CONTENTS:
- TRANSCENDENTAL PASTIMES OF SRI CHAITANYA MAHAPRABHU
- QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
- SRILA PRABHUPADA'S APPRECIATION
- GURU MAHARAJA’S INSTRUCTIONS
1. TRANSCENDENTAL PASTIMES OF SRI CHAITANYA MAHAPRABHU
The Lord started to display some amazing activities. Baby Nimai was in the room, the mother is doing her housework chores, father is busy doing something. All of a sudden from the room they heard the sound of ankle bells and they were surprised, what happened? Where is this sound coming from? They went to the room and they found some footprints as if somebody had been walking in that room. The baby is lying on the bed; He does not have any ankle bells on his ankles. They began to wonder what happened. In their innocent way they felt maybe the Bala Gopala who is there in the altar, the Bala Gopala came off the altar and He was walking around and it is the ankle bells from His ankles that made that sound.
The boy started to crawl, the babies they walk on their hands and feet that’s their first movement. So, the baby is crawling sometimes in the courtyard. As baby Nimai one day He was crawling in the courtyard and Mother Saci came out of the house and she saw the child is running after a snake. There was a huge snake and the child was running after the snake just like children like to play not knowing how dangerous the snake is. Now mind you, when the child catches the snake by the tail what happens? Sssshhhhh it spreads its hood as if he is going to bite the snake while doing this did something even more dangerous he coiled around the child’s body and the child happily enjoyed the coils of the snake.
Now consider the condition of the mother. Everyone came running hearing that cry and seeing the situation they could not figure out what to do. If they would approach the snake now there is a possibility that the snake would bite the child so what they did? They just started to chant “Garuda, Garuda, Garuda” because snakes are afraid of Garuda. At that time the snake left the child and slithered away. What a wonderful pastime! He was causing so much anxiety and then you see the relief. Now the consideration is who is that snake? He came to play with his brother Krishna, Balarama as Ananta Sesa came to play with Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Thank you very much. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
2. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Q: Guru Maharaja, you gave such wonderful pastimes of the Lord you mentioned about the brother of Krishna so I just had a question what is the role of Vishwarupa in Mahaprabhu’s leela and what do we understand from this?
A: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is Krishna and before Krishna came Balarama came as Vishwarupa. One way of looking at is you see Balarama actually makes all the arrangements for Krishna. Like when Krishna becomes Garbhodakashaye Vishnu and decides to lie in the causal ocean, He needs a bed so in that ocean how to arrange a bed for Him to lie down? Balarama becomes Ananta Sesa and makes a bed. The point is that Balarama makes all the arrangements for Krishna and His appearance so now that Krishna is going to appear in the womb of Mother Saci so Balarama came as Vishwarupa and made all the arrangements in Mother Saci’s womb for Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to come. So, this is how he became his elder brother. He was appearing in the womb to make the arrangements in the womb for the arrival of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Balarama also appeared as Nityananda Prabhu, same personality appeared in two ways as Vishwarupa and Nityananda Prabhu. So eventually Vishwarupa merged into Nityananda Prabhu that’s why Chaitanya Mahaprabhu used to consider him as His elder brother and Nityananda Prabhu used to consider Saci Mata as his mother.
Q: Guru Maharaja yesterday you mentioned about Vrindavana Krishna appearing once in a day of Brahma and today also in Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s pastimes appearing which is very rare. What happens in the other Dwaparayuga within the day of Brahma? Is it an expansion of Krishna and the pastimes are they also from Goloka Vrindavana?
A: No. Those pastimes are yuga avatars to establish yuga dharma that is not the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself. They are incarnations of yuga avatars and They establish yuga dharma. This Vrindavana leela is only once in a day of Brahma.
Q: Guru Maharaja yesterday you mentioned that in order to understand Vraja leela we need to understand Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s position and pastimes then should we not be getting Chaitanya-Charitamrita first then Bhagavatam?
A: Well that understanding will obviously help especially understanding Krishna’s Vraja leela especially Krishna’s pastimes with His cowherd boyfriends, with His parents and Gopis, this three mellows: friendship, parental and conjugal. Srimad Bhagavatam has to be studied first before that because Bhagavatam is not only revealing Krishna’s Vraja leela. Bhagavatam is gradually taking us to Vraja leela. In Bhagavad Gita we understood Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead but His actual glory has not been properly explained there that understanding comes from Srimad Bhagavatam, the broader understanding which comprises of the Lord’s relationship with creation. Bhagavatam has ten aspects primary creation, secondary creation, the planetary systems, maintenance, relationship, reigns of different Manus, descriptions of the different incarnations of the Lord, liberation, cessation of material existence and The Lord as the ultimate shelter. Prabhupada described this ashraya as the summum bonum, the ultimate feature that is the loving relationship with Him is the ultimate consideration.
So Bhagavatam is gradually taking us to that point and then we are exposed to Chaitanya-Charitamrita to understand after hearing Krishna’s pastimes in Vrindavan and what is the meaning and depth of these pastimes. After all, Bhagavatam has been written before and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is explaining Srimad Bhagavatam so unless you understand Bhagavatam where is the room for explanation? Not understand unless you not exposed to Srimad Bhagavatam then comes the consideration of explanation and that explanation takes the proper understanding. Regarding Krishna Kumar’s question or her comment made me think and I wanted to explain that point. First of all, I would like to say that what she said is relevant that should we see the women as a kind of property of man? Like the consideration is not that they become the properties of their husbands as such. It is a mutual relationship in one hand comes the surrender and the reciprocation comes in the form of relationship, why submit herself to the husband, the husband accepts the wife as his life partner not as a slave it is not a relationship of slavery it is a relationship of companionship and that partnership is giving rise to the relationship of friendship, doing things together.
So, now I will go to the main point, ultimately there are two considerations one is a relative consideration and one is the absolute consideration. In the material nature all these aspects that the scriptures are indicating is actually a relative consideration and the ultimate issue it is not factual. In ultimate issue that is not what is meant to be and in order to go to the ultimate issue, when it comes to proprietorship who is the actual proprietor? There may be secondary proprietors as such like a King may claim that his kingdom belongs to him but is that the ultimate consideration? No. The King must understand and recognize his kingdom belongs to Krishna and he acts as a representative so that is what the secondary and relative consideration, social consideration or material consideration but beyond that the ultimate consideration is Krishna is the Supreme proprietor, Krishna is the Supreme controller, the Supreme maintainer so the goal of the scripture is to take us to that level. In order to take us to that level the scriptures are giving some mandates and secondary arrangements in order to uplift one to that ultimate level.
3. SRILA PRABHUPADA'S APPRECIATION
If you will follow Srila Prabhupada’s instructions very sincerely accepting, him as your Shiksa Guru, then your spiritual perfection is guaranteed.
4. GURU MAHARAJA’S INSTRUCTIONS
- Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said that you chant holy name in congregation then all your desires will be fulfilled and you need not to follow any vidhis of scriptures.
(The content of this E-magazine is based on a seminar entitled, “the transcendental Pastimes of Lord Chaitanya” given by HH Bhakti Charu Swami Maharaja at Drakensburg Retreat, South Africa on 20 January 2017)
(Compiled and Edited by Hemavati Radhika Devi Dasi)