Wasn’t it fanatical of Lord Chaitanya to punish Chhota Haridas so severely for such a minor transgression?

Question, wasn't it fanatical of Lord Chaitanya to punish Chhota Haridas so severely for such a minor transgression? What is this pastime actually meant to teach? Answer, Lord Chaitanya's pastimes and the Lord's pastimes in general demonstrate central universal principles dramatically through extreme examples. The purpose of those extreme examples is not to standardize those specific extreme examples but to illustrate forcefully the central principles. If you want to call Chaitanya Mahaprabhu fanatical, then we can say that he is fanatically merciful also.

He is extremely merciful that persons like Jagai and Madai who were extremely fallen, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu just forgave them of all their sins and delivered them. So why should we look only at extremism or fanaticism only from the negative perspective? Let's look at it from the positive perspective also. So actually Prabhupada would say that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu made animals dance.

We can't make animals dance but people who are human beings who are like in animal consciousness, we can inspire them to dance in the Hare Krishna kirtan. So the principle is that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu making animals dance in Jhari Khanda or delivering Jagai and Madai is that bhakti is so potent and that principle is demonstrated sometimes through extreme examples but it's not that the extreme examples have to be standardized. It is the principle that has to be understood clearly and is to be reinforced through those pastimes.

So now regarding Chhota Haridas, the essential principle is that people in renounced order have to be very cautious in their dealings with women, with the opposite sex. And that's because as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says elsewhere in the Chaitanya Charita Amrit that Ksanyasi ralpachitra sarvalokagai, if I renunciate, behaves as a slight fault, people will generally talk about it. And actually it happened despite Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's extreme example of chastising Chhota Haridas, still there were inappropriate dealings between men and women.

And the appropriate dealings were in the name of devotional service. People started imitating the pastimes of Radha and Krishna and saying that this is the way we are practicing bhakti. Radha and Krishna are entering into us.

This is a perverted understanding, which is a part of the Shakta tradition, which is a part of the tantra, which is often practiced in left hand tantra. This is an auspicious tantra. So I have talked about sahajiyism in another answer here.

But essentially Chaitanya Mahaprabhu wanted to avoid degradation happening because of casual interaction between males and females, especially when the males are in the renounced order. And it is that example that he is, that principle that he is demonstrating through this extreme example. So now what was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's punishment? Chaitanya Mahaprabhu actually told Chhota Haridas that you should not come in my association.

Now was that a rejection of Chhota Haridas? At one level we can say it was a rejection. But we see that all the other devotees who were intimate associates of Lord Chaitanya, they were encouraging Chhota Haridas and they were reassuring him, they were telling him that he will get the mercy of Lord Chaitanya. And they were also trying to act as mediators.

Even a Vaishnava as senior as this equivalent of the spiritual master of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, like the God brothers of the spiritual master, they also tried to intervene on Chaitanya Mahaprabhu on behalf of Chhota Haridas. So now these associates, Swaroop Damodar and all the others, are they going against the will of the Lord? If the Lord is telling Chhota Haridas to be chastised and they are saying, please forgive Chhota Haridas, please excuse him. So are they wrong? Or are they going against the will of the Lord? No.

The same Lord who is personally demonstrating an example of strictness is also acting through the heart of his devotees. And through the heart of those devotees he is instructing. He is encouraging Chhota Haridas and he is instructing that in general devotees should also be loving and respecting and forgiving and accommodating for somebody who has done something inappropriate.

So it is not that Chhota Chaitanya Mahaprabhu only chastised Chhota Haridas. It is he only who acted through his associates. Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami says in Chaitanya Charita Amrit that the associates of Lord Chaitanya just dance to his tunes.

The way a musical instrument moves in the hands of a person playing that instrument. Ramana Raya says the same thing about his speaking about the glories of Radha Bhava and pure bhakti. Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami says the same thing about his writing Chaitanya Charita Amrit.

So the devotees are acting according to the will of the Lord although externally it may appear as if they are having a difference of opinion from the Lord. So the same Lord who is chastising is also encouraging through his devotees and ultimately we see that what happened. Chhota Haridas did give up his body.

In a sense committed suicide. Normally people who commit suicide become ghosts. But Chhota Haridas got a spiritual body and he went back to the spiritual world.

So that means that returning back to the spiritual world is the ultimate acceptance by the Lord. What greater acceptance can be there because when we return to the spiritual world we stay eternally in the association of the Lord. And that is eternal acceptance.

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu may not have accepted Chhota Haridas in his Sangha at that time. But the fact that he got a spiritual body as was confirmed by Swamiji indicates that the Lord accepted him fully. So this is an extreme example and is that to be standardized? Not at all.

The principle is definitely standardized of caution and respectful distance between males and females especially when the male is in the renounced order. But apart from that, the standard is we have to see the scriptures from the point of the Acharyas. Now we see that there is a famous pastime of Bhakti Sunan Sri Thakur where one brahmachari in a temple in Bangladesh was having some inappropriate dealings with a woman and the temple authorities chastised him very severely and they chastised him so much that he felt so mortified that he left the temple and went away.

And then Bhakti Sunan Sri Thakur came to inaugurate the temple and he looked for this devotee. This devotee was not a prominent devotee and Bhakti Sunan Sri Thakur remembered him and asked him where he is. The temple managers explained what had happened.

Bhakti Sunan Sri Thakur was so upset and he said that unless you get that devotee back, I will not inaugurate the temple. And all the managers were alarmed and they sent practically a search squad going everywhere and they finally found that devotee and got him back. And that devotee didn't want to go away from devotee community but he felt so bad because of the public chastisement that he had got over a minor infraction that he felt he couldn't stay in the community of devotees.

But when Bhakti Sunan Sri Thakur welcomed him back, then he continued on and he remained as a sannyasi throughout his life without any further lapses. So as one leader is gone who sort of took this pastime literally and when Prabhupada was giving a talk in Mayapur, he just took one statement from it and he actually tried to follow in the footsteps of Chhota Haridas and he gave up his body. Actually Prabhupada was very sad about it.

Devotees were shocked and Prabhupada was also not at all happy. Prabhupada said that we should not imitate like this. Prabhupada in fact said that Lord Chaitanya is God.

I am not God. So I will keep, you know, I need all of you. Lord Chaitanya doesn't need anyone.

He can do whatever he wants by his omnipotence. But Prabhupada's humility said that I need all of you to share Krishna and all over the world. So Prabhupada expressed his love and Prabhupada gave us a proper understanding.

So when the Lord teaches something to the pastime, what it is that is taught has to be understood properly through the acharyas and through a holistic understanding of the pastime, the role of the various associations in the pastimes and the end result of the pastime. Today if somebody says that in the name of being strict I will chastise people like Chhota Haridas, does that person have the capacity to grant the spiritual world to those people who are being chastised? No. Of course, this doesn't mean that there is a license for inappropriate dealings.

Definitely not. Swaroop Damodar tells the mood of this pastime and he says that Swapanero Natake Bhai Sri Sambhashyan that a person who is in renounced order, even their dreams should not think about the women. Now that is not, that may be, that is a standard which is difficult to follow.

But this is a spirit in which devotees take it for their personal application. But that is not the, that does not mean that devotees in general, if somebody does something wrong that should be, the devotee community should reject them or the devotee authority should reject them. No, according to time, place, circumstance, appropriate measure has to be taken if somebody does something wrong so that the devotee community is not affected negatively and at the same time that devotee is also provided facility by which the devotee can continue on the devotional path and make spiritual advancement and overcome the lapse that has happened.

Thank you.