What was the need for Ramananda Raya to massage young girls?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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so why was Ramanand Rai massaging young girls? what was the need for doing such a thing? there are three different levels of understanding of this first is that from completely transcendental perspective that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his associates are actually gopis Radharani and others at one level they are relishing those pastimes and sometimes those transcendental pastimes get enacted at this level it’s like we have the story of Raghunatha Goswami who is so renounced would hardly eat anything but he got stomach upset and the physician said that he has eaten too much sweet rice his followers were upset that he never eats sweet rice but he said that he had a festival in the spiritual world and there I ate a lot of sweet rice so for those whose consciousness is absorbed in the spiritual realm sometimes the crossover happens where what is happening at the spiritual level affects the material and sometimes the effects get manifested in the material sometimes they may enact that also at the material level so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself was cautious one time he heard a woman singing the Geet Govinda and he started running towards her and then Govinda ran to him and shouted to him this is a woman and then he stopped himself and said you saved my life the point was that at the transcendental level he was attracted so in the spiritual world the the gopis decorate each other for Krishna’s pleasure so here that same mood can be carried over at this level so now Ravanandra was dressing, was massaging and training those girls so that they could dance for Jagannath’s pleasure so he was in the mood of Jagannath is Krishna and his shakha and his girls are gopis so simply what he is doing in the spiritual world he is doing in this world for Krishna’s pleasure, that’s one level of understanding another point is that Ramanandrai was Ramanandrai was sometimes the lord in his pastimes demonstrates certain things through extreme principles so those extreme principles are not meant to become the standard but they are meant to illustrate some point just like at one level Raghunatha Goswami’s renunciation is extreme he is just barely eating anything through that he is demonstrating the principle of renunciation although everybody is not meant to follow that level of renunciation but meant to try to become absorbed similarly with respect to Ramanandrai the mood that is illustrated is that when there is absorption in the spiritual then when there is absorption in Krishna then there is no agitation even in the presence of condition Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s stress in that whole pastime is that even I, although I am a sanyasi I get agitated even if I even if I touch a whatever, wooden replica of a moon, of course you never get agitated but he is taking the role that that’s how conditioned souls are but Ramanandrai is such an exalted devotee that he can do such a thing and there is no agitation in his mind so the power of absorption in Krishna that is demonstrated through Ramanandrai now of course that is demonstrated even through Haridas Thakur when he was tempted by a prostitute but there there is a difference in the sense that Haridas Thakur was a renunciate and he himself did not go to the prostitute’s place she came, he just continued his service of chanting and he transformed her so there for a renunciate that is appropriate that he doesn’t go somewhere but if somebody comes and he is absorbed Chaitanya Mahaprabhu asked Nityanand Prabhu who was the Avadhoot to get married because then he can go to places where sanyasis can’t go, he can go to liquor bars and places like that and there also he can deliver people so Ramanandrai so the second point is absorption third point which I am coming to is that Ramanandrai demonstrates sorry, Ramanandrai is a grahastha so even when there is complete absorption in the in transcendence still there is some awareness of social norms Chaitanya Mahaprabhu like in the Leela of the Gopis also at one level the Gopis they leave their family members and go towards Krishna So they left everyone their family members they ran towards Krishna but the same Bhagavatam describes towards the end that when the Gopis came back after performing the Raas Leela none of their family members were resentful why? because Yogmaya had arranged their expansions to the to be there with their family members family members felt that the Gopis were with us only they tried to go but they couldn’t go so that means there is the simultaneous demonstration of Paradharma and there is also the preservation of Aparadharma Paradharma is transcendental Sarva Dharman Paritiji Maa just surrender to Krishna but at the same time for the normal functioning of society the Aparadharma is also required it cannot be abandoned so similarly by having Ramananda Raya demonstrate that specifically he is demonstrating the Aparadharma also that Nancids can’t do this so there is there is a tradition of Devi Dasis in many temples which was sometimes misunderstood by temple prostitutes or sometimes it also became degenerated into that but the tradition was that some women who who were very skilled in artistic skills in dancing, decorations and they want to devote themselves to the lord so they would have no distractions and they would learn dancing, learn singing learn decoration and they would completely devote themselves to the lord and that’s how they would live and they would not they would be considered to be like the lord’s maid servants and they would live only for the lord’s pleasure and there is a whole system a tradition where only at a particular time some respectable Brahmana after proper religious performances would unite with them so that their dynasty would continue but so now of course such a thing can be easily misused and it was misused but at one level the women who were there in such places where they would be dancing for the lord’s pleasure they they needed to have a protector they needed to have a caretaker, sometimes a trainer so Ramanandra at that particular point he did not have he was not sexually agitated but the point was that the women being present over there as dancing girls for Jagannath that is a part of a tradition and so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not reject that tradition he used that to stress to Pradyumna Mishra that Pradyumna Mishra was a Brahmana who follows Brahmanical rules but Ramanandra was not even a Brahmana he was from a Yashodra caste but he by his devotion to the lord was so absorbed that even in the presence of temptation he was not even sexually agitated so it’s a it’s a extraordinary example to illustrate the principle of transcending temptation through absorption in Krishna so we don’t in any way support imitation of that extraordinary example but we do try to get inspiration to apply the principle of