How Mahaprabhu’s mood is seen in Chaitanya Charitamrita’s structure and Prabhupada’s mission

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. I am grateful to be here with all of you today, the lotus feet of the Lordships. So today we are discussing the heart of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu being revealed.
The heart of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu being revealed in these initial chapters of the Chaitanya Charita Amrita. So I will be using this as a white board to write or draw certain things. I explain, sorry for the technical delay in certain things.
Is this visible? Okay, the white is a little lower. Can you change that? What if I change this colour? Is this better? That’s okay. Thank you for your efforts.
So I’ll talk about this as a class. I take this class in three broad parts. We’ll be talking about first here, Mahaprabhu’s Mool, what is being revealed over here.
Then I will talk about the Chaitanya Charita Amrita structure. Then I will talk about the relevance, especially as presented by Srila Prabhupada. Now, the Chaitanya Charita Amrita in this particular section is talking about the heart of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
What is Mahaprabhu saying? That he is the seed of the tree of love of God. But he also, I want to be the tree. What does it mean? That Mahaprabhu’s compassion is so great that he doesn’t just want to make the doors to that compassion open.
He wants that compassion to reach everyone. There might be some terrible disease, pandemic, and say, somebody works very hard and discovers the cure for the disease that is causing the pandemic. It’s a big thing.
But that person will say, okay, I’m a researcher. I’m not a publicizer. I’m not a campaigner.
I’m not a polemicist. Otherwise you have to publicise that this particular medicine works. The government will not approve of that medicine.
Then you have to fight and lobby and do all those. I don’t want to get into all that. I’ll just make the medicine.
Those who want, they take it, they use it. But Mahaprabhu’s mood is saying that I don’t want this to have the message of love of God available in one corner of the world. I want it to go everywhere.
So it is, if we consider the mood of Mahaprabhu, it is providing a solution. That’s one thing. Providing means, okay, this is available, but then it is promoting the solution.
So we see this later when Mahaprabhu, there’s only one incident as far as I have seen, very explicit in the entire Chaitanya Chaitra Ram where Mahaprabhu actually makes a call to his devotees. There are many places where he gives instructions. There are many places where he expresses his heart.
But when Mahaprabhu is in Varanasi and Prabhupada called Varanasi the Vrindavan of the Mayavadis. What he meant by that was, that was the headquarters for them. And he said, Mahaprabhu said over there, I have come with so many fruits of love of God and I want to distribute them to everyone.
But there are so many fruits and I have only two hands. So how many people can I distribute? And the point is, in Varanasi, he was especially disappointed. Of course, the Lord is transcendental and the Lord does not experience emotions like disappointment.
But that’s a very superficial understanding. It is that the Lord is filled with love and love as the basis of a real relationship means that there are entire gamut of emotions are there. So the Lord out of his loving compassion went on a tour of North India and a tour of South India.
First South India, then North India to try to share Krishna Bhakti vigorously with everyone. And when especially North India, nobody seemed to be interested. Mahaprabhu actually went to Varanasi twice.
There are very few places in his tours where he explicitly went twice and tried to preach twice. Yeah, Mahaprabhu went on a South India tour and he retraced his steps to some extent. So he visited many of the places.
But it was more like a preaching expedition twice. And the first preaching expedition, even for Mahaprabhu, didn’t seem to be successful. Mahaprabhu just left from there and went to Vrindavan.
Second time when he came, that’s the time when he met Prakashana Saraswati. And when he met Prakashana Saraswati and they had an interaction, they had a discussion. When Mahaprabhu spoke, that is the time Prakashana Saraswati understood what is real Prakash, what is real Ananda and what is real Saraswati.
So, he understood what is that ultimate light, that Prakash, that is actually the effulgence of Krishna. What is Ananda? Brahmananda is there, but Bhaktiananda, Premananda, that is far, far bigger. And what is the real blessing of Saraswati, the goddess of learning? It is not just to see beyond the illusions of this world, to go towards the undifferentiated ocean of oneness, that is Brahman.
It is to go beyond Brahman to the all-attractive Supreme Personality of God, Hare Krishna. So, Mahaprabhu’s second preaching mission was phenomenally successful in Varanasi. But the first one was unfortunately not.
And at that time when Mahaprabhu is leaving from there, he is saying that, I wanted, I want to share these fruits, but there are so many, so few people who are here, who are here to distribute it. Anyone will be distributed. People are not just ready to take it.
People have to be convinced. See, the problem with Maya, among many others is, let’s see, Maya, it has two Shaktis. One is called as the Prakshepatmika.
Prakshepatmika is the throwing tendency. And the Avaranatmika. Avaranatmika is the covering tendency.
So, if you consider a movie, nowadays people can watch movie in their homes also. And if you go to theatre, it is much more expensive. But why do people pay so much to go to a movie theatre to watch a movie? Because the illusion seems more real in a theatre.
So, what happens is that when we go into a movie theatre, first the lights go off. So, we are disconnected from everything around us. And in front of us, the lights go on.
So, the lights go off, that is the Avaranatmika Shakti. We can’t see anything else. And then the lights go on.
Those lights are so seductive, it may not be directly a sexually seductive movie, but just the fact those lights are glittering and so many images are coming and so many things are happening, it gets captivated. That’s the Prakshepatmika Shakti. So, the problem with most people who are in illusion is that they don’t consider being in illusion a problem.
Most people who are sick, they realise they are sick and they want to come out of the sickness. But suppose there is a sickness which doesn’t make us feel sick while it is destroying us from inside. That’s the nature of cancer many times.
Till it gets to stage 3 or stage 4, especially some cancers, we don’t even realise they are there in our body. And we think we are perfectly fine. So, Maya is like that.
So, most people, when they are in illusion, they don’t feel the need to come out of illusion. Because what’s wrong with illusion? It’s enjoyable. There’s one thinker who said that the problem with the world is that the wise are full of doubts and the foolish are full of confidence.
So, when we are practising Bhakti, we have doubts. Will Krishna really care for me? Will Krishna protect me? If I try to serve Krishna, will Krishna be there for me? So, we have our doubts. The wise are full of doubts.
But the foolish are full of confidence. The materialistic people, if I just win this award, I will be happy. You know, if I can just get this person as a partner in my relationship, my life will be perfect.
If I can just get this job, if I can just get into this college, my life will be happy. Krishna says, they are certain that this is the But the point I am making over here is, Mahaprabhu feels that there are so many fruits of love of God to give and so few people to give it in a way that is effective, that people will accept it. And that’s the time he makes an appeal.
He says, please assist me. Please assist me in distributing these fruits of love of God. Actually, Prabhupada in lecture says that, actually the whole Krishna consciousness movement is actually assisting Mahaprabhu in taking those fruits of love of God and distributing it to everyone else.
So, this is Mahaprabhu’s mood of compassion. So, Mahaprabhu is relishing love of God. He is savouring love of God.
But he is also sharing love of God. Internally he is relishing it and externally he is distributing it. So, as we know, Mahaprabhu is a combination of Krishna and Radha.
Shri Krishna Chaitanya, Radha Krishna Nanyanya. So, when he is in his Radha mood, he is savouring Krishna Prema. So, especially towards the Anta Leela, Mahaprabhu enters much more into his Radha mood.
That’s why he doesn’t travel so much. He focusses more and more on simply relishing. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care for the world.
He is caring for the world by having these demonstrations of divine love in the material world. So that people can know that there are such states of loving ecstasy also. But when he is in the mood of Krishna, he is sharing Krishna Prema.
This is the time when he is in the mood of the Yuga Avatar. He is in the mood of the person who is delivering the world. So, in South India tour, in North India tour, they are in the mood of Krishna.
And the Gaudiya Acharyas say that especially Mahaprabhu’s meeting with Ramanand Rai, who is an intimate Sakhi in the spiritual world, Vishakha Sakhi, that meeting triggers the Radha Bhava within him. And slowly that Radha Bhava starts becoming more and more. And when he returns to Puri with and Ramanand Rai is also there, then that Radha Bhava predominates.
So, there is sharing Krishna Prema and there is savouring Krishna Prema. So, Mahaprabhu wants to do both. So, as the root of the love of, root of the tree of love of God, he is actually telling the world that there is something like this also existing.
But as the tree itself, he says, okay, that tree might be there as a seed, but nobody will notice the seed also. But when it comes as a giant tree, that’s when the tree gets noticed. So, like that, so what is this savouring Krishna Prema, that is like being the root of the tree.
The tree is there, it’s in potential. But sharing Krishna Prema is the breadth of the tree. The tree manifests and the breadth is there.
And Mahaprabhu is saying, I want to be both. I want to do both. I want to relish this Krishna Prema and I also want to distribute this Krishna Prema.
So, this is the first point that about Mahaprabhu’s mood as is manifested in this particular verse. Now, we’ll see how this is manifested in the structure of the Chaitanya Charita Amrit. After Mahaprabhu departed from the world, he was such a phenomenal person that according to historical records, 27 biographies were written about him.
So many people wanted to write down their memories, their experiences. Now, one of the reasons why biography is written is that we love the person so much that we can’t tolerate the idea that the person’s memory will be no more. The person may be no more, but at least no more in the material sense, they are not here in this world.
But we can’t tolerate that the person’s memory will be no more. So, so then many biographies were written. Nine of them are extant.
Extant means still present. Now, Murali Gupta’s Karchas were the first thing that was written. And then those became the resource material combined with what they had heard from different places, by different people, from different people.
And Chaitanya Bhagwat was a prominent biographer. Chaitanya Mangal was another prominent biographer. Now, Chaitanya Charita Amrit is the last biography that is written.
And this biography became the authority to biography. Generally, after any Acharya departs, there can very naturally be confusion. Prabhupada himself writes, an Acharya brings order amid chaos.
But when the Acharya departs, then the order often departs with it and chaos re-emerges again. That’s just the nature. However, the Acharya also gives teachings and a legacy by which from that chaos, order again can emerge.
Now, from the perspective of historical study, the Gaudiya Vaishya Sampradaya is an extraordinary Sampradaya. I am not saying this because we belong to it and it’s a self-congratulatory statement. But, in that, Mahaprabhu’s departure from the material perspective was very sudden.
Otherwise, Acharya sent him a message and then, just, okay, that’s enough. He departed. So, normally, whenever there is succession, there has to be succession planning.
In our movement also, which Prabhupada’s disciples now, in their sunset years, there is some succession planning going on. Now, succession involves broadly three things. There are persons who are appointed as successors.
Then there are papers. Papers means the will is written. And there are processes.
Processes could mean an organisational structure set up. This is how things will function. So, Prabhupada appointed, for example, 11 gurus at that time.
Prabhupada appointed certain gurus and whatever be the number. And Prabhupada set up the GDC as the process by which succession could happen. Now, these three processes could broadly mean some organisational structure.
I am not using the word organisation specifically because it may not always be an organisation. But some kind of process has to be there. How are things going to go on after me? Now, in the case of Mahaprabhu, he didn’t do any of these three things.
He did not appoint any particular person as successor. He didn’t write his will. And Mahaprabhu was also not a person who wrote much.
He was a profound teacher and successors would write. His disciples and his students would write books. Mahaprabhu wrote Shikshashakam, which is an expression of devotional ecstasy.
But that was not a guideline for how to function in the world, how to live in the world or how his followers should live in the world. And he certainly did not start any organisation. So, from that perspective, that the Gaudiya Vaishnava organisation has survived, the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition has survived itself is a historical miracle.
And that it has thrived is a far greater miracle. Now, we could say, of course, Mahaprabhu had his prominent followers who did become successors. Well, yes, that is true.
But Mahaprabhu did not formally appoint or anoint anyone. So, broadly speaking, after Mahaprabhu departed, there were three pockets of influence. As you can see, my drawing is very good.
So, it’s a perfect replica of those areas. So, there is Bengal, there is Orissa and there is Vrindavan. So, in the Vrindavan, in Vrindavan, the Goswamis were there, whom he had sent specifically for the mission of restoring and rejuvenating Vrindavan.
And Bengal was his birthplace, his appearance place itself. And there, although he had left, the memory was very strong and he had many followers from his childhood. And this had been his sannyas kshetra, the last years which had been.
He stayed in Utkal, Utkal is Orissa, the Orissa area. So, these were the three broad areas where he had focused. And now, in all these three areas, Mahaprabhu’s followers tried to continue in their own ways.
However, there was a significant difference. Now, between at least, see these two areas were relatively similar. Shri Mata also told Mahaprabhu, please don’t go to Vrindavan, please stay in Puri.
Because Jagannath Puri and Mayapur are just like two rooms in the same house. The people keep going up and down. I know about your whereabouts and your well-being.
So, these two devotees were reasonably well connected. Now, Mahaprabhu was born in Bengal and the books that were written by the devotees over here were primarily in Bengali, the literature that came out. And they were about the Leela, they were about Gaur Leela.
They wrote books about the pastimes of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as they had heard them, as they had witnessed them and as they became a part of the, you could say, folklore, not in a negative sense, but in the collective memory of their followers over there. Now, Vrindavan was not a part of Bengal. Nobody spoke Bengali over there.
When the Goswamis went there, they wrote books primarily in Sanskrit. Because that was the language of the intellectual elite of those times. The Sandarbhas are in Sanskrit.
Gopal Champu, that is also in Sanskrit. And while Mahaprabhu had gone there, he had been there for two months and it had been a sensational time. But still those two months had gone.
Like some travelling preachers come and their classes, their presence, their interactions, they inspire people. But if they go away and they never come back, then slowly the memory fades. The influence also fades.
So, Mahaprabhu had had a significant impact on Vrindavan. But after he had gone, it was not that Vrindavan became a place of Gaurabhakti. Vrindavan remained a place of Krishnabhakti.
And that’s not true. Mahaprabhu didn’t want to change that. So, the books that were written in Vrindavan were primarily in Sanskrit and they were about Tattva.
The Satsang Darbhas are about philosophy. And in the Satsang Darbhas, if you see, Jiva Goswami, it doesn’t refer much to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He offers his respects and obeisances to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu at the start.
But beyond that, he is establishing the teachings of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. So, what happened as a result was, there was this big void. If you consider this one mountain here, one mountain here.
So, there is the Bengali mountain and there is the Vraja mountain. So, what is happening over here in Bengal? There are two things over here. What is the chasm between these two? The language is Bengali and the subject is Leela.
Here the language is Sanskrit and the subject is Tattva. So, now these two sets of followers, both were devoted to Mahaprabhu. But both were doing two very different things in some sense.
So, now the bridge that was built between the two of them is the Chaitanya Charitaam. Now, how is that a bridge? Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami was born in Mayapur. Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami was born in Mayapur, in the Navadvipa area, in Bengal basically.
So, he grew up hearing the pastimes of Mahaprabhu. Mahaprabhu was very much a part of the collective memory of the people at that time. Then Ittyanand Prabhu instructed him to go from Bengal to Vrindavan.
And in Vrindavan, he studied extensively under the Goswamis. He heard Mahaprabhu’s pastimes from Krishnadas Goswami, but he studied with Rupa Goswami. And he then wrote Chaitanya Charita Amrit.
And Chaitanya Charita Amrit is a combination of Tattva and Leela. The previous biographies of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Chaitanya Bhagwat or Chaitanya Mangal, they are wonderful books, but they are not philosophical expositions, with all due respects to them. They have philosophical assertions.
Anybody who has heard Mahaprabhu is like this, like that, they have philosophical assertions. But there is not much philosophical exposition. Philosophical assertion means Krishna is a Supreme Personality of Godhead.
That could be a philosophical claim. It is a philosophical statement. But is there a philosophical exposition, substantiating the statement, challenging, countering the challenges that might be made to the statement? So, that is what the Chaitanya Charita Amrit has done.
And see, generally speaking, if we consider a movie, movies are so much in the collective imagination people’s world. So, we look at that way. So, if we consider movies or we consider books, I write books quite a bit.
So, this is in a movie or in a book, editing is very important. Now, what is editing meant to do? Among many other things, there is one editor who said, the purpose of editing is to delete the pages that the readers will skip. So, delete the pages that the readers will skip.
That means, anything that is redundant, anything that is uninteresting, anything that is repeated, that the author might be in a creative ecstasy, creative flow, and the author may just keep writing. But this has already been said. This is not required.
This does not need so much elaboration. So, then the editor edits them out. So, the author might write a 600 page book, and the editor might reduce it to 300 pages.
So, the 300 pages that have been edited, they are not just lost. They are there. They are there as an invisible weight.
The key points are there, but the extra has been, the fluff has been removed. So, in movie editing also, the editor sees from the perspective, okay, what is really interesting? What is going to catch people’s attention? And that we keep. Now, hundreds of movies, thousands of movies are made.
Many of them, some of them become blockbusters. Many of them don’t. Most of them don’t bother.
Some of them become flops. Last year, there’s a new word that has come out in the Oxford edition. They call it flopbuster.
Not just a flop, like you spend 100 million making a movie, and the movie doesn’t even make 0.1 million. It just disappears completely, sinks. That’s called a flopbuster.
So, now why do movies flop? Because the illusion is not good enough. Because people don’t find the illusion interesting enough, captivating enough. So, it just becomes boring.
The characters are unrelatable. The action is just going on monotonously. So, the point I’m making over here is that the things which people consider interesting, normally an editor will expand those.
And the things which people are going to consider uninteresting, the editor decreases those. So, that is the normal process of editing. Normal editing is what? The interesting things, we expand them.
And the uninteresting, we shrink them. But the reason I’m using this background is the Chaitanya Chaitanya Amrit’s editing. Chaitanya Chaitanya Amrit is, in one sense, editing means Mahakrishna Rajagopal Swami took whatever tattva was there, whatever leela was there, he put that together in one assembly, in one structure, in one book.
Now, how he has done is, in one sense, that which is interesting for most people, he has shrunk it. And that which is uninteresting, he has expanded it. Now, what do we mean by this? See, some of the most dramatic past times, say Mahaprabhu confronting Chandakasi.
That’s such a dramatic, sensational past time. It’s described very briefly over here. And what is expanded is the philosophical discussions.
The discussion between, there are five great conversations Mahaprabhu had with Prakashanth Shastri, Sarvam Bhattacharya, with Rupa Goswami, with Sanatana Goswami and with Ramananda Rai. And those conversations are expanded. If you look at the verses, those chapters have hundreds and hundreds of verses.
It just takes so long to read through the chapter also. Now, if the most devotee can read the Srimad Bhagavatam, when it comes to the prayers, just skip the prayers and go to the pastimes. Because in one sense, that doesn’t seem so interesting.
So, while it is Chaitanya Charita Amrit, the uninteresting part apparently has been expanded. And the dramatic past times, the drama of the past, if you want to read the past times for the sake of drama, Chaitanya Bhagavatam is so much more dramatic. Even Mahaprabhu’s childhood pastimes, it’s, sometimes there is an event that happens.
And there is a description of the event and then there is a report of the description of the event. The two are very different. So, when there is a description of the event, you get transported into that.
Chaitanya Charita Amrit also is a very beautiful book. I am not in any way minimising the poetic and the devotional beauty of the book. But Krishnaskiraj Goswami had a particular focus.
The focus was that he did simply want to repeat the pastimes that were told by the previous teachers. He did previous authors. He did tell them.
But his focus was to bring about a marriage between Bengal and Braj. And that is why. Now, because the Bengali devotees were familiar with the biography genre.
That’s where the way most books were written. Most of the biographies of Mahaprabhu were written. So, they were familiar with the biography genre.
So, he wrote a book in the genre of a biography. But he wanted to bring the theology, the tattva that the Goswamis had developed. So, basically, Chaitanya Charita Amrit is actually theology plus biography.
It’s almost, if you look in terms of the extent, how much time is devoted to something. Based on that, we can see it’s much more a work of theology than biography. But it is a work of theology in the format of a biography.
In the format of a biography. So, he tells the life incidents. But whenever there is a philosophical discussion, he zooms in.
And then he elaborates on that. So, for many people, philosophy doesn’t seem very interesting. And philosophy will come, they will zoom out.
Let’s focus on the philosophy. And after he wrote this book, Chaitanya Charita Amrit became such a classic that it brought the various branches of Gaudiya Vaishnavism together. And so, Chaitanya Charita Amrit is one of the key books that ensured that the succession from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu continued on.
Who was Mahaprabhu really? What did he teach? What did he stand for? So, now, of course, he stood for love of God. But in terms of theological exposition, that’s what Krishna’s Kaviraj Goswami did. And this book has such a significant place in our tradition.
And that, it is, its primary focus is theology. That’s what is seen from the very structure of the Adi Leela. It’s called Adi Leela.
But in one sense, you can see the Leela begins from chapter, quite after the 10th chapter. You know, it begins from, I believe, chapter 13, if not chapter 17. If you go to Chaitanya Charita Amrit, you will see that, yeah, the advent of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is chapter 13.
So, there are 16 chapters in the Adi Leela and the Leela is actually beginning from, after almost three-fourth of the book is over. It’s like, imagine if there is a, nowadays there are these movies which are multiple series movies. They are three-part movies.
Star Wars had so many sequels and prequels and so many things like that. So, there is a three-part movie. And say, each movie is three hours.
And the hero and the heroine, they enter after two hours. So, what is going on over here? So, it’s not exactly like that, but the Leela begins long, much later. Why is that? Because Krishna is trying to find a particular purpose.
So, for him, Adi Leela, the Adi doesn’t just begin with Mahaprabhu’s appearance. He starts with the reason for Mahaprabhu’s appearance. He starts with the reason for the appearance of Mahaprabhu’s associates.
He starts with the heart of Mahaprabhu in which his reason is described as an own word, not just for his appearance, but for his activities thereafter. So, if you consider, he gives so much point, first two, three, four, five, six chapters, they are all giving the background. And then there are three chapters which are simply giving list of means.
If you see, after this, this nine chapter, 10th, 11th, 12th chapter, the trees and branches of the tree, the expansion of Anitya and the expansion of Adaracharya and Adar Pandit. So, what is going on over here? See, here, Jaitanya Charita Amrit is doing the job that Mahaprabhu wanted his followers to do. Who are his authorised followers? Who are not his authorised followers? So, because after the teacher departs, there are many people can claim that, oh, this teacher said this to me, I am doing this because the teacher told this to me.
So, when you notice that Prabhupada said this, okay, nice, Prabhupada may have said it, but is there a reference for it? Especially if somebody makes some statements which seem to be radically different from general mood that we know of Prabhupada, then it’s an important question. So, what happened was, there are many people who are claiming to follow Mahaprabhu. And unfortunately, Sahajiyaism also came afterwards.
So, here, Jaitanya Charita Amrit is delineating the boundaries. Who are the actual followers and who are not the actual followers? So, after doing all this, then Jaitanya Charita Amrit starts launching into the pastimes of Mahaprabhu. So, the particular chapter we are in, where Mahaprabhu is describing, I am the seed of the tree of love of God, but I also want to be the tree.
Then, after this, in the next chapters, Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami will be telling, who are the branches of that tree? Who are actually following the will of Mahaprabhu? Who are fulfilling his mission? And by not mentioning some people, he automatically, he doesn’t condemn them explicitly, but he automatically implies that they are not really, they may be chanting Mahaprabhu’s names, but they are not really authentic followers. So, that is the significance of the structure of Jaitanya Charita Amrit and how the particular verse, where it falls. The last part I’ll talk about is Prabhupada’s mood and mission.
Now, Prabhupada says in one conversation that many people are telling me to translate the Jaitanya Bhagwat, but I have decided to translate the Jaitanya Charita Amrit. Now, if you see, this was a very significant decision and also, if we go a little bit backwards, Bhaktivinoda Thakur also grew up in a time when Jaitanya Mahaprabhu was still there in the collective memory of Bengal. It was several hundred years later.
But still, Mahaprabhu’s impact was such that at least in terms of the stories, he was a part of the religious folklore at that time. However, Bhaktivinoda Thakur was not attracted by that. He was born in the Shakta family and then he became a part of the Bhadraloka.
He became a part of the intellectual elite of his time and he read a lot of western philosophers and he even studied, explored Christianity, mostly explored Unitarian Christianity and he was in one sense that way a spiritual eclectic. He was studying and drawing from various traditions. But it was when he read Jaitanya Charita Amrit that his heart got transformed.
He, before that, had bought in to the, or at least in terms of the way his Leela was manifested, that he seemed to be affected by the typical rational criticism of Krishna that he is an immoral person. How can he have a relationship with the Gopis outside the bonds of marriage? And to the extent Bhaktivinoda Thakur had heard about Mahaprabhu, he knew that Mahaprabhu was a great strict Sanyasi and among the many criticisms that came of Mahaprabhu over the years, nobody criticised Mahaprabhu for immorality, sexual immorality. Mahaprabhu was above any, unimpeachable in that category.
So, Bhaktivinoda Thakur had this question that why would a person of such unimpeachable moral character or enunciate like Mahaprabhu worship a God like Krishna who seems to be a debauchee? And it was when Bhaktivinoda Thakur read the Chaitanya Charita Amrit, that he felt his prayers were answered. It was the Chaitanya Charita Amrit that brought Bhaktivinoda Thakur to Gaudiya Vaishnavism. That’s from the external perspective.
From the internal perspective, it’s the past time of the Lord. So, but his Gaudiya Vaishnavism manifested through the trigger of Chaitanya Charita Amrit. So, this book has very great significance and that’s why Prabhupada focused on translating that.
And Prabhupada himself had both these moods. The mood of relishing, of savouring Krishna Prem and sharing Krishna Prem. So, as devotees, we need to be doing both of these things.
Devotion is a matter of both connection. We have to have our connection with Krishna. And then there is contribution.
Contribution to Krishna. So, connection is more internal. As Prabhupada translated Bhakti as devotional service.
You could say Bhakti. So, the contribution is external. We have many different responsibilities in the world, but even if we are grahasthas, we have family and social responsibility, if we are brahmacharis, we have our services in the world, which require us to interact with the world.
So, there is a connection and there is a contribution. Maam anusmara yudhya cha. There is internal remembrance and yudhya cha.
Doing our responsibility, contribution. So, now each one of us has to find a healthy balance between the two of them. Now, Prabhupada found his own balance.
Prabhupada, it said, a lifetime preparation he spent. And then he came abroad. He had phenomenal success in terms of his contribution.
Now, we could say that throughout his life for 30-40 years, he was preaching and there was no result. That was a part of Krishna’s plan. But it is also that during all this time, Prabhupada was solidifying his connection with Krishna.
So, sometimes, if we do some service and we are able to make a lot of contribution, we get a lot of success, we get a lot of praise, we get a lot of applause in the world, material success we get. We distribute a lot of books. We give a class and hundreds of people applaud for the class.
We upload a YouTube video and we get thousands of followers. Then, are we doing all that for the sake of Krishna or are we doing it actually for the sake of the world’s applause? That’s a serious question to be considered. When Prabhupada continued serving Krishna for 40 years without getting any result, if Prabhupada had been motivated by worldly results, he would have given it up long ago.
But through all that time, when he was getting no results, actually he was getting a result. The result was his connection with Krishna was becoming stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger. So, normally, if a person tries one thing and doesn’t work, tries second thing and doesn’t work, tries third thing and doesn’t work, that person starts becoming bitter.
So, sometimes, some people, even devotees, start talking with them. After the initial courtesies are over, there is so much complaint. Oh, this person is like this, this person is like that, this devotee is like this, this authority is like that.
Now, they may have genuine grievances. We are not denying that. And sometimes, even devotees need to vent out.
But the point is, if we are more complaint conscious than Krishna conscious, then that is not a healthy state to be in. So, the point is, when Prabhupada was an unknown Swami walking on the streets of America, the people who met him, they saw that Prabhupada was so happy. Even though Prabhupada had no followers, Prabhupada was happy just speaking about Krishna, writing about Krishna.
Prabhupada spent so much time and effort writing his books, he had no idea whether he would even have funds to publish his books. But Prabhupada was happy doing that. So, Prabhupada’s connection with Krishna was what was forged with the first 40 years of his life.
Of course, again, I am talking from the perspective of how things are manifested in this world. From the perspective of a transcendental perspective, you can say, Prabhupada always had a connection with Krishna. But their connection was forged, solidified, tested and demonstrated to be utterly pure by the many years of outreach that was not successful.
And then the last 10 years, Prabhupada got phenomenal, historically unprecedented success. And Prabhupada once told his followers, he says, Krishna, he told the G.B.C. that Krishna can give you the whole world in 18 days. Just like Krishna gave Arjuna the victory in the Kurukshetra war in 18 days.
But are you ready for it? So, if Krishna gives us the world, will we just take the world and forget Krishna? Thank you, Krishna. Bye-bye. Will we do that or will we stay with Krishna? So, for each one of us, both of these are important.
If there is only connection there and no contribution, then what happens is we become irrelevant to the world. We might be in ecstasy chanting Hare Krishna. But nobody will understand what we are doing and nobody will care what we are doing.
Isn’t it? This only connection, we become irrelevant to the world. But if there is only contribution, we will get so caught in what results we are achieving in the world that Krishna will become irrelevant to us. That, you know, I am doing this for Krishna.
But Krishna just becomes a tool for decorating our ego. So, we can get disconnected with Krishna in the name of connecting with Krishna. So, we need a balance of both.
Mahaprabhu was savouring and sharing. So, basically for all of us, our sadhana. Sadhana is not just the rituals of waking up in the morning and doing this, this, this activity.
Sadhana is doing those activities which actually connect us with Krishna, which help, which assure our consciousness in the presence of Krishna. Now, how, what is spiritual growth and how we can ensure that we are going spiritually? That’s going to be the topic of my today’s evening session. But essentially, it is our sadhana that brings us in connection with Krishna.
And it is our seva that helps us to do contribution to Krishna. And we need to have a balance of both. And at different times, say, when the marathon is coming up and Ratha Yatra festival is coming up and Janmashtami is coming up, that time maybe the seva has to be more.
But then there are other times when we need to make sure that we are also connecting with Krishna, that Krishna remains for us the biggest reality. The world never becomes a bigger reality than Krishna for us. In that way, we can be following the footsteps of Mahaprabhu and the footsteps of Srila Prabhupada and both savouring and sharing Krishna consciousness.
So, to summarise what I discussed today. Broadly, we discussed today about the mood of Mahaprabhu and subsequently the Gaudiya Sampradaya, the Gaudiya tradition. So, the first part I discussed was about Mahaprabhu’s mood itself.
So, He is the seed and He is the tree. That means that the seed, that is His Radha Bhava, He is savouring Krishna consciousness. And as a tree, it is the Krishna Bhava.
He is sharing Krishna consciousness. So, both of these are important. And we see for Mahaprabhu, distributing the fruits, food distribution was such an important task, especially was any other Krishna Bhava, that He makes an appeal to all of us, to everyone, please assist me in distributing this.
So, before we can actually distribute the fruits of love of God, we ourselves should be convinced that this is something worth distributing. This has some deep value to it. It has some value which people need, but they don’t have.
So, that’s Mahaprabhu’s mood. Then we discussed how the CC structure, it is a continuation of Mahaprabhu’s mood. So, there are many biographies written after Mahaprabhu departed.
You know, it’s the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, the succession is a miracle. Why a miracle? Because all three things that are required, persons, papers, processes, none of them were formally there. So, how did the tradition continue? That was because of the Chaitanya Charita Amrit.
It acted as a bridge between Bengal and Vrindavan. The bridge was in terms of the language. Here it was Bengali and it was Leela.
And in Vrindavan, it was the books, the literature that is in Sanskrit and it was Tattva. The Chaitanya Charita Amrit acted as a bridge where its biography format, but its theology is the core, is the centre. I discussed how in a movie, what is highlighted and what is downplayed, that shows the editor’s priority.
So, the CC, the priority is the theology. That’s why those are expanded over there. And the last part I discussed is Srila Prabhupada’s movie.
So, Bhakti has these two aspects of the internal connection with Krishna, that is the devotion and the external contribution to Krishna, that is the Seva. So, we can say for Prabhupada, 1922 to 1965, that was his connection was tested and demonstrated to be utterly pure. There was no motive for worldly fame.
Still, Prabhupada continued on. And then after that, 1966 to 67, there was historically unprecedented success. Krishna gave Prabhupada the world and Prabhupada never got infatuated by it.
So, for all of us, we need to find the balance. If we focus in our Bhakti, if we focus only on connection, what will happen is, we will become irrelevant to the world. That nobody will understand or care what we are doing.
If we focus only on contribution, Krishna will become irrelevant to us. Krishna just becomes an ornament for us to decorate what we are doing as a cover job, a surface job. We want to care for Krishna.
That’s why we have both our sadhana and our Seva. Thank you very much. Do we have time for questions? You mentioned briefly, Guru, about the connection, contribution and how you can’t have one or just the other.
One thing you said briefly was that if you only have the connection, you might be in transcendental ecstasy, but nobody knows what you’re doing. But isn’t it true that if we are only trying to cultivate that connection without sharing Krishna consciousness, that we might even struggle to feel that ecstasy, we might struggle to experience any taste? Yes, it is possible that that’s the reality for most of us that we won’t even be able to connect with Krishna. But there are, even within our tradition, a category of transcendentalists who are called as bhajananandis.
This delight in connecting with Krishna. Chaitanya Nath’s Babaji was like that. To some extent, Gaurav Mishra’s Babaji was also like that.
And they are respected. Now, Prabhupada was not like that and Prabhupada didn’t really recommend that. But just because Prabhupada didn’t recommend that doesn’t mean that that is inauthentic.
There could be people who just immerse themselves in Krishna Katha and Krishna Leela. But that, they can be great devotees, but they won’t be devotees who are really following Prabhupada’s mode. Any other questions or comments? Yes, please.
Thank you for a really, really nice talk. Thank you for a really nice class. I did enjoy it.
One thing, if I may ask, some of the other religions, I talk to children, used to talk to children in schools and so on, they were putting a lot of effort in teaching their basic language, their religious language to children, not only in their mosque or temple or whatever, but in a wider community. Do you think ISKCON is now ready to actually fund Sanskrit courses, not only in their schools, but other schools in general, saying that ISKCON will fund a teacher to teach Sanskrit in any school? See, there is a tension that is intrinsic, that is within the DNA of Krishna consciousness, you could say, to whatever extent we can use that terminology. See, there is the transcendental.
See, when we use the word transcendental, that means it transcends everything in the material world. It goes beyond the material world. So, now there is the transcendental and then there is the cultural.
So, is the transcendental, transcendental to the culture also or is the cultural the way to the transcendental? So, there are two distinct thoughts, systems within our movement and within our tradition, you could say, broadly speaking. So, broadly, it’s like, is the cultural the only way to the transcendental? Or is it that, so from wherever we might come, we might come from various places, we go through the cultural to the transcendental? Or is it that the transcendental is way above, that the transcendental is universal and yes, through a particular cultural pathway, a majority of people might go up. But people can go up through other cultural pathways also.
So, what I mean by this is, say, what does culture mean? Now, culture can refer to many things, it can refer to food, it can refer to dress, it can refer to language, it can refer to nomenclature, it can refer to behavioural norms, it can refer to many various things, it can refer to customs. So, if you consider, now, music is also a big part of culture, literature, poetry, all these things come in. So, if we consider Shri Prabhupada, in many ways, tried to give in the best a culturally specific form of Krishna Consciousness.
He wanted western devotees to wear dhoti, kurta and sarees. He taught western devotees to how to cook Indian cuisine. He taught, he had our songs in Sanskrit and Bengali, which we learnt to sing, even though it was difficult.
So, we could say, in one sense, Prabhupada introduced a very culturally specific form of Krishna Consciousness. And that means, Prabhupada, you could say, recommended this, that whatever culture we come from, we adopt the Bengali culture. Now, we can call it Gaudiya Vaishnava culture, whatever.
But the Bengali culture is from a historical particular rank. And that is the way to the transcendental. At the same time, Prabhupada was remarkably non-committal about many aspects of the culture.
Say, for example, Prabhupada significantly de-emphasised the language. Initially, Prabhupada tried to teach Sanskrit, because one or two students in 1965-66 were interested in Sanskrit. But Prabhupada dropped that and he never emphasised Sanskrit after that.
Some devotees learnt Sanskrit and Prabhupada didn’t discourage them. But Prabhupada didn’t really glorify them and recommend them as his exemplary followers, whom everybody else should emulate. So, from the language perspective, Prabhupada didn’t emphasise that so much.
Now, Prabhupada also, with respect to dress, he said, at times, whatever dress you wear, you ultimately, you have to chant Krishna’s names. So, we can find statements of Prabhupada from the other perspective also, that Prabhupada de-emphasises the dress at times. Now, as far as the cuisine is concerned, while Prabhupada himself preferred and taught Bengali cuisine, Prabhupada was not against other forms of cuisine.
Prabhupada never banned it. And now, more or less, in our movement, we have all different forms of cuisine. And from a practical perspective, for devotees who are born in Europe or America, to adopt the Bengali cuisine, it just doesn’t work for their body many times.
Sometimes it may work, sometimes it may not work. And Prabhupada was quite pragmatic. So, Prabhupada himself practised Ayurveda, not practised.
He took Ayurvedic medicine primarily. But when he was in London and he had a medical health emergency, he had allopathic procedure done for himself. So, Prabhupada was not very fixed on this.
So, I don’t think the way our movement is, we will at present, and the way Prabhupada himself conducted, Prabhupada conducted himself, the entire movement will ever arrive at one unified answer about this. So, is the cultural, the specific culture, the only way to the transcendental? Or is it that whatever be the culture, one can rise toward the transcendental? So, my understanding is that different devotees may feel inspired to serve Krishna in different ways. And no devotee who wants to serve Krishna in a particular way should be stopped from doing that service.
But that does not mean, of course, it’s a free-for-all and anybody can do anything. Ultimately, the result should be Krishna consciousness. So, we could say that sometimes we use the word mood and mission as interchangeable.
Prabhupada’s mood and mission. Well, my understanding is, these are two different things. Prabhupada had one mission, international society for Krishna consciousness.
But Prabhupada had many different moods at different times. When Prabhupada would go to farm community, he would emphasise, nothing is as important as the farm community. When Prabhupada would go to Gurukul, he would say, training our children, these are Vaikuntha children, these are special souls sent by Krishna to us, training them is the most important thing.
When Prabhupada would be with book distributors, he would say, distributing books is the most important thing. So, my point is that Prabhupada valued different services. He valued them extremely and he encouraged them.
And that’s a part of the Bhakti tradition. That if you go to Vrindavan, the Vrindavan Dham Mahatma will say, Vrindavan is the greatest. If you go to Mayapur, the Naudeep Dham Mahatma will say, Mayapur, Naudeep is the greatest.
If you go to Puri, the Stala Purana of Puri will say, the Puri is the greatest. So, that’s just the tradition in Bhakti, that when we are glorifying one, we focus on the glorification of that one thing. So, as long as, in the long run, Krishna Consciousness is fostered, so then, whichever specific cultural pathway is taken up, that’s perfectly fine.
So, each temple and its leaders will have a particular vision of how to spread Krishna Consciousness. And accordingly, they will prioritise certain things. So, in some places, teaching Sanskrit will be prioritised.
In some places, it may not be. But that does not mean it’s a bad thing. That does not mean it is a wrong thing.
That does not mean those who are not prioritising this is wrong. That does not mean those who are prioritising it is wrong. Now, Krishna Consciousness, like Prabhupada has given us a huge umbrella.
And within that, different people can take up small umbrella. None of us can carry an umbrella as big as what Prabhupada has given. Prabhupada’s umbrella is huge.
So, within that, this is like a giant umbrella. It’s an international society. And within that, each of us can take one small umbrella.
Somebody might teach Sanskrit. Somebody might teach harmonium. Somebody might teach Bhagavad Gita.
Somebody might teach yoga to get people to Bhakti. Somebody might teach mindfulness to get people to Bhakti. Somebody might focus on teaching deity worship.
Somebody might become a specialist in Gaudiya Vaishnava history. There are so many things. So, different devotees can take up different umbrellas.
See, fanaticism happens. Now, fanaticism in its physically violent versions when the people are terrorists and they blow up others. That’s a different thing.
But fanaticism, the mentality, the underlying thought process is actually scarily familiar. What it means is, the root of fanaticism is the idea that what works for me, that is the only thing that can work for anyone. So, now, I may feel very close to Krishna and even Prabhupada by diving into the Sanskrit.
And we say Prabhupada gave Sanskrit word to word translation because he wanted to study it. So, I may feel very close to Prabhupada by studying Sanskrit. But somebody else may not.
Somebody else may have no interest in reading Sanskrit. They may be devotees for 30-40 years and they can’t pronounce Sanskrit words properly. I may say, what kind of devotion do you have? Are you even following Prabhupada? But that is fanaticism.
They may be immersed in Prabhupada’s mood and mission in a particular way. So, our movement is broad enough that different devotees can have different umbrellas and they can carry those forward. Thank you.
Thank you for your class, Prabhu. You mentioned at the beginning about illusion and you gave the cinema example where the lights are turned off and everyone is there willingly. Everyone wants to take part in this illusion.
They might know that they are in this but they don’t really care. They don’t want to get out of it. How can we, I guess in the Krishna conscious sense, how can we let them know how to get out of this illusion or how can we, even for ourselves because sometimes we might get complacent and we might just feel, what is the use or why now? What is the need? So, how can we get out of this complacency? How can we remind ourselves that this illusion is not where we want to be? Yes.
Yes, that is a challenge for, you can say, outreach as well as in-reach in one sense. So, Prabhupada gives a very profound explanation of what is realisation or what is outreach with realisation. So, you could visualise it that and this way that this is the message of scripture.
Scripture, you can say tradition, which is teaching of the scripture and then these are the audience’s interests. So, Prabhupada says realisation means to speak the message of scripture in a way that is interesting for the audience. So, we could speak many things from scripture but you have to find out what are the interests of the audience.
Now interest, Prabhupada is using a general word. It could be needs, interests, concerns, expectations, whatever it is. Generally, that is why in communication theory, there’s four things I said.
Be nice with others. Be nice means understand their needs, their interests, their concerns and their expectations. So, we need to be astute enough to know where people are at and what part of our tradition can address their interests.
So, now Prabhupada went to the west and at that time people were into drugs and Prabhupada adopted the term which one of his disciples used. You know, you go high with drugs when you come down but with Krishna consciousness, you stay high forever. Prabhupada adopted that term.
Now, one of my friends, he is from a smarter background in India. The smarter people, they think they are very smart but they are often not. So, he said, I read something which your Swamiji said.
I feel it’s a pradh. I said, really, what happened? So, he said, somebody came and, you know, one of our prominent preachers, he loves to tell this past time, that he said, when some hippie came to Prabhupada, he said, Swamiji, what is the bliss of Vaikuntha like? And Prabhupada said, it is like an ocean of LSD. So, LSD is a drug which people used to take at those times to get high.
Now, this person, he is a pious person, he is a devotee also, the devotee Lakshmi Narayan, he said, LSD is a tamasic drug and the bliss of Vaikuntha is completely pure and transcendental. Isn’t it a pradh to compare the bliss of Vaikuntha with LSD? You know, and your own Swamiji has given the 10 offences. And one of those offences is to give a mundane interpretation of the holy leaf.
Now, you know, we can go on a holier-than-thou attitude. You think you know more than Prabhupada? By saying that Prabhupada has committed an aprat, you have committed an aprat to Prabhupada. Shut up! You know, we are not going to address that person by that way.
So, I explained that what is the aprat, first of all, the seventh offence. In seventh offence, to give a mundane interpretation of the holy name, one of the offences. So, what it means essentially is that we reduce the holy name to the mind.
Now, can the holy name have some material effects? Of course, it can have. So, if some devotee does some research on neuroscience, and through neural imaging, we find that when a devotee chants, the crosstalk in the brain, the crosstalk in the brain is where different neuronal connections, synapses happen simultaneously. And that is why people get distracted.
See, when the brain functions a particular way, the synapses are happening linearly, then you can focus on one thing. But too many synapses happen at the same time, too many brain cells get connected simultaneously. And that is what they call as neural crosstalk.
There is too much happening inside the brain. And that is why we get distracted. So, if some neural imaging shows that actually the crosstalk in the brain, the random neural connections that are happening, they are decreasing.
Now, and this is the effect of the holy name. Now, is that a mundane interpretation? Not necessarily. If we say that is all there is to it.
Oh, the holy name is powerful because it silences the crosstalk. That is fine. But that is the purpose of chanting of the holy names, to silence the neural crosstalk in your brain.
No, that is not the purpose. The purpose is something much higher. So, to explain the spiritual in terms that are understandable to people at a material level, that is not giving a mundane interpretation.
It is reducing the spiritual to only the material. That is the problem. So, we hear when Prabhupada is saying, it is like an ocean of LSD.
What is he doing? He is actually doing outreach with realisation. For a person who is into drugs, for a person whose conception of the highest happiness of life is taking drugs and going high, tell them, oh, the spiritual world is like an ocean of LSD. Yeah, I want to go there.
So, the desire gets triggered. So, Prabhupada was an expert in that sense. So, we have to consider what are people’s needs, interests, concerns, expectations right now.
And how can we address them today? And that thing we can apply to ourselves also. We cannot just say, I want to be a pure devotee and what matters to me presently doesn’t matter at all. No, if my health is good, is not so good, if say, I am in a relationally unstable place, if I am in a financially insecure place, the concerns that matter to me.
And then how can I connect my present concerns with my ultimate concerns? It is not that the present concerns have to be given up. But it is also not that for the sake of the present concerns, I give up my ultimate concerns. So, it’s like we have concerns.
We can have immediate concerns or present concerns. And we have ultimate concerns. So, the issue of Vidyamcha Vidyamcha.
Actually, Krishna is meant to address both the immediate and the ultimate concerns. Now, addressing immediate concerns doesn’t mean that if you don’t have a job, you know, Krishna will come in our dream and tell us, okay, I’ll give this job to you. No, not like that.
But Krishna consciousness can calm our mind, can clarify our intelligence and this is the path I can go. So, Krishna can do that to us. So, most people are going to be concerned about their immediate concerns right now.
So, then we have to see which of those immediate concerns can we link with their ultimate concerns. So, for example, consider yoga or consider mindfulness or consider say, musical meditation, kirtan. Now, people may come here just because these things make them feel good.
But if and that’s their need. People are stressed out. One of the characteristics of Kali Yuga is that the minds are very disturbed.
So, people want something which will help them feel calm, feel good. Now, if we can help them get a good feeling through Krishna consciousness, then we are addressing their immediate need, but we are also giving them a pathway toward the ultimate. So, that has to be the resourcefulness of the tradition’s contemporary teachers to find out what are people’s present concerns and how we can address them.
So, if we focus only on the immediate, we will become disconnected. Again, going back to the original, we will become disconnected from Krishna. But if we focus only on the ultimate, we will become disconnected from the world.
So, we need to be able to address the immediate and ultimate. So, when Prabhupada came back to India between 1950 and 1960, 1970, do you know that India changed dramatically? Indians were not really interested in Krishna consciousness in 1960 and Indians were similarly not interested in Krishna consciousness in 1970. Actually, Indians became interested in Krishna consciousness around 1990 onwards.
That’s when our movement really took off in a serious way in India. So, but when Prabhupada came back in 1970 to India, you know, he presented, he or other, the way he presented Krishna consciousness actually synced with the cultural nationalistic pride of Indians. Oh, this Swami went to America and made Americans and British people follow our culture.
So, many of the people who became life members and who followed, appreciated, supported Prabhupada, they didn’t support Prabhupada because they loved Gaudiya, which he was specific to. They loved Chaitanya Mahapuram. They loved the fact that this Swamiji has gone to the West.
We Indians have been culturally dominated by the West for so long. Now, this Swamiji has actually conquered the West with our culture. This is a great Swami.
You want to support him. So, what Prabhupada did was he addressed that particular concern of the Indians and Indians took it up. Now, was that what Prabhupada wanted? Not necessarily.
That was not what Prabhupada ultimately wanted. But yeh na kehi na prakari. Somehow or the other you get people to Krishna.
Most of the people who became life members, most of them never became devotees. Very, very few of them out of, less than you could say, less than maybe 0.1% actually became devotees. But at that time they did a lot of service.
And the temples were built, the foundation was set and eventually in the 1990s, 1985, 1986, from that time onwards basically, that is the time when Krishna Consciousness started spreading in India. So, things have their own time which they manifest. So, what are the immediate concerns of people right now? And how can we connect them with the ultimate? That is the expertise of a teacher.
Thank you very much. Shri Chaitanya Chaitanya Amrit ki.