Why is Lord Jagannatha’s form so unusual? | Wisdom Munches 8 | Chaitanya Charan

Transcript

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in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu philosophical sense the lord is unchanging he is beyond any change that characterizes this world but the lord changes because he wants to reciprocate with the love of his devotees and here what happens is it is the same Krishna who has an extremely attractive form he is so attractive that he is called as Madan Mohan millions of cupids get attracted and stunned by his beauty and yet that Krishna when he is in Dwaraka he is longing for being with the Brajwasis feeling separation from their love and at that time when there is the recitation of the past times of Vrindavan that happens in Dwarka the Dwarkawasis want to know the Dwarkawasis want to know what happens in Vrindavan why is Krishna so attracted and then there is one associate who has been in Vrindavan who has also been in Dwarka who is that? Rohini and Rohini starts describing the past times and they make sure that Krishna is not there because they know Krishna will be immensely affected when he hears about the devotees but somehow Krishna has been sent away Krishna somehow just gets the hang of it just comes running back and when the past times are being described as Krishna remembers those past times by hearing them he is internally always remembering them but when there is an external reinforcement of an inner perception or inner recollection there is greater impact and Krishna becomes so immersed sometimes say when we are concentrating on something and say we are trying to hear a talk maybe the person next to us starts talking on their phone the door opens you might get a little annoyed of course if we are bored with the talk we are annoyed that the door is not opening we want some disturbance but either way the point is when you want to be absorbed in something we want to remove all distractions so we may try to remove distractions by making external changes nowadays you can watch if somebody wants to watch a movie they can watch a movie at home on streaming services still people pay a big amount of money and go to movies why? because they want immersion they want absorption of course that is absorption and illusion which is not very helpful but people want to be absorbed in it now we make external changes what is that? ok turn off the lights no distractions and we don’t want in the theatre people talking to each other silence now when the lord wants to immerse himself by his omnipotence it is not just the external distractions go away but actually even internal distractions go away what that means is when he is hearing at that time there are physical transformations anything that can be a potential for distraction that is withdrawn now for example you are sitting maybe you are sitting on the floor and it is not very comfortable or maybe you are sitting on a chair and it is too comfortable you are falling asleep because of that which ever way now our physical limbs sometimes can be a source of discomfort so what happens with Krishna is that he doesn’t want any distraction so the limbs the gyanendriyas are taking in he is actually hearing but while he is hearing information is coming at that time the karmendriyas will come in the way the karmendriyas are the actual performing senses so that they don’t come in the way the karmendriyas are withdrawn inside and that’s why Jagannath seems to be at one level incompletely formed deity but he is not incompletely formed he is transcendentally formed he is transcendentally transformed the form of Jagannath reveals how the form of Jagannath reveals how the lord himself in order to remember and relish the past times of his devotees or with his devotees he gets transformed his eyes they are so big all his senses they are transformed in such a way that the immersion becomes maximum so Jagannath manifests something extraordinary in the Vedic tradition what does Jagannath manifest Jagannath manifests there are so many forms of the divine but Jagannath is the only form of the divine that is transformed by the love of the devotee that there is the form of Krishna there is the form of Ram, there is the form of Narsimha, Narsimha we could say the divine transformed that is not so much due to the love of a devotee it is the love of devotee but it is more the conditions required to kill the demon who is persecuting his devotee but Jagannath his specialty is it is demonstrating that Jagannath’s form specifically it demonstrates how the lord is transformed by the devotee’s love so that loving relationship between the lord and the devotee is the supreme reality by the devotee’s love so this is in this lord Jagannath is unique and now of course we know in the story of Maharaj Indradyumna the lord arranged that he wanted to have Vishwakarma come and make the deities but then he got transcendentally impatient and that architect had said you should not disturb me when I am making the deities and then he couldn’t hear any sound now why was it that sound stopped coming and why was it that he became so impatient you know devotee should be patient but he became impatient and he barged in and then the result was that the lord the deities seemed to be again incompletely formed so the deity of Jagannath it seems incomplete incompletely formed but actually that’s a superficial perception it is the deity is transcendentally formed or transcendentally transformed so he was aghast because the architect left and he was told he thought what have I done because of my impatience I have ruined this whole manifestation of the lord as a deity and then a celestial voice appeared and spoke to him saying that this deity this is the eternal form of the lord so again the lord here transformed a devotee’s heart with impatience so that what would be incomplete what would normally seem incomplete would become complete so the Isha Upanishad says that the lord is complete and everything comes from him is also complete now how was this incomplete form complete this incompletely sculptured form was complete because it is a manifestation of a transcendental love this is the uniqueness of the form of Jagannath within the Vedic tradition