19860507 Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya-līlā 24.274-275

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami on May 7^th 1986 in Atlanta Georgia the class begins with a reading from the CaitanyaCaritamrta Madhya-lila chapter 24 text 274 and 275.

tabeseivyādhadoṅhāreaṅganeānila

kuśāsanaāni’ doṅhārebhaktyevasāila

“The hunter then received the two great sages in the courtyard of his house. He spread out a straw mat for them to sit upon, and with great devotion he begged them to sit down.

jalaāni’ bhaktyedoṅhārapādaprakṣālila

seijalastrī-puruṣepiyāśire la-ila

“He then fetched water and washed the sages’ feet with great devotion. Then both husband and wife drank that water and sprinkled it on their heads.

Purport:

This is the process one should follow when receiving the spiritual master or someone on the level of the spiritual master. When the spiritual master comes to the residence of his disciples, the disciples should follow in the footsteps of the former hunter. It doesn’t matter what one was before initiation. After initiation, one must learn the etiquette mentioned herein.

Om tat sat

In other words the hunter was totally uncivilized he was prone to crossing great suffering to other living entities nonetheless although he was an uncultured aborigine in the forest when he took initiation he learned all the vaishnava etiquette and he followed it states to get pure love for Godhead one has to also know vaishnava etiquette the other places of the Bhagavatam of the Caitanyacaritamrtarather it states that the dust from the lotus feet of a devotee the water from washing his feet and the remnants of his prasadam are most pure so in this way one is to receive the spiritual master even at one's home by washing the feet before entering in them giving other presentations and then one takes the water from the washing and sprinkles over the family members head those who want if they feel inclined in other formulas given in drink whatever we've seen this in south indian all over India actually when the devotees come and do chanting Hari naam even people run out of their house with scented water and (uhoo) throw up the water on the feet of the devotees while they're going by in the street doing Hari naam and the devotees walk by in the water and then after the devotee survived I've seen the kirtan party goes by I've seen the grihasta could pour the water roll in the water afterwards he's got all the dust from the devotees just rolling in the dirt says in the fifth canto Bhagavatham  the one can achieve the shelter of the Lord without taking Abhishek the dust of the feet of the devotees. There was a famous devotee of Kṛṣṇa known as Kalidas and there was another devotee forget his name other devotee his goal was to get somehow or another the mahaprasad remnants from the plate of all of the pure devotees in the planet so whenever he heard about any pure devotee he would somehow another make a plan to invite him to his house and give him prasadam and then get some remnants so he invited one person and the person ate everything on his plate he was in great anxiety so I gave him some liquid chutney the person ate but there's still little slick on the leave plate or something after he left you know took the went out took the leave plate licked it got remnants and they invited the Kalidas, Kalidas was very careful that he wouldn't get any remnants even took his plate washed it off took every last bit so this devotee was in great anxiety with how will I get some remnant so then he thought that I'll give the mango chutney with the seed (laughing) cannot eat the seed of the mango so but when Kalidas took his plate and he went out to throw it so this grihastawent.. he was crawling in the bushes following so he wouldn't be so he could see where he was gone to throw the plate and then finally saw where he through the plate he went there and got the mango seed (ch..ch..ch) sucked out and to get the mahaprasad. So in this way that devotee got special favour from Kṛṣṇa because of his devotion or faith you know other devotees the kanishtaadhikari doesn't have faith in other devotees but only had faith in God to some degree but the madhyamaadhikari they have faith in the devotees of the Lord in addition to the Lord. so Srila Prabhupada said that all of his followers are pure devotees different levels actually in this movement there are many devotees are trying to serve Kṛṣṇa without desire for material gains and it's a basic definition of pure devotion so on one hand we should be very careful not to offend other devotees it's not that we just avoid offending the guru that of course we also we must be very careful to avoid but we also avoid offending other devotees both God brothers of our guru as well as our own God brothers and gods sisters because everyone is very dear to Kṛṣṇa due to their having served Kṛṣṇa they are serving Kṛṣṇa otherwise they are dear and we have to be careful not to make any offense against them. Srila Prabhupada was very concerned with this as he saw the tendencies of the devotees to sometimes become envious or become offensive to one another what he said was, very dangerous you know that the Pandavas they couldn't be rather the yadu dynasty could not be annihilated by any outside force it's only by fighting amongst themselves could they destroy each other. Srila Prabhupada said nothing can stop this movement but the only thing that can stop the movement is if within it this fighting amongst the devotees well there's offenses made so we haveto very careful not to offend any of the devotees we bow down in the morning and we pray for the we give our obeisance to the devotees who are like desire trees thro’ the day we should carry that out and not think, speak or do anything which is offensive to another devotee so positive side we try to get the blessings of the devotees so we can advance quickly in devotional service. Now of course in ISKCON is it's a complex in the sense that when Srila Prabupada was present then there was the guru and disciple and now there's two generation guru, disciple and grand disciple with many with it with that because there are many gurus who are God brothers that means they're many grand disciples who are cousin brothers coming from different gurus in this way sometimes it's very becomes a little complex of course in the future the even three generations and the planet at one time it's not inconceivable at all because no one can say anything could happen later spiritual master can leave the planet and his disciples some of the senior disciples could also become spiritual masters another so you could even have great grand disciples present at the same time. So somehow one has to adjust in the Vaishnava etiquette all of these complexities and to see of course during the time of Srila Prabhupada did have did instruct his disciples to go through the temple president through the GBC members that every disciple could not always just go to Srila Prabhupada but they had to go through their authorities and he made a basic structure so we can understand it in this pluralistic kind of situation in ISKCON that the structure that Srila Prabhupada gave us is a very unifying factor and within the structure that you can accommodate unlimited different kind of varieties if the structure and the system established by Prabhupada is maintained it was a kind of an etiquette or system that Prabhupada created for a worldwide preaching for the International Society for Kṛṣṇa consciousness so this is a very needed system otherwise how to adjust all these varieties of situations which are going to come up. So in any case the devotees should always be humble and should see the good qualities in other devotees even if one may be totally ignorant before initiation that makes so many mistakes but once one is taking after initiation Prabhupada said one must learn the etiquette in fact there's a verse somewhere in the Chaitanya charitamrita that states that unless one knows vaishnava etiquette one cannot develop pure love for Kṛṣṇa I would indicate that possibly one could get liberation there but to get pure love for Kṛṣṇa one has to know how to relate with other vaishnavas how to act according to the vaishnava etiquettes and how to avoid committing vaishnava offense the view is called marja Telangana that or marjataatikrama to go against the etiquette and the consideration of vaishnavas this is a kind of offence one level. So naturally we know that if we commit offense to the devotee that's the first offense of the ten offenses to the Holy Name that in doing so we will be offender to the Holy Name and this way thinks compound so we should try to simulate through the especially we can gain examples by seeing how different devotees have acted just even this Mragari, the hunter how he acted in relation with his guru how other great souls acted when they receive Kṛṣṇa or when they received other saintly persons.In India you can see many of these traditions are still very much alive even one day I went to South India to a home then outside their house they put a little wooden platform and they said please stand there and then they poured water on the feet with some kumkum and rice and it was like a whole pile of stuff there and paid their obeisance and then they requested please come inside when came in and again offered respects and garland's and think so this these are not initiated disciples of ISKCON or it was simply I was visiting for some other purpose but they took it like that this was the this is the way of receiving a sadhu or a vaishnava so we can see that many of these traditions are still very much alive in India and that Prabhupada said is the singular most important asset that the Indian people have that they know or that's one of the most praiseworthy assets is that they know how to respect a saintly person. One time Srila Prabhupada was walking in Vrindavana with his disciples on the BhaktiVedantamarga Road and there was a rickshaw driver who's driving and you know if you know rickshaws they have pulling rickshaws and they have pedal rickshaws so in Vrindavan is a long distance as peddling rickshaw these are people who pedal a bicycle with the people sitting on the back so if you pull around people all day like a horse or like other pulling animals would do those who have experience that often these rickshaw drivers tend to have a kind of stubborn attitude or kind of difficult to deal with mentality possibly the nature of their work in the hot Sun driving people around being that propelling force of their vehicle and some places I've heard that they have an average lifespan of thirty five years that I don't know accurate that is at least in Calcutta it's very hard to work in some places in any case here's one rickshaw driver coming and all of a sudden about 30 feet from Prabhupada he stops his rickshaw jumps out rickshaw and he pays his prostate obeisance to Srila Prabhupada in the middle of the road just (phooo) flat out and then Prabhupada the eyes are wide and just see this is the.. this is the glory something like that and I don't remember exactly this is the glory of India or this is the.. even a rickshaw driver knows how to in Vrindavan especially he said they are the time was like a special feature Vrindavan normally rickshaw drivers don't do that but that in India they know how to respect a spiritual master respect a Vaishnava so saintly person. This is one thing that I think everybody who has ever had the opportunity of doing travelling sankirtan or something in India experience there's no key they call those key key campers or something que ways que always knock out ways he camp campground of America or campgrounds of Americans so on that they don't have any of those things in fact there's so many people and normally it's not really even safe to park your car by the side of the road because there's no side to the roads because kind of just one lane roads in most places and off the road is not even enough to put a car it have to be like you're gonna so but our traveling parties when they travel around they are received by people and come into our house please stay here in fact I even had a preaching program where I would take deities and then we would go to we just asked who is the most pious person I'd go to be traveling selling books at about eight people ten people with me,Bhagavatamrataprabhu and others sometime at different time they're with me we're doing this Prabhupada was very pleased by the traveling programs sometimes we got so involved in selling books that we would forget to make advance arrangement for what we would stay when the Sun started going down we realized we had to make an arrangement so we just go we asked who are the big people in the city or in the town even small towns of ten thousand said well this person that first we go we asked you know anywhere where we could stay in your town,immediately they say please come and stay with me they'd empty if there was its sometime empty out their own room and I'll move in another room and say you please stay here and then I would tell the Poojari to go with a list and ask the person that where is the market place that I can go and buy the grains and vegetables for offering to the deity how to get to the marketplace to do this and the person would you know he comes there grab the list from the hand and no no you cannot I will get what do you want it is and then in this way we would always prepare our own prasadam we never take food given by other we've prepared we cook and offer to the deity and we give them mahaprasad so we were guests in their house they are feeding them it was a nice reciprocation but in every case I mean this psychology I never found anyone who is yeah well you go that way to that mark it was like honour they are it would be they would consider even a poor person that they would want to provide the food but we never asked them please we do it in this kind of subtle way and they would voluntarily offer at least in Bengal in a few places where I have found that people had this natural hospitalityeven if they were devotees of other gods or other systems they were generally very favorable infact sometimes you get people they wouldn't give a donation but they would have no hesitation to feed or otherwise provide shelter for the devotees and they used to say that someone who comes to the house unannounced is known as atithi, tithi meaning date, atithi meaning without date or without to someone as a guest that there's a saying atithi Narayana but apparently in one of the Puranas one time Narayan came to the house of a grihasta and in disguise as a guest and so this way they consider that someone who comes to the house like that to treat him as if he was Narayan and he never tell like this there this aspect. So they have some kind of ingrained idea about etiquette to some degree not that it's necessarily so deep but especially out in the country of India and the cities now the young people are learning Western etiquette video machines and other things are crazy there now but someone that we need to learn this Vaishnava etiquette so Indians have a little bit of a head start to their cultural background at least the people who are not so much in the big cities I think outside the big cities the etiquette is more well-known than those who grew up in the bigger cities unless they're in a very high-class family or something they may have that advantage by birth in some cases although Mragari here may have also been an Indian but he was a hunter there also uncivilized Indians but meant so often you find but even if we are uncivilized even if we're born in the Western culture or even if you are by nature totally ignorant of how to act in relation to other devotees we have to learn that we shouldn't think that well just because we're chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa just because we are somehow another doing our devotional service or preaching that therefore automatically we are perfect and complete on poornam or something and no we should always try to become more refined learn the proper etiquette and this way will be a better devotee will be also a better preacher and will be more able to attract the mercy of Nitai Gaura at least if for nothing else because that will avoid many offenses but apart from that actually you charm people if you know the proper etiquette how to deal

kampa-pulakāśruhailakṛṣṇa-nāmagāñā

ūrdhvabāhunṛtyakarevastrauḍāñā

“When the hunter chanted the Hare Kṛṣṇamahā-mantra before his spiritual master, his body trembled and tears welled in his eyes. Filled with ecstatic love, he raised his hands and began to dance, waving his garments up and down.

dekhiyāvyādherapremaparvata-mahāmuni

nāraderekahe, — tumihaosparśa-maṇi

“When Parvata Muni saw the ecstatic loving symptoms of the hunter, he told Nārada, ‘Certainly you are a touchstone.’

Purport by Srila Prabhupada:

When a touchstone touches iron, it turns the iron to gold. Parvata Muni called Nārada Muni a touchstone because by his touch the hunter, who was the lowest among men, became an elevated and perfect Vaiṣṇava. ŚrīlaBhaktivinodaṬhākura said that the position of a Vaiṣṇava can be tested by seeing how good a touchstone he is — that is, by seeing how many Vaiṣṇavas he has made during his life. A Vaiṣṇava should be a touchstone so that he can convert others to Vaiṣṇavism by his preaching, even though people may be fallen like the hunter. There are many so-called advanced devotees wholive..who sit in a secluded place for their personal benefit. They do not go out to preach and convert others into Vaiṣṇavas, and therefore they certainly cannot be called sparśa-maṇi, advanced devotees. Kaniṣṭha-adhikārī devotees cannot turn others into Vaiṣṇavas, but a madhyama-adhikārīVaiṣṇava can do so by preaching. ŚrīCaitanyaMahāprabhu advised His followers to increase the numbers of Vaiṣṇavas.

yāredekha, tārekaha ‘kṛṣṇa’-upadeśa

āmāraājñāya guru hañātāra’ eideśa

(CC. Madhya 7.128)

It is ŚrīCaitanyaMahāprabhu’s wish that everyone should become a Vaiṣṇava and guru. Following the instructions of ŚrīCaitanyaMahāprabhu and His disciplic succession, one can become a spiritual master, for the process is very easy. One can go everywhere and anywhere to preach the instructions of Kṛṣṇa.Bhagavad-gītā is Kṛṣṇa’s instructions; therefore the duty of every Vaiṣṇava is to travel and preach the Bhagavad-gītā, either in his country or a foreign country. This is the test of sparśa-maṇi, following in the footsteps of Nārada Muni.

Om tat sat

So it's the duty of everyone to preach Bhagavad-gita either in his own country or in a foreign country one may preach to his family or to his village or a city or may go to another state and preach or may even go to another country and preach somehow another we should try to give the message of Kṛṣṇa consciousness to others. Srila Prabhupada has exhibited this trait that he is coming directly in the line from Narada muni and Caitanyamahaprabhu shows all their divine potency manifesting because he was a true sparśa-maṇi he was able to make countless devotees all over the world just going into new places even when he was in Russia for a short time without any temples without any previous devotees being there simply on an invitation from the professor kotovsky he was able to make so many persons devotees that now our movement has spread of course other preachers have gone there subsequently but the first devotees made by Srila Prabhupada are the seed from which other plants branches and so on have come out. In this way Srila Prabhupada has shown his ability to create so many devotees Srila Prabhupada’s glory will be magnified when his followers are also blessed by.. are also shown to have this characteristic as being a sparśa-maṇis especially sparśa-maṇi can make gold so if it's sparśa-maṇi or Chintamani can make gold that's very good but normally with one Chintamani you don't make another Chintamani so if someone can make other chintamanisother sparśa-maṇis that's even better the Prabhupada means that at whose feet so many Prabhu's or so many important vaishnavas are taking shelter. The glory of the ISKCON movement will be when so many devotees followers of Srila Prabhupada are empowered by Srila Prabhupada to carry out this service of spreading the Vaishnava Dharma and are in turn manifesting the quality as sparśa-maṇi they're bringing so many others to take shelter of the Lord. So on the other hand there are some persons in India we find that there sometimes some persons so-called great spiritual masters and pure devotees and so on but who generally they just sit in one place they don't have the desire to go out and preach sometimes they are able to break the faith of some initiated devotee who has a bona fide spiritual master and then they get such persons to leave their spiritual master that is something which is very doubtful that that's even the activity of a Vaishnava. One may not be sparśa-maṇi but he may personally be practicing devotional service but as his sparśa-maṇi that one goes out and preach but if somebody's occupation is to break the faith of others or to criticize others who have this potency of being a sparśa-maṇi then one can ask the question that what is their actual position how are they are a Vaishnava. So therefore we avoid criticism we avoid listening to criticism of any Vaishnavas especially those who are going out and preaching and who are making so many converting so many others into Vaishnava it is very easy for someone who cannot turn others into Vaishnavas to criticize that how someone is travelling or how that person is making so many other people into Vaishnavas must be all material there must be that that's very easy to show pot-shots but that's completely neglecting carrying out the order of Caitanyamahaprabhu actually we find that opportunities to preach are so many and someone who is a sankirtan leader or leader of a temple there who is leadingsankirtan preaching there actually very important to devotees when the Prabhupada said that someone who's leading a sankirtan effort is the dear most to Caitanyamahaprabhu there is no one who is dear so you understand that the way that one gets very qualified as being dear to Lord Caitanya is by preaching the message of Lord Caitanya so those who criticize such devotees then Prabhupada once said that their even even the general public praise the devotees for their preaching for their high standard at so-called sadhu if they criticize then it would appear that their even lower than the public what to speak of being a Vaishnava although according to their trappings they appear to be as great Vasihnavas but unfortunately in the world today sometimes when a person does very good preaching others are there to criticize so this thing has to be avoided and we personally follow in the tradition of Prabhupada to give credit to persons according to their ability to preach if we see that someone is advancing the cause of CaitanyaMahaprabhu's movement we feel very grateful for that we identify with that and just as Parvata muni didn't have any hesitation with praising Narada muni sometimes you can say that Parvata muni was Naradamunis god brother in a sense they were spiritual equals don’t know exactly Parvatamunis initiation gurus and all that exact but i mean they're basically had a similar level therefore Narada muni would associate with Parvatamahamuni and came with him so here we find that many things actually actually this is a quite now that I think about it this is practical one thing is how Parvatamuni glorified Narada Muni that we shouldn't feel shy about glorifying our God brothers if they do something good oh you did a very good sankirtanprabhu oh my dear God sister you did some very good sankirtan congratulations to you you must have the mercy of Guru Kṛṣṇa or something sometimes maybe those words don't like to come out but there's no harm in fact that is proper etiquette to even offer but the person being praised of course they have to adjust their conscious and not to get puffed up or anything but this concept of appreciating service not only from the Guru but even from one's own swatirths or God brothers there's a principle which we find among such great devotees they are not having any kind of material separation between them they is a spontaneous so spontaneousParvata muni said oh wonderful what you've done you've made this hunter into a vaishnava he's ecstatically chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa this is very good. Now in this regard we see that here Narada muni is coming and the hunter is a specifically offering respect before his spiritual master and in fact so much so that even he jumps up and he starts chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa and is actually crying and everything at this point Parvata muni did not feel that offended that why my guru god brother is being worshiped in front of me this is very offensive sometimes some kind of strange philosophy came out I think I haven't heard it recently but one time we heard that somehow it was an offense if the Guru is worshipped by his disciple when his god brother is present but philosophically I never found any basis for that maybe that's fine I don't hear it much anymore rather we find here that Parvata muni he was very happy to see that in this in this world where nobody has any faith in guru in fact even one person asked me yesterday why do we bow down before someone aren’t  we only supposed to bow down before God so this is a common thing that nobody wants to bow down before anyone so when they see someone sees that here someone is bowing down before his guru and his developed faith in guru and has become enthusiastic to serve Kṛṣṇa through the Guru then naturally that's a source of rejoicing for all vaishnavas that somebody somewhere is developing some faith in spiritual life. So Parvata muni he was very happy to see in fact we can tell from his candid remark he was overjoyed to see Naradamuni's ability to make this hunter into a vaishnava what to speak of abject he was rather very happy. So like this in the of course normally we don't study the Mirgari the hunter pastime from all these different angles but it's something very practical because here we see that How Narada muni is saying come on let's say I have a disciple you should see was the hunter before and he must have told the whole story to Parvata muni and Parvata muni came and said look at that this person that was half killing and look at he's jumping up in and down in ecstasy this is very nice. I heard that one time Prabhupada said that in New York one time Narada muni came and visited and he was laughing and laughing how all their lectures and job owners were dancing in ecstasy chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. So we who are even the hunter were just killing animals deers that you wouldn't think to kill a cow probably so what to speak at least he did it himself he didn't hire some butcher or someone else to do it so you wouldn't get he was in total ignorance so therefore even Narada muni said as a hunter you don't get that much karma so anyway Narada muni all the devotees are very pleased to see that the people who had been separated from Vedic culture for thousands and millions of years are now taking it up even though they've had the habits of Yavana and mlecchas that's a matter of rejoicing even that Indian people they're already enthusiastic when they come to the temple and they say oh you are doing more than we are doing may have heard that sometimes we are not able to give up all these things but you are doing therefore we are very grateful because you are serving our culture so that common identification as that at least that our interest is to Kṛṣṇa to spreading the message of Chaitanya mahaprabhu anything which will further that even if if I am personally if what person considers himself to be personally fallen unqualified by some reason he can still I appreciate that at least someone is doing something for my lord even though I am not even myself to do as much as I would like to so we can see that what's really needed this relationship amongst all the devotees of love and trust and of course we should understand how when the hunter greeted Narada muni he also naturally respected the god brother of his guru there definitely is a different relationship between the hunter and Narada and Parvata Muni and Narada although Parvata muni was not his guru but he was an exalted vaishnav he had a relationship with Narada muni so naturally the disciple respects the associates of the spiritual master and is careful not to offend them knowing that they have some special relationship with the spiritual master and this way all the things have to be adjusted it may sound complicated but if things are on the basis of love, then it's not a very complicated if things become on the basis of rules and regulations then it gets a little more complicated otherwise it’s not too complicated but it's a little more complicated but if it's done on the basis of love and we can see that spontaneously it's natural that things will be done in this way every word that Prabhupada says is filled so much meaning one can't go everywhere and anywhere to preach the instructions of Kṛṣṇa. One time they wrote Prabhupada what if we are trying to preach some we're not getting good results is that we go somewhere else go wherever you get good results just like when we sell books sometime it go wherever opportunity is good although sometimes devotees try to preach and even very difficult places of the world knowing that ultimately this is Lord Caitanya's desire and this way spread the Kṛṣṇa conscious movement to every town and village in every country of the world so that desire of going everywhere and anywhere to give the message of Kṛṣṇa even in the future there's natural for devotees even to think that well I have to finish this planet make it Kṛṣṇa conscious what about the other planets? what about the moon planet? what about the other planets in the universe there's so many planets some are there's fourteen levels of planetary systems so within those fourteen levels there millions of planets and universal fallen within different levels so there are other planets on this level where Lord Chaitanya personally didn't have His pastimes so we have to go there and spread that sankirtanprocess so people can be submerged in the ecstasy of chanting the holy names. So actually there are some devotees that like to stay and do the service of confidential service of preaching in behalf of Kṛṣṇa and there are others who go back to the spiritual world and some who go back but they come back here like Narada muni although he can go right to Narayana next minute he can come down to take a bath in the Prayag confluence of the three rivers Jamuna, Ganga and Saraswathi and this way he goes and he spreads the glories of the Lord everywhere so someone like Narada muni who can go right to Kṛṣṇa's palace and Dwarka at the same time goes and he preaches to hunter like mragari who is completely uncouth uncivilized violent anger person then we can understand that there must be some real nectar in preaching otherwise why will someone like Narada muni who can taste directly the nectar even of seeing Kṛṣṇa face to face and serve he takes this service to go and give people the holy name so it's a great opportunity for us that somehow or another by the mercy of Lord Caitanya, Srila prabhupada the vaishnavas they were able to tell conditioned souls about the glories of Kṛṣṇa and to spread the Harinamsankirtan process thus getting an opportunity to taste that nectar which these great devotees are tasting Hare Kṛṣṇa.