Why did Chaitanya Mahaprabhu take sannyasa from a Mayavadi teacher?

From: Panca pandava Prabhu:

Prabhuji as we are against mayavadis then why Caitanya mahaprabhu took sannayasa from kesava Bharati a mayavadis teacher?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question for Panchpandav Prabhu.
As we are against Mayavadis and why did Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu take sannyas from Keshav Bharti, a Mayavadi teacher? Answer. First, it is not that we are against Mayavadis. It is not that we have any personal agenda of hatred against Mayavadis.
It is the fact that the Mayavadis give explanation of scripture that is contrary to the spirit and the purpose of the scriptures and that is why we as devotees, as representatives of Krishna who are trying to share Krishna’s message had to point out the inadequacies and the incorrectness of the philosophy of Mayavad. The philosophy of Mayavad means Maya-vad. That the vad is the argument, Maya is illusion.
The argument which says that practically everything is illusion. So not only is the world an illusion, not only is our sense of individuality and personality an illusion but even God’s personality and individuality, God’s form and pastimes are also a product of illusion. So this sort of philosophy is anti-scriptural and anti-devotional.
Krishna describes in 7.24, 9.11 and 12, how in the Bhagavad Gita, how those who mistake his form to be material, temporary, to be a product of the three modes of material nature are misled and they meet unfortunate consequences because of their misconception. So now giving this background, it is a valid question why did Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, who wanted to teach the message of Krishna as given in the Bhagavad Gita, the message of pure love for Krishna, why did he take initiation in a tradition, a sampradaya that taught Mayavad from a teacher, Keshav Bharti, who was known to be Mayavadi. So historically speaking, Shankaracharya from the 7th century onwards, 7th, 8th century onwards, started speaking the philosophy of impersonalism to slowly introduce the Vedic culture back in India where India had become extensively and rapidly converted to Buddhism and Jainism from the 5th century BC to around 6th, 7th century AD.
So Shankaracharya presented the Vedic teaching in Buddhistic terms and presented the Vedic concept of Brahman as similar to the Buddhistic conception of shunyam and by showing the similarities of the overall thoughts and values of the Vedic and the Buddhistic systems and also establishing in some way the spirituality of Vedic thought, he brought people back into the Vedic fold. But even Shankaracharya also left many devotional teachings and his bhaja govindam prayers are very famous and since Shankaracharya’s time onwards, there were many devotees within the sampradaya of Mayavad also, within the impersonalist tradition. Now some impersonalists, some Mayavadis try to interpret that Shankaracharya talked about bhakti only at a lower level.
That means as long as we think that we are so, we are separate from God, we should worship God. But eventually, when we are most advanced then we will realize that there is no difference between us and God and we will merge into God. So this is the interpretation of Mayavadis of Shankaracharya’s devotional prayers.
But Shankaracharya has at several places mentioned how he considers bhakti to be the highest, bhakti to be higher than even grammatical analysis which is the basis of the Mayavadi method of scriptural exegesis, scriptural explanation. Grammar is very important for that. So bhaja govindam bhaja govindam mudhamate.
So he says that, oh foolish person, mahi rakshati dukhru na karane. That analysis of grammatic, grammar is not going to help you at the time of death, just worship Lord Govinda. Even when his own mother was passing away, at that time Shankaracharya helped her remember Lord Krishna, Lord Vishnu.
He did not teach her Mayavad, the idea that we are all one with Brahman. So of course, those who interpret Shankaracharya in a Mayavadi way will see his teachings as impersonalistic. But ultimately the impersonalistic teachings dry out the heart because the heart longs for love.
And the whole idea of Mayavad is that the Brahman is the only thing that exists and all our desires for relationships are the cause of bondage and we just have to give up all our desires. We can’t even have a desire for God because the concept of God is also an illusion. You have to go beyond God to the formless light and merge in it.
That is the Mayavadi idea. So within a few centuries after the propagation of Mayavad, within the Mayavadi sampradaya also, bhakti started becoming very strong. And we have the example of Sridhar Swami, who lived somewhere between the 11th-12th centuries.
His dates are not absolutely certain, they vary, but somewhere at that time he lived. So he was officially initiated in Mayavad sampradaya, but still he was a devotee. And his commentaries are often so devotionally surcharged that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu considered him as the Bhagavatam commentator par excellence.
Par excellence being the best among all Bhagavatam commentators. So like Sridhar Swami, subsequently there were others also who apparently were in the Mayavad sampradaya, but they were actually devotees. And as devotees, they propagated Krishna Bhakti, Vishnu Bhakti.
So Keshav Bharti was in the Mayavad sampradaya, but he was not a Mayavadi. He was a devotee. Now over the centuries, as Mayavad has tried to maintain its hold over a large number of people, and as Mayavad has responded to the philosophical challenges posed by the personalist traditions, by the Vaishnavas from the Sri Sampradaya, Madhya Sampradaya, the Gaudiya Sampradaya, gradually Mayavad has morphed, morphed to be at a more or less equivalent level to Gyan.
So for example, Madhusudan Saraswati was a very famous Mayavadi, who lived just after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s time. He wrote many classic books on Mayavad, but then he wrote a commentary in the Bhagavad Gita called the Gudartha Deepika, in which he mentioned that he considers Krishna to be the highest truth. So Madhusudan Saraswati, at the end of his Gudartha Deepika, at the end of the 15th chapter commentary in the Gudartha Deepika, he says that, I do not know any other reality than Krishna, whose hands are adorned with a flute, whose gesture is like that of a new rain cloud, who wears a yellow cloth, whose lips are reddish like the dimba fruit, whose face is beautiful like the full moon, and whose eyes are like lotuses.
Those fools who cannot tolerate the wonderful glory of Krishna, go to hell. So, if you hear these words, these words don’t at all seem to be the words of a Mayavadi. He is a devotee.
So, the Sanskrit of one part of his commentary is, krishnad param kimapi tattvam aham na jane. Krishnad param, anything higher than Krishna, kimapi tattvam. There is no tattva that I know of that is higher than Krishna.
This is not the mood of a Mayavadi. Mayavadi considers Brahman to be higher than Krishna. So, basically, Mayavad sort of evolved in ways.
Gradually, over a period of time, bhakti and jnan started being considered to be equivalent parts. And the personal and impersonal aspects were both regarded as highest realities. And it was made a matter of preference, what one was attracted to.
Of course, officially, Shankaracharya was given the respect according to the founding teacher of that sampradaya. But overall, bhakti elements started getting infiltrated into Mayavad. And this led to Mayavad being a complex gamut of thoughts, which extended from hard Mayavad, which considered absolutely everything to be illusion, except the Brahman, to soft Mayavad, which included bhakti and Bhagwan as alternate absolute realities.
So, if we look at the description of Keshav Bharti as given in the Chaitanya Mangala and Chaitanya Bhagwat, which are among the principal commentaries of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, biographies of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, apart from Chaitanya Charitamrita, then in these two biographies, the character and personality of Keshav Bharti is clearly seen to be devotional. So, he might nominally have been in a Mayavad sampradaya, but he was within the devotional strand of the Mayavad sampradaya, and he was a devotee. So, in that sense, Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not take initiation from Mayavadi.
He took initiation from a devotee. So, that’s why we should not in any way think that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu subordinated himself to a Mayavadi and accepted him as a guru. No.
Keshav Bharti was a devotee, and the devotional strand has been there within Mayavad for a long time, and it has been going on. So, a hard Mayavad is surely to be condemned. Condemned not because we have any personal hatred against it, because it is against the message of Lord Krishna, and it is something which deprives the heart of the fulfillment that it longs for.
And not just deprived by saying that we are not pure enough to get it, but by saying that actually it doesn’t exist only to be got. And the desire for love is an illusion, and the desire for relationship is an illusion. So, Mayavad in that sense is condemned, because it denies the heart’s essential needs and longings.
Now, still the question may come, why did Chaitanya Mahaprabhu take initiation from a devotee who was within the Mayavadi tradition? So, that is because in the Vedic tradition, one’s position and authority for teaching the Vedic message comes not just from one’s own charisma and potency, but it also comes from one’s connection with an established tradition. So, without that connection with the established tradition, one’s message will not be taken seriously. That’s why if we look at other Vaishnava Acharyas like Sri Ramanujacharya and Sri Madhavacharya, even they were originally initiated by impersonalist spiritual teachers, spiritual masters.
So, we have the example of Sri Ramanujacharya taking initiation from Yadav Prakash, who was a Mayavadi teacher, who was an impersonalist. Similarly, we have the example of Madhavacharya taking initiation from Achyut Pariksha. But then, after they took initiation, and they learned the knowledge under them, but when they found that the conclusions of the teachers were non-devotional, and not just non-devotional, but anti-devotional, then they actually countered those anti-devotional teachings and established their correct understanding of the Vedic scriptures.
In fact, we have the examples of both Yadav Prakash and Achyut Pariksha gradually becoming transformed and embracing the devotional path. So, there they had to take initiation within the established echelons of intellectual and scriptural authority, so that their teaching would have legitimacy. Just as in a modern context, if somebody wants to do serious scientific research, then that person needs to have a scientific degree, generally speaking.
To get a scientific degree, one may have to go in a science university, and that science university may be teaching atheistic principles, and one may have to nominally go along with those atheistic principles, without being influenced by them. And gradually, a person who is taking scientific education may have to nominally go along with that science school, and eventually, after getting the scientific degree, can actually refute the materialist atheistic interpretation that has been given by the mainstream scientific community, and establish how a non-materialist, non-mechanistic spiritual interpretation of the evidence is also tenable, intelligible, and gradually acceptable. So, therefore, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, because at that time, all over the country, impersonalists still had a stronghold as the intellectual office-bearers of the country’s orthodoxy.
That means, if somebody wanted to be respected as the representative of the orthodox, traditional Vedic teachings, then the Mayavadis were considered to be the main representatives, and therefore, to counter them, it was essential that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s teachings had to have similar, if not greater authority. So, for getting that similar authority, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu took initiation within the Mayavad sampradaya, but following in the footsteps of the other previous great Vaishnavacharyas, Ramacharya and Mahashila Madhavacharya, he used the legitimacy acquired from the Mayavad sampradaya to show how Mayavad had got the conclusion of Vedic literature wrong, and how the Vedic literature led to a personal, theistic, and devotional conclusion. So, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s initiation was from a devotee within the Mayavad sampradaya, and was for a devotional purpose, to establish the ultimately personal,