Three ways to understand the maha-vadanyaya nature of Lord Chaitanya – the magnitude of the charity, the unworthiness of the recipients and the self-sacrifice of the giver

Transcript

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Krishna Prema Pradayate, Krishnaya Krishnachaitanya, Aamey Gavitvishe Namaha, Namo Mahavadanyaya. This is the standard prayer, which we use to glorify Lord Chaitanya.
It means, Greatly charitable, immensely charitable, Mahavadanyaya. In fact, actually it refers to supremely charitable. This is a verse which is composed by Rupa Goswami, when he saw Chaitanya Mahaprabhu flooding the heartland of Mayavada, in Banaras, with the love of devotion.
So, normally, charity itself is a laudable activity. And any charitable person is praiseworthy. Because that person is giving out one’s own possessions to others in a mood of selflessness.
Now, what would qualify as a great charity? One could be a quantity. Normally, people make you beggars, one rupee, five rupee, ten rupees. Will somebody give a thousand rupee note to a beggar? Then you say, oh, Mahavadanyaya, very charitable.
Another could be that the person is a very unlikely recipient. Normally, when they give charity, often it is to people who have nothing, or we may give something as a gift, charity to some of our relatives. Normally, we don’t give charity to those people who are hostile to us.
Because the idea would be that people who are hostile to us, who are trying to hurt us, we will be equipping them by giving them charity. So, if somebody is giving charity to an enemy, then that would also be considered Mahavadanyaya. Because most people wish harm to their enemy.
Therefore, similarly, if a person gives charity to the extent that it hurts oneself, that means, normally, most people give charity when it won’t affect them much. A person has a crore rupees and a person has a thousand rupees, or even ten thousand, it’s not much of a difference. But, if a person is earning ten thousand, and a person decides to give eight thousand in charity, that would be a huge charity, Mahavadanyaya.
Vishwetana Mahaprabhu is actually in all these ways, He is giving extraordinary charity. He is giving to the most unlikely and the most unworthy candidates, the souls of Kalyuga, who have rebelled against God in the most gross and blatant ways, and have desired to enjoy Godlessly. That’s why actually they are in Kalyuga, which is the most Godless of all ages.
And moreover, He gives the highest charity. He gives love of God, which is something which is not achievable, which is very very rarely given, it’s not achievable even for those who are very highly advanced in spiritual life. They also get liberation love.
But beyond that, Lord Chaitanya also gives charity in the way, is there a loss to Himself? Actually when He gives Bhakti, He gives Himself. Because the Lord becomes a servant of that devotee who has Bhakti. There are several situations, several occasions, in Chaitanya’s time, where Lord Chaitanya says to devotees that I have become your servant.
You can give me wherever you like. This is what Lord Chaitanya tells to Suparmanand Puri. He tells this to Vasudev Dutta, and several other devotees like that.
So the whole mood of Bhakti, which Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu demonstrates, He is the Supreme Lord, manifesting the mood of Bhakti, it is Mahavadyaya. In terms of the extent of the charity He is giving, He is the supreme gift of not just liberation, but pure love of God. Not just pure love of God, but pure love of God, in Parakiya Bhaav, for the Shamsundar form of Krishna, the highest attainment in the spiritual world.
So He is giving the highest gift to the unworthiest of all people, the souls of Kali Yuga, who are actually least spiritually qualified and least spiritually interested. And not only that, He is giving the charity in such a way, that when people, He gives the process by which people can develop love for God very easily, and when they develop love for God, then He gives Himself to them. So He becomes controlled by His devotees.
He offers Himself to those devotees. And that’s why the Bhagavatam says that mukti vidhati kar chitmasma bhakti yoga that the Lord gives mukti easily, but not bhakti. But that is not the formula for Lord Chaitanya.
Lord Chaitanya gives bhakti also easily and lets Himself become conqueror. And because of this extraordinary nature, of course there are many ways of analyzing how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is Mahavadyaya, but this is from the example of charity. We can analyze the magnitude of the charity, the unworthiness of the recipient of the charity, and the self-sacrifice of the giver of the charity.
In terms of the Lord feeling indebted to one who gets love of God. These are all the ways in which we can understand a glimpse of the supremely merciful nature of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And we can pray for His mercy.