20181103 Śrī Krishna Caitanya Book

The following is a Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Book compilation class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on November 3, 2018, in Chennai, India.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-gurun dina tāriṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram
Harihi oṁ tat sat

Jayapatākā Swami: Before we continue with the Caitanya Book compilation, I just wanted to mention to all of you, in some places the upcoming Monday and in some places the day before or after, is the holy day of Diwali. I was wondering why on such an important day for sanātana-dharma followers, few people come to the temple. I found that they generally stay home and receive relatives and friends who come visit them and they themselves visit others at their home. So one year we took Prabhupāda deity and visited 25 homes in one day. We did the Dāmodara-pūjā, got the family to offer lamps. They would give us their cookies and sweets and we would give them some prasāda from the temple. So like this we went from house after house after house. From morning to night. 25 houses. The next day was also a holiday for some of the Hindus and so we went visiting another 25 homes. In two-days we covered 50 houses. They were so happy to see the devotees coming and chanting. The visit may be took 5 minutes. In fact, one of the devotees had in his home noodles. The devotees had had so many sweets, and they were overdosed. Having noodles was a great break for them. So they all sat down and had their lunch. Then we went on to visit more homes. So when you take a deity of Prabhupāda or go with a kīrtana party, this is a good way to of visiting your congregational devotees’ homes during Diwali. I think it was all arranged in advance by telephone that we were coming. So Diwali could be another great opportunity to perform Dāmodara-pūjā and cultivate new and old members. So we were discussing Lord Caitanya met with Īśvara Purī Mahārāja at the holy place of Gayā where Lord Caitanya had gone to perform śrāddhā or piṇḍi for His deceased father. So He is offering some homage to Īśvara Purī. He says that holy places are not equal to you, because you are purifying even the holy places. Since Lord Caitanya had mentioned that going to all the holy places there is a song by Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura and people go to Gayā, Māyāpur, Purī, Ayodhyā, Mathurā, Dvārakā but after visiting the holy places their mind is still agītāted. They should visit the holy places and find out the saintly people who stay there and hear from them. In this way they can achieve great benedictions. Lord Caitanya went to Gayā and performed the śrāddhā ceremony for His deceased father. He said that just by the ceremony the father is delivered but by meeting with a pure devotee of the Lord millions of forefathers are delivered. So He was glorifying serving a Vaiṣṇava, hearing from a Vaiṣṇava.

“Oh spiritual master, it is my great good fortune that I am seeing your divine lotus feet. Please tell Me how by the power of bhakti I can dry up the ocean of material existence? So generally, people visit holy places to ask for some material benedictions, but the real purpose is to find one’s spiritual master and find out how by bhakti-yoga how to cross over the ocean of material existence.

So Lord Caitanya prayed to Īśvara Purī, please give Me devotion to Lord Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet. So how will I be able to cross over this ocean of repeated birth and death?

From the ocean of material existence, I pray to you to please deliver Me. I surrender My body to you.

So taking shelter of the lotus feet of the spiritual master is the main entrance to the practice of devotional service to the Lord. The spiritual master (Guru Mahārāja quoted from the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu but there was no repletion so not clear)

If someone wants to achieve the ultimate eternal benefit to be free from the material bondage, he needs to take shelter of a bona fide spiritual master who is the manifestation of the Supreme Lord. He will be liberated from the ocean of anarthas by surrendering to the spiritual master.

Unless one takes shelter of a bona fide spiritual master, who is fixed in the Absolute truth, there are two paths the argument afflicted living entities and the Vedic way. The argument afflicted people are basically godless and they are forgetting the spiritual master and taking shelter of the people who have material defects. Tendency to make mistakes, tendency to be illusioned, tendency to cheat and imperfect senses. So there is no scope for them in taking the shelter of the lotus feet of the spiritual master. They are envious of the spiritual master and Kṛṣṇa. They are guru-droha and kṛṣṇa-droha means killers of the guru and Kṛṣṇa. So they are determined to merge into the ocean of material sense-gratification and they justify this by their argumentative nature and they are unable to take shelter of the Vedic way with a bona fide spiritual master. So He wanted to propagate this great truth and educated people that Jagat-guru Śrī Caitanya Gaurasundara considered Himself a surrendered soul at the lotus feet of the guru and thus instructed everyone about śaraṇāgati in the form of full self-surrender and humility. So those who are using argumentation to try to prove that the spiritual master is insufficient, a spiritual master who is fully surrendered to Kṛṣṇa and whose all endeavors are meant for the pleasure of Kṛṣṇa, have no possibility of being delivered.

Lord Caitanya said to Īśvara Purī, I beg that you make Me drink the nectar of Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet. So one is recommended to associate with more advanced devotees or the spiritual master who is more advanced than oneself and develop their particular kind of affection for the Lord. In this way one can take full shelter of the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord and His representative the spiritual master. Someone sees that the only object of service are the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord In this way those practitioners want love of Godhead. So the Supreme Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu in His pastimes accepted Īśvara Purī as His spiritual master, who is himself the recipient of Mādhavendra Purī’s mercy. In this way Lord Caitanya received the mercy of the guru-paramparā. So Kṛṣṇa acted as a devotee taking shelter of a spiritual master. So He acted as a disciple, and He begged from Īśvara Purī, who acted as His spiritual master. These prayers were offered by Lord Caitanya to Īśvara Purī because he had kept his spiritual master, Mādhavendra Purī, fixed in his heart. As a result, He got full non-duplicitous mercy.

Īśvara Purī said listen dear Nimāi Paṇḍita. I know without doubt that You are an expansion of the Supreme Lord. Īśvara Purī, he was the Lord’s associate and servant of the mahā-bhāgavata guru Madhavendra Purī. He was constantly engaged in chanting the holy names of Kṛṣṇa. So he followed Lord Caitanya’s Śikṣāṣṭakam lesson, to offer respect to others without expecting any respect for one’s self. He said to Lord Caitanya that I know you are directly the Supreme Personality of Godhead. All the devas and controllers are simply Your expansion. However, since Lord Caitanya was acting as a devotee He took the role of a disciple. So Lord Caitanya acted as the disciple who received mercy from the disciplic succession of Lord Viṣṇu. So the jīva is the eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa, His taṭasthā-śakti, and part of the difference and non-difference. The living entity is in the bondage of the material world as long as they accept themselves with some material designation and do not surrender to guru and Kṛṣṇa.  So in this way, due to attachment of the material body and mind one is in material existence. The Lord is present in everyone’s heart as the Supersoul and the living entity is an infinitesimal soul and the Lord’s fragmental part. The Lord is independently potent, fully cognizant, and the living soul is a minute, liberated spiritual spark.

Does anyone other than the expansion of the Supreme Lord possess the learning and characteristics that You have?

So we will end here tonight.

So Īśvara Purī is glorifying Lord Caitanya.

Sometimes Lord Caitanya is glorifying Īśvara Purī and sometimes Īśvara Purī is glorifying Lord Caitanya. In the last verse Īśvara Purī is glorifying Lord Caitanya. So in this way pure devotees end up glorifying each other. So I went to the Gayā and saw the place where Lord Caitanya met Īśvara Purī. It is called the Ganjam Maṭha and half of it was taken over by the Māyāvādīs and half of it was open where Īśvara Purī met Lord Caitanya. At that time the district collected was willing to give us this half to develop but at that time we did not have much support to develop that holy place. Now some lady is donating her house, a Pink Kuṭira or something and it is not far and it is in a very posh area of Gayā. So there is an opportunity to develop many of the holy places of Lord Caitanya and His associates. Prabhupāda wanted that the Gaura-maṇḍala bhūmi be revealed to he devotees from all over the world, So we are compiling a book that will give directions and photos of how to reach these śrīpāṭs. Gaurāṅga Prema Mahārāja did some big research and wrote a book in Bengali. So we are translating that to English and adding photos and making it to international standards. I think it was translated by Bhaktajana Priya Prabhu. Recently they purchased a drone to take aerial shots of these holy places. So there is a lot of service to facilitate the devotees from around the world to visit the holy place of Lord Caitanya’s associates and Lord Caitanya’s pastimes. So please remember to do your Diwali cultivation and get many people to offer Dāmodara light. Get a whole bunch of sweets and give sweets at their house and they will be very happy if you take a sweet from their house, that is what Diwali is, visiting everyone’s house. Haribol!