Six Opulences of Lord Chaitanya (1): Beauty

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
then the bhagavad-gita does eminently deserve to be the national book of india thank you foreign krishna so now next about a month or so later janmashtami is coming so i was planning to speak about a series of classes on lord krishna but as bhaktivinod thakur has told us that we cannot as bhaktivinod thakur has told us that we cannot approach krishna directly it is only through lord that we can approach krishna so we will discuss am i audible so we will discuss the opulences of lord krishna the six opulences that characterize lord krishna by first discussing about lord chaitanya mahaprabhu so we will discuss the six opulences of lord chaitanya mahaprabhu first and i was planning a series of classes so one opulence of lord chaitanya per class so six opulences of lord chaitanya mahaprabhu followed by six opulences of lord krishna so i’ll maybe yesterday i took another class where i discussed about the structure and the overview of chaitanya charita amrit so today we will discuss so i’ll today we will focus on the six opulences of chaitanya mahaprabhu starting with beauty so shri jiva goswami describes that every incarnation of the lord comes with some weapon the lord chandra came with his bow and arrow lord parashuram had his parashu lord krishna had his sudarshan chakra so he says if chaitanya mahaprabhu is also an incarnation what was the weapon that he brought with him so he describes that the weapon that lord chaitanya brought was his beauty because his beauty that he conquered the hearts of everyone as we know when jagai and madai wounded mithyanandprabhu at that time chaitanya mahaprabhu was ready to kill them but mithyanandprabhu fell at the feet of lord chaitanya and told him that if you kill them then you will have to kill everyone because everybody is of the same level of consciousness more or less in kalyuga therefore you have come to kill not the demons but the demoniac mentality the demoniac mentality is caused by a misdirection of our desires our original pure desires are directed towards krishna and when our desires are misdirected away from krishna that leads to the demoniac mentality in varying degrees so lord chaitanya comes to redirect our desires back to the supreme lord and that he does primarily by his beauty the chaitanya mangal of lochandas thakur describes a very endearing narrative about the beauty of lord chaitanya now krishnadas kaviraj goswami in the chaitanya sharitamrit in chapter 4 of the adi lila called the confidential reasons of lord chaitanya’s appearance describes how lord chaitanya came for three purposes now he wanted to understand the greatness of radharani’s love he wanted to understand his own beauty which radharani relished his own qualities which radharani relished primarily beauty and the great happiness which radharani felt when she saw that krishna responded in reciprocate with her love chaitanya mangal takes this theme and elaborates it lochandas thakur describes that when lord krishna told radharani that i am going to the material world to taste your love so that time radharani said oh no you cannot do that if you if you start tasting my love you will go unconscious you fall unconscious you will go mad lord chaitanya said no no no i do want to taste your love so then radharani said that your complexion is so beautiful and if you get intoxicated with my love then you will fall on the ground you fall unconscious your beautiful complexion will be stained by the dust and the dirt and i cannot tolerate that therefore he said if you are going to taste my love then you are going to take my mood to taste my love then i will cover you with my complexion so just as you know somebody if a thing is very beautiful or very valuable then we cover it to protect it so for radharani krishna’s form and krishna’s complexion the supreme pleasure krishna maharaj in his mukunda mahala thakur describes that just as for a chahataka bird the water that comes from the cloud is the only source of nourishment like that for the eyes of the gopis the gopi lochinu lochinu ties of the gopis they are like the chahataka bird and what is the ambudha for them what is the water to nourish them that is sanghari mudhrama and that is a supremely beautiful form of lord krishna so radharani covered her own complexion around lord krishna’s form and that’s why so lord chaitanya by his own desire assumed the bhav of radharani and radharani by her desire gave her viti her complexion to krishna that’s why it is described in the invocation this is krishna but he has come in radha bhav and radha viti radha bhav is the complexion of radharani the emotion of radharani and radha viti is the complexion so the emotion and the complexion of radharani both are there so now we know in this world everything that is attractive is ultimately a fraction of krishna’s in the 10th chapter 42nd verse of the bhajan where lord krishna describes that everything beautiful opulence and glories in this world is but a fraction of is but a spark of my opulence so all the beauty that we see in this world is ultimately a fraction of krishna’s beauty but when the soul comes to imitate krishna in this world then the soul wants to be the independent enjoyer and when the soul wants to be independent enjoyer then when he gets attracted to the beauty of this world he gets some temporary pleasure but after that there is great misery because the beauty of this world is temporary so the difference between worldly beauty and krishna’s beauty or radharani’s beauty is that worldly beauty is temporary and spiritual beauty of the lord is eternal but a second more important difference is that the worldly beauty is agitating whereas divine beauty is pacifying now when we are attracted to the beauty of this world the more we get attracted the more we become agitated by that beauty whereas when we become attracted to krishna’s beauty then that pacifies the passion within our heart of course that will at advanced age evoke a spiritual attraction the spiritual agitation that is purifying that is uplifting the initial effect of being attracted to krishna’s beauty that our mind becomes peaceful by describing how the yogi goes into meditation this is chapter 27 verse lord krishna describes shanth manasimhine that the yogi becomes very peaceful and why does he become peaceful rajas rajas is the word of passion so by the power of lord krishna’s beauty by the attraction to the divine form to the divine manifestation of the lord what happens is the passion within us becomes pacified so the fundamental difference from our practical point of view is that krishna’s beauty is pacifying where worldly beauty is agitating so now when the soul comes here to imitate krishna at that time he is basically trying to relish so he’s trying to relish and take the position of krishna and try to enjoy enjoy like in the like ravana wanted to enjoy mother sita so like that the conditioned soul when he comes in this world wants to enjoy separate from krishna that which is the property of krishna but the speciality the uniqueness the great mercy of chaitanya mahaprabhu is that he enables us to become attracted to the divine beauty in a way that is actually pacifying and not agitating so lord chaitanya throughout his past times exhibited his beauty in multifarious so lord chaitanya exhibited his beauty in multifarious and the most powerful exhibition of beauty that lord chaitanya mahaprabhu displayed was when he came to mayapur back after chaitanya mahaprabhu took sannyas he wanted to go to vrindavan but on mother sita’s request when sri mataji request he went to jagannath puri and then from jagannath puri he wanted again to go to vrindavan the first time when he tried to go to vrindavan he was he went to navadvip from navadvip he went to ramakeli from ramakeli he went to gunai narshala anand ratan was from his advice he told him don’t go with thousands of people that is not the appropriate way to go to vrindavan so he came back but at that time when he went to navadvip thousands of people were attracted by his beauty so when lord chaitanya mahaprabhu came to navadvip we know in one sense that his sannyas broke the hearts of all his devotees because they were so happy in association suddenly lord chaitanya left his home and friended so it broke the heart of his devotees and we will be discussing about lord chaitanya sannyas when we talk about renunciation but here you will see how chaitanya mahaprabhu sannyas actually fulfilled the purpose and this purpose was that because all the worldly minded brahmanas and others puffed up by their learning and their position were disrespecting and offending him and chaitanya mahaprabhu felt that if i take sannyas then for the sake of the position of sannyas they will respect me and when they respect me and offer obeisances they will get elevated this is exactly what’s happening when chaitanya mahaprabhu came back to navadvip the first day at the house of vachaspati vachaspati was the brother of vasudev sarvabhama sarvambhattacharya so sarvambhattacharya also earlier used to stay in navadvip from where he had gone to mithila to learn navanyay and from there on the invitation of maharaj pratapudra he had come to tirunathpuri to teach navanyay over there so his brother vachaspati was there in navadvip so when chaitanya mahaprabhu came to his house at that time thousands and thousands of people just flooded into that area from all directions and this pastime is very rapidly and captivatingly described in the chaitanya bhagavata the especially the navadvip pastimes are not described so much by krishna ashtavaraya kusumini chaitanya charitamrita because vrindavan das thakur stayed in navadvip he was just one generation after chaitanya mahaprabhu two generations vishnivas thakur’s niece was narayani narayani’s son was vrindavan das thakur so he was just there in navadvip so most of the navadvip pastimes are narrated by vrindavan das thakur in chaitanya bhagavata so there he describes when chaitanya mahaprabhu was staying at the house of vachaspati thousands of people came from all directions and chaitanya mahaprabhu gave his darshan once nowadays we may not be able to imagine that sort of madness but sometimes you see them there is some film star some movie star when he comes thousands of people just go mad that is just exhibiting one fraction of the divine opulence of course that film star is himself not divine so that opulence is divine but he is using it for a demoniac purpose by attracting everyone to himself where he is trying to usurp the position of krishna as the all attractive person but still the point remains that just as thousands of people can get attracted to one film star thousands and thousands and millions of people were attracted to just a brief darshan of lord chaitanya mahaprabhu and then suddenly chaitanya mahaprabhu disappeared and he went from there to the house of madhava gods where he gave birth to the kulya gram and that is kulya gram in navadvip is called as their apradha bhanjani kshetra so there all the people who had offended lord chaitanya mahaprabhu came and read parvinas that was the place where lord chaitanya also parvived gopal chapat who had earlier offended shivastakar but here so the house of madhava gods was across the ganga and everybody was coming and chastising vachaspati you know where you are such a selfish person normally if a person has some wealth you know a good person doesn’t pour the wealth with himself he shares the wealth with everyone but you are so selfish that you have the wealth of lord chaitanya in your heart in your house but instead of sharing that wealth with everyone by allowing everyone to take darshan you are like a miser hoarding that wealth in your own house and not letting all of us see this beauty because you are here all die in separation from me so akshara said no lord chaitanya is not in my house so nobody was ready to believe him so he is in your house suddenly some messenger came and he has told him he has gone to the house of madhava gods immediately lord chaitanya all the thousands of people started going towards the house of madhava gods so now there were boats over there all the boats got full and all the boats got full and still people were coming so more and more people started sitting in the boat the oarsman who was drawing the boat he took the boat in the middle because the sheer weight of the boat the boat sank and miraculously although the boat sank what happened nobody there were no casualties suddenly from under the river lion came and people just walked across the river gracefully now there are other people who just took a log of wood and they sat on logs of wood and went across and now all the logs of wood were over all the boats were over still there are hundreds of people who didn’t who wanted to cross over and they didn’t know what to do so they just those of them who knew how to swim they jumped across and swam across the ganga the ganga in the navdeep area is very unpredictable sometimes the flow is gentle sometimes the flow is ferociously strong but it is fearless to jump into the ganga and swam across and there were some people who did not know how to swim properly so they forgot that they didn’t know how to swim jumped across and swam over so now we may wonder you know is this a real or this is some imagination but actually when you give this statement that the supreme lord gives everything all potencies and whatever potency he wants a particular soul to have at a particular time he exhibits that you know in the in the jewish tradition when moses was taking his people the jews away from egypt towards jerusalem at that time the egyptian soldiers were chasing after them and ahead was the sea behind with the egyptian soldiers and they didn’t know what to do that’s how the saying has come trapped between the sea and the devil when we have two dangerous options right let me say that it comes from that particular situation so ahead was the sea which they could not cross behind with the soldiers who would capture and enslave and punish at that time moses prayed and the sea opened so just parted apart and all the people crossed over and the soldiers who came behind on their horses with their weapons were shocked and then they tried to pass through this opening in the sea suddenly the sea closed and they all drowned that’s how moses and his people were led to the land of freedom jerusalem there actually moses prayed to the lord and this whole parting of the sea was for the purpose of their protection but here when the people wanted to go in lord chaitanya mahaprabhu they’re so overpowered by the love of chaitanya mahaprabhu that they didn’t even uh that they didn’t even uh realize that actually lord chaitanya mahaprabhu that they are actually crossing over the ocean just the power of the desire was so strong that they were able to cross over the ocean so there in that historical ancient space that was to become free from a danger but here the miracle that was exhibited was to actually attract to get the darshan of the lord to get the supreme blessing of being purified has all attracted darshan so in this way there was this extraordinary exhibition of beauty which was there so lord chaitanya mahaprabhu went to lord chaitanya mahaprabhu went over uh all the people went over to lord chaitanya mahaprabhu and when they reached lord chaitanya mahaprabhu he came out and he gave his darshan to all of them so after that actually when they came to see lord chaitanya mahaprabhu