How Lord Nityananda Complements Lord Chaitanya – Part1

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Shri Nithyananda Prabhu ki Jai.
Shri Prabhupada ki Jai. Shri Nithyananda Swami iti namine. Namaste Saraswati Deve.
Gauravani Pracharine. Nirvishesh Shunyavadi. Pashyatya Deshitarine.
Vanchakalipatarubhashya. Trupasindhubhya evacha. Patitanam pavanebhyo.
Vaishnavibhyo namo namaha. Jai Shri Krishna Chaitanya. Prabhu Nithyananda.
Shri Advaita Gadadhara. Shri Vasadigaur Bhakta Vrinda. Hare Krishna.
Hare Krishna. Krishna Krishna. Hare Hare.
Hare Rama. Hare Rama. Rama Rama.
Hare Hare. Hare Krishna. So I’m grateful to be here with all of you today.
At any time if I’m not audible or visible clearly, please let me know. So we are discussing today and tomorrow about the extraordinary magnanimity, mercifulness of Lord Nithyananda. And I will discuss this from a particular framework.
That framework is how within Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Nithyananda Prabhu, they are both eternal manifestations of the Supreme Lord and yet they embody different moods. Lord Chaitanya’s mood overall is the mood of magnanimity. He is namo Mahavadanyaya.
Krishna prema pradayate. Mahavadanyaya. One who is extraordinarily, unparalleled merciful.
And yet even within there can be levels of mercy and we consider Nithyananda Prabhu to be an even more merciful manifestation of that same divine principle. So in general it is said that in every tradition there are liberals and there are conservatives. Now these words can sometimes be very easily misunderstood.
And in some places those who are considered liberals are looked down upon. Liberals means those who are loose, those who are relativistic, those who are lax. That word might have a negative connotation in some circles.
And conservatives, that word might have a negative connotation in some places. Where somebody is conservative is considered to be narrow minded or bigoted or very rigid in their, very opinionated in their own views that I am right, I know everything. However, it is not like that.
So the perspective which I will be taking is that how while Lord Chaitanya himself embodies the Mahavadanyaya avatar, even within the manifestation, supremely merciful incarnation, even within that also this dynamic of liberal and conservative plays around. And it is that to some extent while Lord Chaitanya, both Lord Chaitanya and Lord Iktananda are merciful, but we could say Lord Chaitanya manifests the conservative side of the tradition, Lord Iktananda manifests the liberal side of the tradition. And both of them are together.
Both of them are spreading the mission together. In fact on our very altar, both of them are dancing together. So liberals and conservatives, they don’t have to be at loggerhead with each other.
They don’t have to fight with each other. And this liberal conservative is not just an abstract philosophical debate or just a debate for some people at some levels of the GBC or something like that. In our own lives, there are times when we need to be strict with ourselves or strict with others also if required.
And there are times when we need to be more understanding, understanding with others and understanding with ourselves. So let’s try to understand this principle of liberal and conservative as it applies to every tradition. And then we will see how it applies specifically to the manifestation of Gaura and Nitai.
So I’m sharing my screen here. You see a tradition. Here you will see the tradition to be like a line coming from the past.
And then that line meets the plane. And where the line meets the plane, that is the living tradition. So the tradition as existed in the past and as it is existing at the current moment, that is the living tradition.
And now that living tradition is connected to the past by fidelity, by faithfulness. And that living tradition is connected with the present by flexibility. So flexibility is resourcefulness.
So resourceful, what does it mean? That there are certain truths in every tradition that can’t be changed. And those truths need to be preserved. So we can call this as fidelity is faithfulness.
So if we have a say a high fidelity sound recorder, then as the sound originally was, it is reproduced. That is faithfulness. Now faithfulness is extremely important.
But at the same time, flexibility is also required. So you can see flexibility to be like the links. So the link that connects the tradition with the past is fidelity.
The link that connects the tradition with the present is flexibility, that is resourcefulness. So what do we mean here by resourcefulness? We see Isla Prabhupada himself. Now there are some traditional rules that sannyasis shouldn’t travel across the oceans.
And there is a purpose for that, that if the world is more materialistic in certain areas, especially in the western parts of the world, a sannyasi may find it difficult to follow the principles of purity of sannyas. That is for their protection. But Prabhupada went beyond those things.
He was flexible. He was resourceful. And Prabhupada wanted to build a temple.
He wanted to start a centre in America. But initially he didn’t have the resources and he couldn’t get the financial resources from India. His followers didn’t have those resources because they were hippies, counterculture.
They didn’t really have a lot of money. So Prabhupada was flexible. Prabhupada converted a storefront into a temple.
And in many ways, for many traditionalists, Prabhupada’s temple would have seemed to be, this is not a temple at all. Where is the spire on top? Where are the deities facing the east? Where is this? Where is that? But Prabhupada was resourceful. He was flexible.
Whatever was available, he used it. And quite often if you go to the Lower East Side 26th Avenue, if you go to that temple now that has been preserved, that is the place from where far more spiritual potency emerged and spread across the world than what has from many other temples which might have grand architecture, might conform rigidly to architectural norms about temple building. So flexibility connects us with the contemporary world and fidelity connects us with the tradition.
And both are required for the tradition to stay living. Now if you consider, more concerned with fidelity. The living tradition, the conservatives are very concerned that the traditions stay connected, the living traditions stay connected with the past, the traditional world.
So that is their priority. And that’s why they are very, very concerned whenever anything seems to be changed. The conservatives in general are very cautious about changing things.
Liberals are also cautious about changing things, but liberals have a different priority. Their priority is to connect with the contemporary world. To connect with the contemporary world means that this is where people are at.
And this is how, this is what we need to do to connect with the people who are liberal, with the people who are at that level. So traditionally for a sanyasi to actually, a sanyasi is served by and cared for by people who are themselves expected to be pure. One of, once I was taken, I was a part of a yatra of some young devotees who had gone to Puri.
And suddenly it started, it was a yatra, it suddenly started raining. And so when it started raining, at that time what happened was that the devotees found some shelter and they went to nearby Gaudiya Math. The building which they went to was the Gaudiya Math.
And when they went there, they saw there was a sanyasi who just came over there and the sanyasi was going to take prasad. He looked like a very venerable sanyasi. So one of the younger devotees says, can I serve prasad to that devotee, that sanyasi? And the assistant sanyasi said, are you second initiated? He said, no.
Then you cannot serve a sanyasi. So now that was the standard they were following over there. Now if you look at Prabhupada, what to speak of having second initiated devotees cook for him, Prabhupada was cooking for people who were, leave alone second initiated, first initiated, they were not even pre-initiated devotees.
They were people who were just living lives which would be considered very impure by traditional standards. In fact, for many of those early seekers who came to see Prabhupada, their only regulative principle was to break all regulative principles. All kinds of activities that we would consider impure.
And yet Prabhupada served food to them, lovingly cared for them and after that they would just treat it as a hotel and walk away. And Prabhupada would wash their plates. So this was Prabhupada’s compassion.
So the point is, a devotee is concerned both ways, to stay connected with the past and not just the past, Krishna who is eternal, who has manifested through the tradition in the past and a devotee wants to stay connected with the people in the present. And the way I will present, I will, the point which I am going to make is here that Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda, they manifest a particular way of practising Bhakti and sharing Bhakti. And what is that way? That while Lord Chaitanya, both of them are a part of the immensely devotional, devotionally potent, immensely merciful manifestation of the Lord, still there is a difference.
And the difference is that while both of them are merciful, so they manifest a devotional mercifulness, but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is relatively speaking culturally conservative and Nityananda Prabhu is culturally liberal. I will explain what I mean by this. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was devotionally very liberal in terms of being always available, travelling far and wide and giving Bhakti to everyone.
But at the same time, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was quite careful. He was quite careful in terms of who he, for example, who he took prasad with. So, I will show this over here.
So Lord Chaitanya was culturally conservative. You know, when he went to Varanasi, at that time most of the people over there were Mayavadis. So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu went there and he had their own, only two people who were devotees at that time, everyone else was Mayavadi and Prabhupada says that Varanasi is like the Vrindavan of the Mayavadis.
Vrindavan of the Mayavadis means that that is the place where all Mayavadis congregate and delight. And there were these two devotees of Lord Chaitanya and now one of the associates of Lord Chaitanya over there was a Brahmana and the other was not a Brahmana. So what did Lord Chaitanya do? Lord Chaitanya stayed, Lord Chaitanya wanted to give his mercy to both devotees.
He had by his plan asked them to go to Puri long before they had actually, long ago, so that eventually when he would come there would be someone there to be with him. But while he was there, he stayed at the house of the devotee who was not a Brahmana, but every single day Lord Chaitanya went to the house of the devotee who was a Brahmana and to Prasad over there. At one level, we can say through this, he gave his association to both of them.
At another level, what we see is he respected the sensitivities of the local cultural environment over there. He did not disrupt that cultural environment. In terms of what? That traditionally it was expected that a Sanyasi should take Prasad only at the house of a Brahmana.
And so it is described, now if we consider this, what I am saying, let’s look at the Chaitanya Charitama briefly. So in a dream, Chandrasekhar Acharya had seen that Lord Chaitanya had come to his home. Therefore, in the morning, Chandrasekhar went outside to receive the Lord.
Now this is outside Varanasi. When Chandrasekhar Acharya saw that the Lord has come, he became delighted, he fell at his feet and he invited him to come to his home. And then Tapana Mishra also heard that Lord has come, that this is Chandrasekhar Acharya and Tapana Mishra were the two associates of Lord Chaitanya who were devotees and who were in Varanasi.
So then he went to Chandrasekhar Acharya’s house to meet him and he invited Lord Chaitanya to come to his place for taking lunch. So then, in the meanwhile, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s assistant Balabhadra Bhattacharya, he took Chandrasekhar Acharya’s house. Chandrasekhar Acharya was not a Brahmana.
And then Tapana Mishra requested that please do not accept any invitation from anyone but me. And so every single day, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu ate at the house of Tapana Mishra. So now of course this is at one level a personal reciprocation with Tapana Mishra.
But you can think about this from a perspective. So if some sannyasi comes to your house, that person is staying at your house but never takes any prasad at your house, we would consider to be, you know, what did I do? Because he didn’t want to agitate the minds of the Mayavadis in Varanasi. He eventually wanted to reach out to them.
He wanted to elevate them to the level of bhakti. And the only way he could have done that was by, first of all, earning their respect. So if they thought that this person is sannyasi, he doesn’t even have a sense of discrimination.
He doesn’t understand where to take food and where not to take food. He doesn’t understand what is pure, what is impure. Then they would not have considered him even worthy of conversing with.
Already they are criticising him, you are sannyasi, why don’t you study Vedanta? Why are you chanting and dancing on the streets like this? So that is a co-demotional principle. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu didn’t change that. He still chanted, he still danced, he still sang on the streets.
But at the same time, he showed deference to the local cultural norms. How? By accepting. Okay, this is what you want, this is what you will respect, then I’ll do that.
So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was culturally conservative. So he cared, in one sense, we see that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is very, very conscious of public perception. So in one sense, now in today’s culture, if you want to be conscious of public perception, we will have to be somewhat liberal, at least in most of the world.
But the point is that he was conscious of public perception and for that, in order to make sure that the public perception doesn’t become negative, he was culturally quite conservative. That’s why he would not even meet Pratap Rudra. That where Pratap Rudra was a king and he wanted to meet him, but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said that what will people think, that if a sanyasi is hobnobbing with a wealthy person like a king, they will think does a sanyasi have any renunciation at all.
So he didn’t do that. And even when he gave his mercy to Pratap Rudra, it was only when Pratap Rudra came in the garb of an ordinary person. Now in contrast, we see Nityanand Prabhu.
Nityanand Prabhu is, you could say, culturally radical. He was an avadhut. Now some people, there are different opinions, whether avadhut was technically a sanyasi or not in the traditional sense.
Now Prabhupada says he was an avadhut sanyasi. Now avadhut sanyasi is not exactly the same as like a formal tridandi sanyas or even ekadandi sanyas. It is a person whose avadhut as the word means, it just means going beyond the rules and regulations of society.
So he was avadhut, but still he was in the renounced order. And Nityanand Prabhu, he in one sense remarkably flouted cultural norms. There are times when Nityanand Prabhu would dress in extraordinarily opulent clothing.
And there is a beautiful story which we might discuss in tomorrow’s session. But the point is that he, by the way he dressed, he was dressed so opulently that some thieves were attracted to him. Now thieves might respect Lord Chaitanya from a distance or they might not care for him.
He is a sanyasi. What do I got to do with him? So the people whom Chaitanya Mahaprabhu couldn’t reach, Nityanand Prabhu reached by extraordinary manifestations of mercy. So he is dressing himself in very opulent clothes.
Not the opulent clothes, he would wear costly ornaments and he would dress like a king. And that’s what worked the attention of these thieves. Oh, maybe we can rob from him.
And they came again and again and they tried to rob. And in trying to rob Lord Nityanand, they thought about him, they realised his power and eventually they were delivered. And eventually Nityanand Prabhu had what can be called as robbers, other robbers and they would preach to them and they would make them into devotees.
So Nityanand Prabhu did that because he was culturally radical, he was culturally liberal. He defied the normal cultural norms of how a devotee, what to speak of a renounced devotee like a avadhut should dress and he dressed in remarkably different ways. So he reached to people who would normally not be reached out to.
Similarly, we see that there is a statement Chaitanya Bhagwat where he says that even if Lord Nityanand goes to a liquor house or a brothel, I will not doubt Lord Nityanand. I know that he is going there to deliver those people. Now why does he make this statement? That at one level we can say it is a statement of faith in Lord Nityanand.
Definitely it is a statement of faith. But it is also along with that a warning. A warning that don’t apply material vision to judging Lord Nityanand.
Because Lord Nityanand would do many remarkably provocative or questionable things and he was purely motivated. His motivation was compassion. And in fact Lord Chaitanya tells Lord Nityanand also that is one of the reasons that you please become a grahastha.
As a grahastha you can reach out to people whom I can’t reach out to. And Lord Nityanand had no interest in becoming a grahastha. But he accepted that for what purpose? To reach out to people.
And then that’s what he did. So we could say that at that time for somebody who was in the renounced order, whether it was a technical sannyas, in the traditional sense or the adhut sannyas, whatever it was, sannyas. And in some ways even now if a sannyasi changes the ashram that raises eyebrows.
So we could say at that time it would have been much more. But Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did that out of compassion. We see that Nityanand proved it out of compassion.
Lord Chaitanya was a grahastha and he became a sannyasi so that he could reach out to more people. And Nityanand was a sannyasi and he became a grahastha so that he could reach out to more people. That’s resourcefulness.
What is required where that varies from place to place. According to time, place, circumstances. And this difference between, in one sense the mission is the same.
Sometimes we talk about the mood and mission of Srila Prabhupada. Yes, the mood and mission is important. At the same time the two are different.
So Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda had the same mission. But they had different moods. So we can have many different devotees in our movement who are carrying on the mission of Srila Prabhupada.
But their mood might be different. So sometimes we just look at the mood and say, your mood, this is not right, this is wrong. Criticising somebody as a deviant and so many things.
And actually this is what happened with Lord Nityananda. We read in the Chaitanya Charita Amrit that actually there were loving conflicts between Lord Nityananda and Advaita Acharya. And these were very sweet and transcendental.
Both of them had the deepest respect and the deepest love for each other. Both of them knew that they both loved Lord Chaitanya and Lord Chaitanya loved both of them. At the same time they had their own personal and peculiar ways of dealing with each other.
And sometimes some of their followers couldn’t understand. Advaita Acharya we could say, although he was also very merciful and in some ways he was also culturally, you could say again he was devotionally radical. Although there are many other brahmanas and he said that Vaishnava IQ is far far greater.
But at the same time in other ways Advaita Acharya was somewhat conscious of the culture. And conscious of the people’s perceptions. And again when you talk about people’s perceptions, we are talking about which people are we talking about.
Because people are not one homogeneous unit. So Lord Chaitanya was concerned about and Advaita Acharya to some extent, they were concerned about the Brahminical society at their times and how that Brahminical society was going to perceive them. Lord Nityananda Prabhu was not so much concerned about how that Brahminical society perceived them.
He was concerned more about how he can reach out to people who have been left out of the Brahminical society. He can reach out to people who have been largely left out of the Brahminical society. Now they may have been left out because they themselves left or they may have been left out because the way they were living, the Brahminical society turned away from them.
Actually, Nityananda Prabhu wanted to reach out to them. And to reach out to different people, one has to present things differently. We cannot use the same message to reach out to all kinds of people.
Of course, the core message will be the same, but its presentation has to be different. At a very basic level, if we are speaking to people in different parts of the world, we may have to present the message in their language. So if we go to South America and say people don’t know English over there, then we may have to speak in Spanish or if we go to certain parts of Canada, they may not understand English over there, so maybe French has to be spoken over there.
We go to certain parts of India, remote parts, English may not work there, we have to speak Marathi or Bengali or Odia or Kannada or Tamil or whatever. So now if I say I am going to speak in scriptures and Sanskrit, I will speak only in Sanskrit. Prabhupada wrote his books only in English, so I will speak only in English.
Well if you are too rigid, you are not going to reach to people. So in a sense, the living tradition is like a dynamic dance of faithfulness and resourcefulness. So Lord Chaitanya is the embodiment of that merciful tradition and he is, in broadly speaking, he and Nityanand Prabhu, there is a dynamic dance between the both of them.
Nityanand Prabhu represents the liberal side of the tradition, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu represents the more culturally conservative side. And this is seen especially in the pastime of Jagaiyan. What happens in that pastime? Chaitanya is doing ecstatic kirtans and there are many Brahmins who want to be a part of it and somehow Chaitanya Mahaprabhu doesn’t let them because he feels that they don’t have devotion.
But then the kirtans start happening outside and people start coming for those kirtans and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu inundates the whole of Navadvip with devotion over a period of time. So those who are conscious, who are a part of the Brahminical culture, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu by the sheer power of his devotion removes whatever barriers might be there. Some Brahmins criticise him.
But many people eventually become won over by his spiritual purity and potency. So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu reaches out to the people who broadly are following the Brahminical culture and they are part of the Brahminical culture. But Jagai and Madhai had fallen out of that Brahminical culture.
And so they heard Lord Chaitanya’s kirtans and they thought ok these people are doing some good thing. They would sometimes in fun say Hare Krishna and imitate the kirtans. But they had no interest.
They were not concerned. Some of the Brahmins were saying are you really following the scriptures? Where do the scriptures say these names should be chanted? Maybe some other mantra should be chanted. Why chant any mantra at all? They are not concerned about it at all.
So Nityananda Prabhu went to such people. And when he went to them what did he do? He reached out to them at great personal risk. So we see Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda, both of them are working together.
I was making the point that danger and deviation can come not just from the contemporary world. It can come even from the tradition. Now what do we mean by how can danger and deviation come from the tradition? If you consider not just the specific Gaudiya tradition, if you consider the broad Vedic tradition as it is being lived out in today’s world, the greatest damage to the living tradition in today’s world has been done by the caste system.
And what is the caste system? The caste system is a deviation that has come from the tradition. That means at some time in the past, maybe several thousands of years ago, people started thinking that the caste is determined not by guna-karma but by janma. Not by qualities and activities but by birth.
And that has become an entrenched notion. And that notion is not today coming from the contemporary world. It is coming from the tradition itself.
So it is not that everything that we get from the past is necessarily pure and everything that we get from the present is necessarily impure. Nor is it that everything that we get from the present is impure. And certainly of course it is not true that everything that we get from the present is right.
So the important thing is to be purposeful. So Lord Nityananda was purposeful. The purpose is to reach out to as many people as possible.
So Jagai and Madai were left out by the Brahminical society. But Nityananda Prabhu decided to not leave them out. And what did he do? When he heard about Jagai and Madai, at that time on hearing about them, he actually became excited.
It is described in Chaitanya Bhagwat that his eyes became excited with compassion. He said amazing. He said if I can deliver Lord Chaitanya’s mercy to these people, these two brothers and they become delivered, then the whole universe will sing the glories of Lord Chaitanya.
And just as in the past Lord Narayan is glorified for having delivered Ajamil, similarly Lord Chaitanya will be glorified for delivering Jagai and Madai. So in one sense when he reached out to those people. Now Haridas Thakur is considered Namacharya.
And he was himself, we could say from the traditional perspective, outcast. And he was not only accepted by the Gaudiya Vishnu tradition but elevated to the level of Namacharya. But even Haridas Thakur had some hesitation.
You can’t go to those people. They are violent. They will attack, destroy.
So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mission of compassion was carried forward by Lord Nityananda and when he carried that forward, what did he do? He actually wholeheartedly dedicated himself to reaching to places where no one else has reached. And most people would not even think of reaching there. And that was his, in one sense, for a person who was, the people who were doing all kinds of reproachable activities.
They were so impure because of their reproachable activities that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says that if people even had the shadow of Jagai and Madai falling on them, then they would go and bathe in the Ganga to purify themselves. So the idea was that they were very impure and people would keep a long distance from them and late what did Nityananda Prabhu do? Nityananda Prabhu went to them. Now why did he go to them? Because he wanted to reach Lord Chaitanya’s mercy to them.
And the way to do that was he had to be culturally liberal. So Brahmadas in those societies would live very purely and they would not associate with people who were so impure. They might give some discourse and people might benefit from that.
They might perform some rituals or some sacrifices where even people who are impure might come and get some benefit. But they would not go out of their way to associate. An extreme example of this or extreme perversion of this, the purity, being pure is good.
Seeking to be pure is good but being puritanical, puritanical means I become more conscious of my purity than other humanity. I become more conscious of my purity than other humanity. That means in order to maintain my purity, I look down upon others, I demean others and then I make people feel filthy, I make people feel dirty, unworthy and being puritanical is very bad.
So when somebody is puritanical then people get alienated by that. So now those who have a holier than thou attitude, I am higher than everyone else and you are all low born, then what happens is you just can’t, you can’t actually reach people. At one time I had gone to NIT Rourkela and they had organised a big seminar in the auditorium, almost like a thousand students were there and after the talk many of them wanted to ask questions.
So I was staying in their guest room which was near the auditorium, many of them came to the guest room and there were almost 40-50 students who had come, all of them came and met for some time and there was one boy who was just standing outside and he was just standing outside asking, why don’t you come in? He looked at me, the others looked at each other and he looked at me. Why don’t you come inside? Can I? I said, yeah, if you have some questions, please come. He said that actually I am an untouchable.
I thought he may not want me to come in. So when I heard that, I was so perturbed. I actually got up and went out and pulled him into a hug and then brought him inside and seated him right next to me and I answered his questions.
And then after that one of the boys said that we are having a lot of Christian missionaries over here. They come and he said that when we even go to the Jagannath, Rourkela is near Odisha, near Jagannath Puri and he says even when we go to any temples, the priests over there, they look down upon us, they treat us as impure. But when we go to a church, if at all we go to a church, they treat us, they welcome us, they treat us as the children of God.
So why is this difference like this? So why is it that in our own tradition we are looked down upon? So it seemed that there was a whole group of people, somehow they had come for their seminar because it was more of a self-help kind of talk, but they were from the schedule caste kind of thing and then they had quite a reservation or even aversion toward Vedic culture. So but somehow they liked my talk and then they wanted to come and discuss further. So when I heard about it, I felt so sorry.
So that within their own culture, within the broad Vedic culture, they are treated as outcasts. And then they go to some other religion, they say you are the children of God, you are the son of God, welcome. So it is unfortunate that while our philosophy tells ultimately that everybody is equal, that we are all souls, we are all parts of Krishna, but sometimes we lose our humanity.
So in the name of this is how things are to be done. Now there can be valid reasons why say a pujari, especially a pujari who is doing deity worship wants to be pure and they may say, you know, I am going for the altar, so please keep a distance from me. But that can be done in a polite and respectful way.
That doesn’t have to make, that I am doing a service which is pure and that requires me to be pure. But that doesn’t mean I have to look down upon others and say that others are impure. So puritanical means that our concern for our purity eclipses, overshadows, almost eliminates our humanity and then that can backfire terribly.
So we can alienate people if we become puritanical. We want to be pure, we want to help others become pure, but we can’t afford to become puritanical. So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mercy was manifested in different ways to different people.
Now a pujari on the altar or going to the altar may have to maintain certain standards of purity. But the same pujari, that person is giving a class and going out to people and reaching out to them. At that time if a person starts emphasising too much principles of purity, then you cannot reach out to people.
So just as Nityanand Prabhu reached out to people whom Chaitanya Mahaprabhu couldn’t reach out to. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as a Lord can do anything and everything. And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did what he did through Nityanand Prabhu.
But personally he wanted to manifest a particular example and devotionally both of them are merciful. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu from a devotional perspective, he was also quite radical. As we know in the kirtans in South India, he would just go and embrace people and there is no mention of what caste they were from and he would embrace them.
He would just embrace them and they would become surcharged with devotion. And they would become permeated. So in one sense Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is also very very magnanimous.
In that sense he can also be liberal. But in that particular context of what are the cultural norms expected for purity, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu focused more on reaching out to people of a particular group and Nityanand Prabhu focused on reaching out to people in a particular group. And that’s how they both reached out to different kinds of people.
So Nityanand Prabhu manifests the mercy of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in the way where he was culturally liberal. And tomorrow I will elaborate on these two themes of how he delivered the Jagai Madai and how he delivered the themes. We will discuss further aspects of how the conservative and the liberal, just as Gaur and Nitai, they are together.
And they are dancing on the altar together. Similarly, we all may have particular focusses, we may have particular inspirations, we may have particular moods. But rather than focussing on the mood, we focus on the mission.
And that’s how we can minimise the conflict and we can focus, maximise the magnanimity. Whether that magnanimity manifests as cultural conservatism or whether it manifests as cultural liberalism. The important thing is it manifests as spiritual potency, as devotional mercy that elevates and enriches our hearts and elevates and enriches others’ hearts.
Just as Lord Nityanand Prabhu did for Jagai and Madai and just as he did for the themes whom he delivered. So I will summarise what I spoke today. I spoke broadly on the theme of how Gaur and Nitai embody a dance of the culture of the conservative and liberal in our tradition and in that connection I talked about what is liberal and what is conservative.
So in a living tradition, what connects us with the past is fidelity and that is or you can call it faithfulness. And what connects us with the present, with the contemporary world is flexibility, that is resourcefulness. So conservatives are more concerned with staying connected with the past and liberals are more concerned about staying connected with the present and both are important.
So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was of course the magnanimous incarnation, no doubt. But at the same time, he was devotionally magnanimous and he was culturally somewhat conservative. I discussed the example of how he was very careful about whom he would take his food from when he was travelling.
Because he was reaching out to some people, people within the Brahminical culture. So Sanyasin, Mayawadis, they would look down upon him so much that he doesn’t even know where to take food. They would not have listened to him at all.
So he did that. He didn’t want to associate with Pratap Rudra because he wanted to be respected as a Sanyasi and not be seen as attached. But Chaitanya Prabhu would dress opulently and he even changed from Sanyasa Ashram to a Grahastha Ashram.
So that he could reach out to people that others couldn’t reach out to. So Jagai Annamadai and the thieves, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was attracted by his magnanimity. And similarly in our lives, we also discussed how Prabhupada was both conservative in some ways, liberal in some ways.
In terms of reaching out to people, Prabhupada did what was required. And danger and deviation can come from the contemporary world but it can also come from the traditional world. The caste system is an example.
And if we become puritanical, that means our concern for purity eclipses our humanity. And that’s how we may alienate people. I talk about an example in Jagannath Puri, where people within the Hindu, broad Vedic tradition feel that they don’t belong here, are made to feel that they don’t belong here.
And then others make them, give them a sense of belonging and then that is tragic. So for reaching out to different people, sometimes different modes of presentation are required. So rather than focussing on the mood, if we focus on the mission, then we all can dance together in the family of Lord, in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, just as at its start, Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda are dancing together.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Are there any reflections or questions? Thank you so much for joining the call on behalf of myself and Dr. Senga.
We thank you so much for the call. Do you have a moment to answer any questions or maybe let people give reflections, devotees give reflections? If anyone out there, if anyone would like to ask Prabhuji a question or give a reflection, please do so. Hare Krishna, Prabhuji.
Nandak Pranam. Very, very beautiful, beautiful class, Prabhuji. And you know, he nicely explained how to understand the mood of Shri Nityananda Prabhu for preaching and reaching out to the people, explaining the mission of Srila Prabhupada, how Srila Prabhupada was so compassionate to the people who are meat-eaters and doing so many things.
But thank you so much, Prabhuji. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.
Yes, Kadam Priya Prabhu, you want to say something? Hare Krishna, Prabhuji. Nandak Pranam. My question is, like we understood about liberal and conservative understanding.
So a devotee, like which path a devotee should take, Prabhuji? Should a devotee be liberal or devotee be conservative or a mixture of both of them? And also like I’ve seen, like for example, we live in a house and some materialistic people, they come to our house and they say, Oh Prabhu, why did you buy a house in this direction? The house should be in the northeast or this direction. You should do worship in east direction. You’re not supposed to do this.
You’re doing bhakti, but you don’t know all these things of Vastu. So, Prabhu, what shall we do in this case to go? Okay. So, should devotees be liberal or conservative? Well, it depends a lot on Deshe Kaala Patra, as we say.
See, to some extent, it is not entirely a matter of choice. This liberal conservative is not just within, say, our movement. It is everywhere.
If you consider the mainstream US politics, there is one part which is considered liberal, the other is considered conservative. It is not just in politics. It is everywhere.
I am a writer. I study the English language. So in English language, what is the duty of the guardians of the language? Say somebody writes a dictionary.
Are they meant to be liberal and include new words or new meanings of words? Or are they meant to be conservative and say this is the right meaning of the word or this is the right word for this? Language keeps changing. So, if a language doesn’t change, then the language dies. Greek and Latin died because they didn’t adapt.
English has become among the most widely spoken languages in the world because it adapted. It included more and more words. So the liberal conservative, so the idea that these are the words and these are the words only which should be used.
That’s the conservative. No, these are new words in the language. That’s liberal.
So this is the dynamic is that everywhere. And to some extent, even since we studied by neuroscience and other things by psychologists and neuroscientists, it seems that to some extent, our brains are wired in particular ways. So so we could say that conservatives are more concerned with orderliness.
And liberals are concerned more with openness. So things should be done in an orderly way. That’s the concern of conservatives.
Liberals are more of openness. You know, it’s a new opportunity, new place or new way of doing things. Let’s explore.
So what happens is that this is so to some extent, it may not be so easy for us to change. So some of us may be actually more conservative. Some of us may be actually more liberal.
What we can do and what we should genuinely try to do is not claim that this is the only way. This is the way that works best for me. And we can be honest in admitting that to ourselves and admitting that and telling that to others.
No, I need my space to do things. This is the way I will do things. But the problem comes when the liberals start criticising the conservatives or conservatives start criticising the liberals.
So so to some extent, we have to see what causes us agitation. So if, say, we are individuals who value orderliness more than openness. And then if somebody criticises us for being disorderly, that will agitate us too much.
We will ourselves not be able to tolerate disorderliness and will not be able to tolerate that criticism that you are being disorderly. You are not doing things as they should be done. So, for example, the criticism which you mentioned, OK, in your home, the altar is not in this way, not that way.
That’s basically a criticism that things are not as they should be. Now, OK, things were done in a particular way in the past. Is that the way they should always be done everywhere? Well, maybe, maybe not.
That has to be that has to be decided. It’s more important to have an altar in the home than to have an altar in a particular direction only. So now for some of us, one way you can know whether we have that conservative orientation or that liberal orientation.
See, we all will be criticised in life, but certain criticisms will hurt us more than other criticisms. So, for example, if I’m a writer, I value language very much. And if somebody criticises me that your English is terrible.
That will annoy and anger me much more than say, somebody says, you can’t sing properly. Well, I know I’m not a singer. I can’t sing properly because that’s not what I am good at.
That’s not what where my values are invested so much. I know singing is important, but I can’t do that. So somebody criticises me for that.
That won’t affect me so much. So similarly for us, two things we can understand to decide. Now, if some what is it that disturbs us the most, sometimes disorderness disturbs some people the most.
For some people, for some other some other people, closeness. Now, why are you so rigid like this? Why can’t you be a little adjustable? That disturbs them the most. And similarly, for some people to be criticised, you’re so close minded, you’re so narrow minded.
That is an unbearable criticism. For some other people, that you are disorderly, that is an unbearable criticism. So what disturbs us in the world around us and what disturbs us from the people around us, that can help us get a sense of whether we are, we could say, wired more toward conservatism or wired more toward liberalism.
So we are individuals in our tradition. Now, we don’t have this point to go. We don’t have the room to go over there.
But I have a separate class on this that how in our tradition Bhaktivinod Thakur is much more liberal. Bhaktisansur Thakur, relatively speaking, was more conservative. And in some ways, Prabhupada was quite conservative.
Bhaktivinod Thakur was intellectually quite liberal. And Prabhupada was intellectually quite conservative. So we will need to explain that.
But the point is again, these are all transcendental Acharyas. And they are all serving Krishna, but they all have their own personal way of serving Krishna. We are not Acharyas, of course, but we are individuals and we have to, we have to do Acharya in our life.
So we can’t act in a way that is unnatural to us. Krishna says that, He says, if somebody is a conservative, if you force them to become liberal, if somebody is, you know, this is the time we should wake up, this is the time we should do this, this is the time we should do this, this is the time we should do this. And that gives them a sense of structure and order in their lives.
And that makes them feel, yes, I’m doing something worthwhile. So if that is what gives them strength and security and stability, then we should respect that. And we should let them do that.
That’s what gives us respect, that’s what gives us stability. We should also do, we should also value that and do that. But for some other people, you know, say, if there’s an opportunity for some particular service, some opportunity for some association and that goes late into the night.
And then we sleep late and then we wake late. And not that we are watching movies late night, but we’re doing something devotional. Maybe it takes late night.
OK, it’s a little disorderly, but we are able to reach out to people. We are able to do things we should not have been able to do. There’s openness.
So what is more important? Is orderness more important? Is openness more important? Ultimately, devotion is more important. Establishing the devotional connection is more important. So we have to see each one of us how best we can establish a devotional connection.
And accordingly, we mould our lives. If we are prayerful, then Krishna will give us that guidance, how best we can serve. So if somebody especially wants to reach out to new people, then to some extent they need to be liberal.
If somebody feels that I don’t have that inclination to be liberal, then they don’t have to. The best thing is we can have our way of practising bhakti, but we don’t insist that this is the only way. That the conservatives can also be practising bhakti very earnestly and they will also be compassionate.
And liberals can also be practising bhakti very earnestly and they may also be strict in their own ways. But their definition of strictness may be different from the definition of strictness for the conservatives. So we find the space within ourselves for ourselves to practise bhakti and we move forward that way.
So does it answer your question? Yes, Prabhuji. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.
So yes, I don’t know how much time we have. Vivek Prabhu? I’m inaudible. Hare Krishna.
The class was very good. It was helpful. I have a doubt.
Prabhuji, with Guru’s mercy only we got this devotional service, right? Guru has planted the Bhakti Lata Beej. So we also have this duty to protect it. Someone may smash the creeper, right? We have to be somewhat careful, right? While preaching also, we have to keep this in mind and preach consciously.
So how should we take this? How can we know that the person may not damage our bhakti and we can preach to him? Oh, okay. Now I understand your question. What you are asking is that in trying to reach out to people, how do we protect ourselves? Yes.
Yes, Prabhuji. Exactly. That’s a valid concern.
So we have to at least to some extent know our adhikar, know what is my level. So while there is a mission of compassion, there is also the question of competence. So suppose somebody is in the police or they are in the army and they are protecting the country from barbarous invaders or terrorists and if this person, this soldier has simply an ordinary pistol and the opposite terrorist has a machine gun, an automatic gun it’s just no matter how sincere this person might be in defending the country, they will be slaughtered.
So maybe in that situation, they didn’t need to fight with that particular terrorist. They can fight some other battle and let somebody else fight this battle. So in the actual conduct of bhakti, sincerity is important, but competence is also required.
So for example, now we may want to reach out to people who would normally not come up to bhakti. But if somebody is completely like an advocate of a particular ideology, somebody might be an advocate of Mayawad, somebody might be an aggressive preacher of atheism, somebody might be an aggressive preacher of say communism or relativism in some way, postmodernism. Now if we try to reach out to them and they will make such arguments that we will get bewildered.
Maybe I am wrong, maybe I am right, I don’t know. So this can happen at an intellectual level, this can also happen at a cultural level. At a cultural level, what may happen is that sometimes in reaching out to people, we may end up in situations that maybe are not the best for our spiritual life.
So once I was in America only, I think in Texas in one place and it was a college programme. I gave a class and there was an American girl, she asked a question, why do religions fight among each other? So I gave an elaborate answer, explaining about the modes and exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralism elaborately. So I could see that she was very satisfied with the answer.
And after that she came to meet me after the class and she said, this question had been burdening me for so long. Your answer has relieved me. I am so grateful.
And she said, can I give you a hug? I was taken aback. Now I appreciated that for her it was just an expression of gratitude. Now I couldn’t say, obviously I couldn’t say yes.
At the same time, I didn’t want to be rude to her and say no. I didn’t want to be puritanical and then say you know that. Then I just looked at the devotee who was next to me, who had organised the programme.
He was a Grahastha preacher. I signalled with eyes, please help me. So then he helped me but in a very unexpected way.
So he said, you know, he is a monk. So on his behalf, you can hug me. Now I said, that’s not what I expected.
So then what happened was, his wife was there next to him. And his wife said, he is my husband. On his behalf, you can hug me.
And then that girl hugged that Mataji. So now we have to be careful. So after that incident, I realised that I will usually not go for a programme where entirely new western people, if there is no Grahastha devotee with me.
So I tell them, you know, you are my protectors over there. So we have to know our Adhikar and accordingly, make sure that we don’t put ourselves in situations that are too dangerous. So whether it is culturally, whether it is, whether it is relationally, whether it is intellectually, we reach out according to our capacity.
Does that answer your question? Yes. Yes, Prabhuji. Thank you.
So thank you. So we’ll have one last question and we can stop. We can continue tomorrow also.
Yes, Mohanlila Prabhu. Hare Krishna, Prabhuji. Please accept my humble obeisances.
Thank you very much for a beautiful lecture, Prabhuji. It helped quite a bit for me, you know, in understanding the concept of liberalism and conservatism and how we should navigate. My question is again through navigation through this, Prabhuji.
In an organisation setting, right? At least I find myself swinging or struggling with this, right? For example, when we hear from a speaker who is conservative, you know, you take some inspiration from there. When you hear from somebody who is liberal, you take some inspiration. Or even in leadership roles, when we make decisions, we are having to navigate between, you know, conservatism and liberalism.
How do we navigate through this, Prabhuji? Because sometimes what happens is when, example, right? When you speak, you know, when you hear from a conservative person and you try to implement and you struggle through it and then you say it’s impractical, right? How do we navigate through in an organisation setting? And how do I make it personal to myself, Prabhuji? That’s a big question. And it will take time to answer that. So we have two options because this is going to be a theme which I’m going to discuss tomorrow also.
Will you be there for tomorrow’s class? Yes, Prabhuji. Absolutely. Yes.
So I can answer now, but I don’t want to extend everyone’s time. Shyama Gauri Mataji, you can tell me what should I do? Because this is going to be a theme in tomorrow’s class. Should I address it tomorrow or should I address it now? Yeah, Prabhuji, you can answer the question, but don’t reveal the secret what you are going to reveal.
Okay, that’s difficult. I’ll just mention a couple of points. This will be like a killer photo over there.
So basically, when we are working within an organisation, there will be people with different moods. And in one sense, we can say that Prabhupada’s house is big enough to have liberals also and to have conservatives also. And we could say that they have their own rooms.
And sometimes, of course, within the temple itself, there will be people with different moods. But overall, each particular centre, leaders will have a particular mood. And overall, we can try to align with that.
But in our personal life, we have to find what works best for us. So broadly, I’ll say three principles which I will elaborate tomorrow’s session. First is that recognise that in our movement, the house is big enough for space for everyone.
And if we tend to be of a more liberal orientation and we hear from conservatives, then that can act as a cautionary note for us. I shouldn’t go too far. I shouldn’t become too liberal.
And see, everyone can go too much in excess in that particular natural direction. So a liberal may become too liberal, a conservative may become too conservative. And I have had some very, very important discussions for my own growth by discussing with devotees whose stands are different from mine.
So we can understand their concerns. Those may not be our primary concerns. So we can understand that there is space for both.
That is the first point. And how there is space for both, that we can understand by having discussions if we have the opportunity. And beyond that, at an organisational level, the organisation is too big.
And don’t get involved in conflicts which are not directly relevant for us. In Chaitanya Bhagwat, it is said that if two senior Vaishnavas are having a conflict, don’t take sides. Just continue your practise of bhakti.
The organisational conflicts will be dealt with at an organisational level appropriately. And it would be nice if those didn’t come out in the open. And I will discuss that theme tomorrow.
And the third point is that in our lives, focus on what works best for us. So now, initially, at least in the first few years of our spiritual life, it is important that we have some guidance. Of course, we need guidance all the time.
But in the first few years at least, it is good to have some regular guidance if we can. And by that we start understanding what is the important thing in bhakti. So the important thing is to chant our holy names, to practise bhakti, to chant the holy names, to do the sadhana bhakti.
Say, if for doing that, if being liberal is creating me too much problems, then maybe I don’t need to be so liberal. If for doing that, being conservative is creating me too much problems, then maybe I don’t need to be so conservative. So both liberal and conservative are meant to help us do better the activities of, the core activities of bhakti.
And not only for us to do them better, but to help us to reach others and help them do it better. So we will discuss this more in tomorrow’s session. Thank you very much for your thoughtful questions and for this opportunity to talk about Lord Nityananda’s mood in our contemporary context.