back so second batch went over there and as second batch was going closer a third batch went to follow what is going on and the second batch went and disappeared and they realised that what is going on this is something stunning so from a distance only they saw so if we go close we will get lost also so they went from a distance only and they came back and they said to the Qazi he said actually hundreds and thousands and thousands of people are coming you know even when the king comes here at that time so many people don't come to see him he says we have never seen a procession of such magnitude and these people are coming straight to you and not only are they coming to you they are actually some of them how do you tell a Qazi that they are telling that they are going to kill you so you know in the past if there are tyrannical rulers if the ruler brought some bad news the ruler would just shoot the messenger so they are scared the Qazi said what is the point they are saying Qazi Murtabad shocked but curiously the same Qazi who had been very angry the previous day he did not become angry this time he to the contrary became scared he became fearful and becoming fearful he said what shall we do he said they are all coming here we should flee from here so he looked around and as soon as he said we should flee he saw the servants had not even waited for him they had fled already so now when they were all fleeing as he started fleeing he realised that the servants were dressed in common clothes he was dressed in royal clothes so he couldn't so easily sneak away so he decided to go to the opposite as many of the servants were fleeing out of the doors but he went right inside he locked the door and he went deep into the deepest inner chamber of his house he sat there silent motionless and when he was sitting there motionless completely the devotees came in and they started they started dancing and singing and such was their ecstasy they went and they saw the doors were locked they looked around they saw the gardens and they went to the gardens and started dancing and such ecstasy was there in their dancing that the whole garden became filled with their spiritual energy and then finally Lord Chaitanya came over there and Lord Chaitanya said where is this Qazi today I will destroy him so when he was so furious the devotees they they started feeling oh if the lord is so angry what will happen the devotees they fell at his feet he says oh lord you would manifest such anger when the whole universe is to be destroyed this is not the time for such anger please calm down oh lord here Nithyanand Prabhu earlier when Lord Chaitanya had exhibited similar anger that was when Nithyanand Prabhu had been attacked by Madhai at that time the Madhai had caused Lord Chaitanya's blood to fall Lord Nithyananda's blood to fall and when Chaitanya had seen this he had become angry he had manifested Sudarshan Chakra and he was about to send the Sarvanchakra to chop off the heads of Jagai and Madhai so at that time Nithyanand Prabhu had fallen at his feet and Nithyanand Prabhu said oh my dear lord if I have done any service for you if I have pleased you in any way I ask you for one benediction and what is that benediction please give me the bodies of these two people Jagai and Madhai in charity please forgive them so Lord Chaitanya's anger at Madhai for having hurt Nithyananda was unstoppable but the compassionate request of Nithyanand Prabhu was so great that Lord Chaitanya's anger could not stand in front of it and Lord Chaitanya agreed to forgive them similarly here when the devotees begged to Lord Chaitanya please oh lord your anger will destroy everything this is not the time for such anger so at that time Lord Chaitanya calmed down he was ultimately he is a supreme lord but he is Bhakta Vatsala he is a servant of his devotees and as he calmed down the devotees all around were still performing Kirtan so the general community of devotees was still in ecstasy it was a combination of ecstasy and anger along with that the inner associates of the lord they had calmed the lord down and they were waiting to see what the lord was going to do in the meanwhile many of the people who had been dancing and singing they started discussing who is this Nimaipandit how has he managed something so wonderful not only has he defied the order of the Qazi which nobody would have dared to do but not only has he defied the order but he has caused the Qazi to flee away so who is this how does he have this power and he has been exhibiting such spiritual ecstasy who is he some of them said he must be Lord Narayan who else can have such power others said no he may be Shukdeen, he may be Prahlad or someone says he may be Narada Narada is very good at singing and he sings so sweetly some others said maybe he is a powerful devta like Shiva or Brahma or Indra who has come to this world to fulfil the mission of the lord others said maybe he is a great devotee certainly he is a great devotee we can all see his exalted devotion as all of them were discussing who is this mysterious person the identity of the lord is not just a matter of a scriptural revelation yes, scripture does talk about when the lord descends and there are references to Lord Chaitanya's divinity in scriptures but along with the scriptural revelation complementing the scriptural revelation is the personal experience that is there when the devotees are present with the lord and that was how more and more the devotees understood Lord Chaitanya's divinity and here this was a spectacular pastime that he was performing where earlier he had exhibited phenomenal scholarship when he had defeated Keshav Kashmiri but here it was not just scholarship the scholarship was not even begun till now it was the mobilisation of thousands of people not just thousands, thousands upon thousands of people Chaitanya Bhagwat there Vrindavan Das Thakur describes that where did all the thousands of people come from he says first of all because Lord Chaitanya was going to descend in Navadvip so he had arranged for many many people to already be there in Navadvip Navadvip was very highly populated and those people they had latent devotion which became manifest when Lord Chaitanya appeared and then he says that further from the higher planets, the devtas when they saw the kirtans being performed they saw the sheer level of ecstasy that was there then they became attracted and they said how can we be deprived we also want to participate we also want to participate in these kirtans and they came in their own their own celestial forms but when they came in the celestial forms over here they saw that the people on this earth they are although we are so close to the Harinams and Kirtans we are not relishing the same ecstasy as what these people are relishing so they gave up their celestial forms and they took the form of human beings and in human forms they started participating in the kirtans and when the devtas came devtas are like kings of their own domains so the king is never alone so along with the king associates are also there so devtas came with their associates and they were in population large large number and along with that when the lord himself was there now his associates also came from various parts and they also joined the kirtan in fact at that time the Navadvip was transformed into a kirtan it was no longer the material world it was the spiritual world and not only the associates of the lord were descended to the material world with him to join his pastimes were there but even other associates came over there and this way thousands and thousands of people they all converged over there in this kirtan and as all the people were observing lord Chaitanya he suddenly he came to his consciousness and he went to the Kazi's door his palace he had a palace and then like if you have a castle and there is gardens and there are moats and there are other things so lord Chaitanya they had all crossed it over no moat over here they had crossed it over they had broken down the fences and they came to his house proper the palace and lord Chaitanya went and knocked on the door and knocked on the door knocking and knocking and knocking at that time as they were knocking so initially there was no response and the devotees kept knocking and the devotees were knocking and other devotees were there also they came and they were banging on the door and then the Kazi was in a remote corner and there were few of his servants who were still there they had not got the time to run away so they were still there with him so they were looking at each other the Kazi was himself looking very scared so the Kazi said to his servants if the more we keep them waiting these people they will become more angry and if they become angry at that time they will break the door and even they will come and get us but if they have broken the door their anger will be more and they will be more angry at us so you go and open the door and you try to pacify them so when he said that all the servants looked at each other they said you go so finally you all of you go and then when they saw the Kazi getting angry they went there and they went and slowly they opened the door they were hiding behind the door so the devotees came and said where is everyone they said they were covering behind he said where is the Kazi so they didn't want to say that the Kazi is hiding behind they said tell him that Nimai Pandit wants to meet him so when he said like that at that time they went and ran inside and said the Kazi Nimai Pandit wants to meet him the Kazi knew he has to go and meet so then the Kazi went out and he came slowly in front of Nimai Pandit normally he was like a king you would come marching ahead trying to be as inconspicuous as possible so Nimai Pandit was very conciliatory he says oh Chand Kazi here I have come as a guest to your house and instead of welcoming me you are hiding somewhere so Chand Kazi said Nimai Pandit forgive me but you did not come like an ordinary guest he said you were so angry you were so angry that I thought that I should let your anger cool down that's why I came a little later and then the devotees were looking some of the people were angry and they were also coming into their house Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not tell all of them to go away only he and his associates were there and then they were looking the Kazi was still very scared and then at that time Chaitanya Mahaprabhu asked the Kazi he said tell me oh Kazi one thing yesterday when the devotees performed the Kirtan you sent your men and you did so much trouble over there so much violence but today the Kirtan is going on in your own palace the devotees outside were still doing the Kirtans so he says why are you not doing anything the Kazi looked here and there he says can I talk with you privately so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu looked whenever the devotees none of them wanted to go they knew something special must have happened so they said none of them wanted to go they said all of these are my trustworthy people they are all my close associates whatever you want to tell you can tell over here Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said ok he had his costly dress he opened his dress and he showed his chest and on his chest there were marks as if he is on powerful nails and started ripping apart the chest he says can you see this all of them looked and all the devotees recognised what these marks signified and they looked at him they said what happened he said yesterday night when I came after performing after stopping your Kirtans then I went to my room and slept and when I was sleeping suddenly I had a nightmare I had a nightmare I saw a huge terrible lion like being so he jumped jumped from a window and came right into my arms and he came right next to me and he picked me up and he ripped apart my cloth and as the ripping of the cloth the sound came I opened my eyes and I realised it was not a dream it was really there and I looked at him and I thought initially he was a lion but he had hands and he was standing erect like a human being like a human being and he was roaring in anger he was roaring in anger and he took me and he shook me cloth fell apart and he caught me at the chest and I was scared to my death at that time and I just fell back I thought I am going to die now and he was ripping apart my chest and that's what the marks are and then he he I was I didn't know what to do I didn't know what to do and suddenly he said I decided this must be because of whatever kirtan I had done so I tried to remember what mantra you had chanted I chanted that mantra Krishna Hari I didn't remember the mantra I just chanted Krishna Hari and suddenly this mysterious being he let me go he let me go and he said no you disrupted my kirtan for this you should be destroyed but because you did not do too much damage so I am letting you go if again you disrupt my kirtan then I will destroy you completely he said no no I will never disrupt your kirtan I told him I will never disrupt your kirtan as soon as I said this the same person was so angry he smiled at me and the next moment he disappeared he disappeared and he said oh Chaitanya it is because of oh Nimai Pandit because of that person I did not stop your kirtan today as the devotees heard this they all looked at each other and they said Narasimha Bhagwan ki Jai so Bhaktivinoda Thakur he has written 108 names of Lord Gauranga and there one of the names he sings for him is Nagara Kirtana Simha Kazi Uddharana Shuddha Nama Pracharak Bhaktarthi Harana so he says Nagara Kirtana Simha he was of course he had appeared as Narasimhadev to chastise the Kazi but when he was marching through the kirtan at that time also he was like Narasimha he was like Simha Nagara Kirtana Simha and what did he do? Kazi Uddharana he delivered the Kazi and in Shuddha Nama Pracharak he propagated the pure glories of the holy name of he said that nobody can stop the chanting of the holy names when the holy name is chanted the Lord himself will come to protect he had declared he had demonstrated how the protection was there Bhaktarthi Harana Bhaktarthi the distress of the devotees he had destroyed so kindly repeat after me Nagara Kirtana Simha Nagara Kirtana Simha Kazi Uddharana Kazi Uddharana Nagara Kirtana Simha Kazi Uddharana Nagara Kirtana Simha Kazi Uddharana Shuddha Nama Pracharak Shuddha Nama Pracharak Bhaktarthi Harana Bhaktarthi Harana Shuddha Nama Pracharak Bhaktarthi Harana Shuddha Nama Pracharak Bhaktarthi Harana Shuddha Nama Pracharak Bhaktarthi Harana Nagara Kirtana Simha Kazi Uddharana Nagara Kirtana Simha Kazi Uddharana Shuddha Nama Pracharak Bhaktarthi Harana Shuddha Nama Pracharak Bhaktarthi Harana Shri Gauranga Mahaprabhu ki Jai In our next class we will discuss about the conversation that took place here after that is a philosophical conversation that we will discuss in our class next Wednesday Thank you very much Are there any questions?