Is Ramananda Raya’s decoration of devidasis a standard devotional practice or an exception?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question Why was Ramanand Rai decorating the Devi Dasis for the service of Jagannath? Is this a standard practice or is it something which was only Ramanand Rai doing it as an exception? What is the significance of that practice? Answer There are two different issues over here.
First is that Ramanand Rai, through his example, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is demonstrating the transcendence of pure devotion. Ramanand Rai was seeing the Devi Dasis as not ordinary as women, but as gopis meant for the pleasure of Jagannath. And with that vision, he was decorating.
And Ramanand Rai’s exalted consciousness is demonstrated at several other places in the Chaitanya Charita Amrita also. He is himself, actually, the speaker to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu of the most exalted levels of pure love of Krishna. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Ramanand Rai meet in the South India tour and there they talk about the highest levels of spiritual love.
So he is a person who has that level of realization. For him, the spiritual reality where Krishna has pastimes with Radharani and the gopis are the primary reality. And the world’s realities of male-female interaction with the body at the physical level is just peripheral.
So, now there is a sahajiya tradition and some people claim that Ramanand Rai was a sahajiya. Now the word sahajiya itself has a strongly negative connotation, the way Shila Prabhupada and Bhaktisiddhanta Sri Thakur presented it. And that is based on the way the Gaudiya Vishnu tradition has been misused by people to justify their immorality.
So, the point is that the sahajiyas imitate the advanced level of devotions without having the adequate level of purification. So, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu glorified Ramanand Rai for what he was doing but at the same time he does not recommend that others do it. There is no in the past time which is described with Pradyumna Mishra.
The focus of the past time is to demonstrate how Pradyumna Mishra is a cultured brahmana born in a respectable family and Ramanand Rai is a government employee, is a shudra and still Pradyumna Mishra has to learn from Ramanand Rai. And that too when Ramanand Rai is doing something which can be quite disturbing to the minds of people. So, basically through the Ramanand Rai past time Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is demonstrating the transcendence of pure devotion that when a person is a pure devotee then that person’s material aspect should not be considered.
Vaishnavi jati buddhi it’s an offence to consider a devotee’s material caste or any other material things like that. So, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself despite being a sanyasi and a brahmana heard from Ramanand Rai who was from the Varanayan ashram point of view a shudra and a grahastha. So, now is that a standard? By no means is it a standard.
That particular past time is orchestrated by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to demonstrate the transcendence of pure devotion as is manifested through the example of Ramanand Rai. Now, some people may have imitated it and may have done something similar and most sahajiyas who imitated it they have actually given into debauchery. Now, the important point of the devidasis is that they are meant for the pleasure of Jagannath and they live life chastely in their own way.
Just serving Jagannath by dancing, singing. I have answered a separate question about the devidasis and the important point of the devidasis is that they are meant for the pleasure of Jagannath and those males who can see them that way only they are meant to contact with them and that too the primary decoration and other things they are done by females only. Generally, the males don’t get involved in that.
The Ramanand Rai’s example is primarily an exception and he is not a sahajiya because he is not, his mind is never contaminated, he doesn’t imitate anything prematurely. He is in the mood of mood of Ishaka Sakhi when he is doing the decoration and we see that he has such a level of deep devotional realization that he can even instruct Shaitanya Mahaprabhu not exactly instruct in terms of what to do but explain philosophically the most exalted levels of devotion. So, without that kind of realization, one should by no means think of imitating Ramanand Rai.
So, that is a very exceptional past time meant to demonstrate the transcendence of pure devotion. Thank you. Question from