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#i#Following in the footsteps of Kaviraj Krishnadas Goswami, we may offer our respectful obeisances unto the Lotus Feet of Lord Chaitanya.#/i#
#$p#He is described as follows: Lord Chaitanya is the only shelter for the forlorn, or the most fallen, and He is the only hope for persons who are completely devoid of spiritual knowledge. Let us try to discuss His great contribution of devotional service.
#$p#The Supremely Powerful Lord Krishna becomes manifest in five different potentialities. Although He is One without any second, still, for serving five different specific spiritual purposes, He is manifested in five. Such diversity is eternal and blissful, as opposed to the conception of montonous oneness. From the version of Vedic literature, we can understand that the Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, eternally exists with His diverse energies. Lord Chaitanya appeared with full diverse energies, and they are five in number; and, therefore, He is said to be Krishna with diverse energies, presented as Lord Chaitanya.
#$p#As there is no difference between the energy and the energetic, so it is in the Lord's appearance as Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and His four Associates, Nityananda Prabhu, Adwaita Prabhu, Gadadhara, and Srivas. Among these five diverse manifestations of the Supreme Lord as incarnation, expansion and energies there is no spiritual difference. They are five in One Absolute Truth. For relishing transcendental flavors in the Absolute Truth they are five diverse manifestations, and they are called the Form of a devotee, the identity of a devotee, and pure devotional service personified.
#$p#Out of these five diversities of the Absolute Truth, the Form of Lord Chaitanya is the Original Personality of Godhead, Krishna. The identity of Krishna as Lord Nityananda is as the manifestation of the first expansion of the Supreme Lord. And, similarly, Adwaita Prabhu is an incarnation of the Supreme Lord. All these three belong to the category of Vishnu Tattwa, or the Supreme Absolute Truth. Srivas is the representation of a pure devotee, and Gadadhara is the representation of the internal energy of the Lord for advancement in the cause of pure devotion. Therefore Gadadhara and Srivas, although within the category of Vishnu, are diverse energies of the Supreme Lord. In other words, they are not different from the energetic, but, still, for relishing transcendental relationships, they are manifested diversely. The whole process of devotional service is transcendental reciprocation of the flavors of relationship between the worshipped and the worshipper. Without such a diverse exchange of transcendental flavors, devotional service has no meaning.
#$p#In the Vedic literature (Katho Upanishad) there is a verse which says that the Supreme Lord is the Supreme Living Entity amongst all living entities. There are innumerable living entities, but there is One Living Entity Who is the Supreme Absolute Godhead. The difference between that Singular Living Entity and the plural number of living entities is that the Singular Living Entity is the Lord of all. Lord Chaitanya is that Supreme Living Entity, Who descended Himself for claiming the fallen innumerable living entities. In other words, the specific purpose of Lord Chaitanya's advent in recent ages was to establish the Vedic fact that there is One Supreme Personality of Godhead predominating over, or maintaining, the numerous personalities of living entities. The Mayavadi, impersonalist, philosophers cannot understand this, and therefore Lord Chaitanya advented Himself, to convince the people in general about the real nature of the relationship between the Supreme and the many entities.
#$p#In the Bhagavad Gita, the last instruction of Lord Krishna is that everyone should give up all other engagements and should engage in the devotional service of the Lord. But after His disappearance, persons with less intelligence misunderstood Him. They became contaminated with the Mayavadi philosophy, which produced so many mental speculators that people became misled about the actual position of the Absolute Truth and the living entity. Lord Chaitanya, therefore, although the Supreme Lord Krishna Himself, again appeared to teach the fallen souls of this material world how to approach Lord Krishna. The philosophy of Bhagavad Gita is that one should give up everything and be done with this world of material attachment. A pure devotee of Lord Krishna and one who follows the philosophy of Lord Chaitanya are the same. Chaitanya's philosophy is: one should give up everything and worship God, Krishna. The difference is that Krishna, as the Supreme Lord, the personality of Godhead, spoke the same words indicating Himself, and the Mayavadi philosophers misunderstood Him. Therefore, Lord Chaitanya indicated the same thing: one should not declare himself to be as good as Krishna, but should worship Krishna as the Supreme Lord.
#$p#It is a great mistake if we accept Lord Chaitanya as one of the conditioned souls; He is to be understood as the Supreme Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead, Sri Krishna Himself, In the Chaitanya Charitamrita, therefore, it is said of Lord Chaitanya: "Krishna is now present in His five diverse manifestations," as is being explained here. Unless one is in uncontaminated goodness, it is very difficult to understand Lord Chaitanya as the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself. Therefore, to understand Lord Chaitanya one has to follow the direct disciples of Lord Chaitanya, the six Goswamis, and especially the path chalked out by Srila Jiva Goswami.
#$p#The most astonishing factor is that Lord Chaitanya, although the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, never exhibited Himself as Krishna. Rather, whenever He was detected by intelligent devotees as Lord Krishna, and addressed as Lord Krishna, He denied it, and sometimes He closed His ears, protesting that one should not be addressed as the Supreme Lord. This was His indirect teaching to the Mayavadi philosophers: that one should never pose oneself as the Supreme Lord falsely, and thereby misdirect the followers. The followers also should not be foolish enough to accept anyone and everyone as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, without testing with the Scriptures and by activities. One should not, however, mistake Lord Chaitanya with His five diverse manifestations as ordinary human beings. He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna Himself. The beauty of Lord Chaitanya is that, although He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself, He Himself as a great devotee is teaching all the conditioned souls how devotional service should be conducted. The conditioned souls who are interested in devotional service should follow, therefore in the exemplary footsteps of Lord Chaitanya, to learn how Krishna can be achieved by devotional service. In other words, the Supreme Lord Himself teaches the conditioned soul how He should be approached by devotional service.
#$p#By analytical study of the five diverse manifestations of the Supreme Lord we can know that Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the Supreme Absolute, and that Lord Nityananda is an immediate expansion of the Supreme Absolute Truth. We can understand that Adwaita Prabhu is also in the category of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but he is the subordinate to Lord Chaitanya and Nityananda Prabhu. The Supreme Personality of Godhead and His immediate subordinate expansions are all worshippable by the other two, namely, the internal potential representation, and the marginal potential representation.
#$p#The internal potential representation, Gadadhara, represents the pure devotee, and the marginal potential representation is a confidential devotee. Both these categories are worshippers of the other three categories, but all of them—the two worshippable categories and the two in the worshipper category—are engaged in the transcendental loving service of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
#$p#There is a specific difference between the pure devotee and the confidential devotee. Different potencies of the Lord are engaged in serving the Supreme Lord in different transcendental relationships. They are situated in conjugal love, in parental affection, in friendly affinity and in obedient servitude. By impartial judgement, it is found that the internal potencies of the Supreme Lord, engaged in conjugal love with Him, are the best of all devotees. As such, both internal devotees and confidential devotees are attracted by the conjugal love of the Supreme Absolute Truth, and are the most confidential devotees of Lord Chaitanya. Other pure devotees, who are more or less attached to Sri Nityananda Prabhu and to Adwaita Prabhu, are attracted by other transcendental relationships, such as parental affection, friendly affinity and obedient servitude. When such devotees are very much attached to the activities of Lord Chaitanya, at once they become confidential devotees in conjugal love with the Supreme Lord.
#$p#There is a very nice song sung by a great devotee and Acharya in the disciplic succession from Lord Chaitanya. His name is Sri Thakur Narottamdas. Sri Thakur says as follows: "When will there be a transcendental vibration all over my body simply by attending to the Name of Gauranga? When will there be incessant flowing of my tears simply by uttering Harer Nama of the Lord? When will Lord Nityananda be merciful upon me, and all my desires for material enjoyment become insignificant? When shall I be purified by giving up all contaminations of material enjoyment; and when shall I be able to see the transcendental Abode, Vrindaban? When shall I be eager to accept the six Goswamis as my prime guidance? And when shall I be able to understand the conjugal love of Krishna?" In other words, nobody should be eager to understand the conjugal love of Krishna without undergoing disciplinary training under the six Goswamis of Vrindaban.
#$p#The Samkirtan movement inaugurated by Lord Chaitanya is a transcendental Pastime of the Lord: "So that I may live simultaneously to preach and popularize this movement in the material world." And in that Samkirtan movement of Lord Chaitanya, Nityananda and Adwaita are His expansions, and Gadadhara and Srivas are His internal and marginal potencies.
#$p#The living entities are called marginal potency because they have, potentially, both attitudes, namely the tendency to surrender unto Krishna, and the tendency for becoming independent of the Supreme Lord, and being contaminated by the material world through the propensity for material enjoyment. When a living entity is predominated over by the desire for material enjoyment and becomes entangled in material contamination, at that time he is subjected to the three-fold miseries of material existence. There is a very nice example in this connection. It is just like a seed sewn in the earth. If it is overpowered by too much water, there is no possibility of the seed being fructified. Similarly, even if a man is captivated by material enjoyment, and even if the seed of such enjoyment is within the heart of the conditioned soul but he is overwhelmed, over powered by a flood of transcendental activities in love of God, then his potential seed cannot fructify into a conditional life of material existence. The conditional living entities in the material world, especially at the present age of Kali, are being overpowered by the flood of love of God inaugurated by Lord Chaitanya and His Associates.
#$p#There is a nice verse in this connection, written by His Holiness Prabodhananda Saraswati in his book Sri Chaitanya Chandramrita. In that verse it is stated that materialistic persons are very enthusiastic in the matter of maintaining their family members, wife and children; and there are many mystic speculators who are engaged in speculating on being liberated from the miseries of material life, and therefore they undergo various kinds of austerities and penances. But persons who have discovered the greatest transcendental flavor, in the movement of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, no longer have any taste for all those activities.
#$p#Persons who are under the impression that, in the Form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and in the matter of His devotional service, there is material contamination, are called Mayavadi. According to their imperfect speculation, the impersonal Brahman is considered the only existence of the cosmic manifestation. As soon as there is a conception of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, they consider that it is in contact with Maya, or the external material energy. Similarly, such persons consider all incarnations of the Supreme Lord to be contaminated by this material Nature. According to them, this material body of the living entity, and the action of matter on all the different kinds of identifications of the living entity, are called material manifestation. According to them, liberation means that there is no longer any individual identification, or pure living entity. In other words, a living entity, when he is liberated, becomes One with the Supreme Impersonal Brahman.
#$p#According to Mayavadi philosophy it is understood that, in the Personality of Godhead, in the Abode of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and in the matter of devotional service, the emotional devotees are all under the spell of Maya, and are therefore subjected to the material condition. Persons who forget the transcendental nature of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, His transcendental Abode and devotional service, as well as the devotee, consider that these are different examples of material activity. Such persons are called Karmis, or actors in fruitive activities. When one thinks that there is a possibility of arguing about transcendence, he is called agnostic. And when one thinks that there is the possibility to criticize transcendence, he is called atheist. Lord Chaitanya wanted to accept all these different kinds of agnostics, atheists, skeptics, and unfaithfuls, and swallow them in the flood of love of God. Therefore, He accepted the four orders of life—and He accepted the renounced order of life, in order to attract all these forces.
#$p#Lord Chaitanya remained a householder until twenty-four only, and in the twenty-fifth year of His life, He accepted the renounced order. After accepting the renounced order, He attracted many other renounced order Sannyasis. During the time that He had been executing the Samkirtan movement in His family, many Mayavadi Sannyasis did not take His movement very seriously. Similarly, the speculative students, atheists, and those who are attached to fruitive activities and unnecessary criticism were also delivered by the Lord after He accepted the Sannyasi order of life. The Lord was so kind that He accepted all of them, and delivered to them the most important factor of life: love of God.
#$p#To fulfill the mission of the Lord, bestowing love of God upon the conditioned souls, He devised many methods to accept all those disinterested in the matter of love of God. After He accepted the renounced order, all agnostics and critics, atheists and mental speculators became the students and followers of Lord Chaitanya. Even many of those who were not Hindus or the followers of the Vedic principles of life also accepted Lord Chaitanya as the Supreme Teacher.
#$p#Those Sannyasis who were known as the Mayavadi philosophers of Benares were the only persons who avoided the mercy of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. The plight of the Mayavadi philosophers is described as follows by Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami: "The Mayavadi philosophers of Benares are less intelligent because they want to measure everything by direct perception. But everything they have is a calculation of material perception. The Absolute Truth is transcendence, but according to them there is no variegatedness in transcendence, because they say that anything which is full of variegatedness is Maya."
#$p#During Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's time there were other philosophers, known as the Mayavadi philosophers of Sarnatha. Sarnatha is a place near Benares where Buddhist philosophers were residing, and even today there are many Stupas of the Buddhist Mayavadi. The Mayavadi philosophers of Sarnatha are different from the impersonalists who believe in the impersonal manifestation of Brahman. According to the Sarnatha philosophers there is no spiritual existence. Spiritually, both the Mayavadi philosophers of Benares and the philosophers of Sarnatha are entrapped by the material Nature. None of them actually knows the nature of the Absolute Transcendence. The philosophers of Benares, although accepting the Vedic principles superficially and accepting themselves as transcendentalists, do not agree to accept spiritual variegatedness. They have no information about devotional service, and therefore they are called "non-devotees," or against the devotional service of Lord Krishna.
#$p#The impersonalists speculate on the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His devotees, subjected to the direct perception of knowledge. The Lord and His devotee and His devotional service, however, are not subject to direct perception. In other words, spiritual variegatedness is unknown to the Mayavadi philosophy, and therefore all the Mayavadi philosophers and Sannyasis began to criticize Him because He was conducting the Samkirtan movement. They were surprised to see Lord Chaitanya, because He belonged to the Mayavadi sect of Sannyasis, having accepted His Sannyasa order from Keshav Bharati, who belonged to the Mayavadi school. They were surprised to see Him engaged in chanting and dancing, and not engaged in the matter of hearing or reading Vedanta, as is the custom. The Mayavadi philosophers are very fond of Vedanta, and misinterpret it in their own way. The Mayavadi Sannyasis, instead of understanding their own position, began to critize Lord Chaitanya as an unauthorized Sannyasi. They criticized that He was sentimental and not actually a bona fide Sannyasi. All these criticisms were carried to Lord Chaitanya when He was at Benares, and He was not at all surprised. He smiled when the news was carried to Him. He, however, did not associate with the Mayavadi Sannyasis, but used to remain alone and execute His own mission. And after staying for some days in Benares, He started for Mathura.
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Following the footsteps of Kavirāja Kṛṣṇadāsa Gosvāmī, we offer our respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of Lord Caitanya.
#$p#Lord Caitanya is described as follows: He is the only shelter for the forlorn, for the most fallen, and He is the only hope for those who are completely devoid of spiritual knowledge. Let us try to discuss His great contribution of devotional service.
#$p#The supremely powerful Lord Kṛṣṇa is manifest in five different potencies. Although He is one without a second, in order to serve five specific spiritual purposes, He is manifest in five ways. Such diversity is eternal and blissful, in contrast to the conception of monotonous oneness. From Vedic literatures we can understand that the Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, eternally exists with His diverse energies. Lord Caitanya appeared with full diverse energies, and they are five in number; therefore Lord Caitanya is said to be Kṛṣṇa with diverse energies.
#$p#There is no difference between the energy and the energetic in regard to the Lord's appearance as Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and His four associates—Nityānanda Prabhu, Advaita Prabhu, Gadādhara, and Śrīvāsa. Amongst these five diverse manifestations of the Supreme Lord (as the Lord Himself and His incarnation, expansion and energies) there is no spiritual difference. They are five in one Absolute Truth. For the sake of relishing transcendental flavors in the Absolute Truth, there are five diverse manifestations. These are called the form of a devotee, the identity of a devotee, the incarnation of a devotee, the pure devotee and devotional energy.
#$p#Out of the five diversities in the Absolute Truth, the form of Lord Caitanya is that of the original Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa. Lord Nityānanda is the manifestation of the first expansion of the Supreme Lord. Similarly, Advaita Prabhu is an incarnation of the Supreme Lord. These three—Caitanya, Nityānanda and Advaita—belong to the category of #i#Viṣṇu-tattva#/i#, or the Supreme Absolute Truth. Śrīvāsa represents the pure devotee, and Gadādhara represents the internal energy of the Lord for the advancement of pure devotion. Therefore Gadādhara and Śrīvāsa, although included in #i#Viṣṇu-tattva#/i#, are dependent, diverse energies of the Supreme Lord. In other words, they are not different from the energetic, but they are manifest diversely for the sake of relishing transcendental relationships. The whole process of devotional service involves a transcendental reciprocation in the relationship between the worshiper and the worshiped. Without such a diverse exchange of transcendental flavors, devotional service has no meaning.
#$p#In the Vedic literature (#i#Kaṭha Upaniṣad#/i#) it is stated that the Supreme Lord is the supreme living entity amongst all living entities. There are innumerable living entities, but there is one living entity who is the Supreme Absolute Godhead. The difference between the singular living entity and the plural living entities is that the singular living entity is the Lord of all. Lord Caitanya is that supreme living entity, and He descended to reclaim the innumerable fallen living entities. In other words, the specific purpose of Lord Caitanya's advent was to establish the Vedic fact that there is one Supreme Personality of Godhead predominating over and maintaining the innumerable personalities of all living entities. Because the impersonalist (Māyāvādī) philosophers cannot understand this, Lord Caitanya advented Himself to enlighten the people in general about the real nature of the relationship between the Supreme and the many entities.
#$p#In #i#Bhagavad-gītā#/i# Kṛṣṇa's last instructions were that everyone should give up all other engagements and render devotional service unto Him. However, after Kṛṣṇa's disappearance, less intelligent people misunderstood Him. They became contaminated with the Māyāvādī philosophy, which produced so many mental speculators that people forgot the actual position of the Absolute Truth and the living entity. Therefore Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa Himself, as Lord Caitanya, again appeared to teach the fallen souls of this material world the way to approach Lord Kṛṣṇa. The #i#Bhagavad-gītā#/i# teaches that one should give up everything and be done with this world of material attachment. A pure devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa and one who follows the philosophy of Lord Caitanya are one and the same. Caitanya's philosophy is that one should give up everything and worship God, Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa, as the Supreme Lord, the Personality of Godhead, spoke the same words, indicating Himself as the Supreme Lord. However, the Māyāvādī philosophers misunderstood Him. Therefore Lord Caitanya, to clarify the situation, reiterated Lord Kṛṣṇa's message: One should not declare himself to be as good as Kṛṣṇa but should worship Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Lord.
#$p#We make a great mistake if we accept Lord Caitanya as a conditioned soul. He is to be understood as the Supreme Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa Himself. It is therefore said of Lord Caitanya in #i#Caitanya-caritāmṛta#/i#: "Kṛṣṇa is now present in His five diverse manifestations." Unless one is situated in uncontaminated goodness, it is very difficult to understand Lord Caitanya as the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself. Thus in order to understand Lord Caitanya, one has to follow the direct disciples of Lord Caitanya—the six Gosvāmīs—and especially the path chalked out by Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī.
#$p#The most astonishing fact is that Lord Caitanya, although the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, never displayed Himself as Kṛṣṇa. Rather, whenever He was detected by intelligent devotees as Lord Kṛṣṇa and was addressed as Lord Kṛṣṇa, He denied it. Indeed, He sometimes placed His hands over His ears, protesting that one should not be addressed as the Supreme Lord. Indirectly, He was teaching the Māyāvādī philosophers that one should not falsely pose himself as the Supreme Lord and thereby misguide people. Nor should followers be foolish enough to accept anyone and everyone as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. One should test by consulting scriptures and by seeing the activities of the person in question. One should not, however, mistake Lord Caitanya and His five diverse manifestations as ordinary human beings. Lord Caitanya is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa Himself. The beauty of Lord Caitanya is that although He is the Supreme Lord, He came as a great devotee to teach all conditioned souls how devotional service should be rendered. Conditioned souls who are interested in devotional service should follow in the exemplary footsteps of Lord Caitanya in order to learn how Kṛṣṇa can be achieved by devotional service. Thus the Supreme Lord Himself teaches the conditioned soul how He should be approached in devotional service.
#$p#By analytically studying the five diverse manifestations of the Supreme Lord, we can come to know that Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu is the Supreme Absolute and that Lord Nityānanda is an immediate expansion of the Supreme Absolute Truth. We can also come to understand that Advaita Prabhu is also in the category of the Supreme Personality of Godhead but is subordinate to Lord Caitanya and Nityānanda Prabhu. The Supreme Personality of Godhead and His immediate subordinate expansions are worshipable by the other two—namely the representation of the internal potency and the representation of the marginal potency. The representation of the internal potency, Gadādhara, represents the confidential devotee, and the representation of the marginal potency is the pure devotee. Both of these are worshipers of the other three categories, but all of them are engaged in the transcendental service of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
#$p#There is a specific difference between the pure devotee and the confidential devotee. Different potencies of the Lord are engaged in serving the Supreme Lord in different transcendental relationships. They are situated in conjugal love, in parental affection, in friendship and in servitude. By impartially judging, one can find that the internal potencies of the Supreme Lord who are engaged in conjugal love with the Lord are the best of all devotees. Thus both internal devotees and confidential devotees are attracted by the conjugal love of the Supreme Absolute Truth. These are the most confidential devotees of Lord Caitanya. Other pure devotees, who are more or less attached to Śrī Nityānanda Prabhu and Advaita Prabhu, are attracted by other transcendental relationships, such as parental affection, friendship and servitorship. When such devotees are attached to the activities of Lord Caitanya, they at once become confidential devotees in conjugal love with the Supreme Lord.
#$p#There is a very nice song sung by Śrī Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura, a great devotee and #i#ācārya#/i# in the disciplic succession from Lord Caitanya. Narottama dāsa sings: "When will there be transcendental vibrations all over my body simply by my hearing the name of Gaurāṅga? When will tears incessantly flow from my eyes simply by my uttering the names of the Lord? When will Lord Nityānanda have mercy upon me, and when will all my desires for material enjoyment become insignificant? When shall I be purified by giving up all contaminations of material enjoyment? And when shall I be able to see the transcendental abode, Vṛndāvana? When shall I be eager to accept the six Gosvāmīs as my prime guidance? And when will I be able to understand the conjugal love of Kṛṣṇa?" No one should be eager to understand the conjugal love of Kṛṣṇa without undergoing disciplinary training under the six Gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana.
#$p#The #i#saṅkīrtana#/i# movement inaugurated by Lord Caitanya is a transcendental pastime of the Lord. "By it I live simultaneously to preach and popularize this movement in the material world." In that #i#saṅkīrtana#/i# movement of Lord Caitanya, Nityānanda and Advaita are His expansions, and Gadādhara and Śrīvāsa are His internal and marginal potencies. The living entities are also called marginal potency because they have, potentially, two attitudes—namely the tendency to surrender unto Kṛṣṇa and the tendency to become independent of Him. Due to the propensity for material enjoyment, the living entity becomes contaminated by the material world. When a living entity is dominated by a desire for material enjoyment and becomes entangled in material life, he is subjected to the threefold miseries of material existence. He is just like a seed sown in the earth. If a seed is overpowered by too much water, there is no possibility of its fructifying. Similarly, if a man is captivated by material enjoyment, and even if the seed of such enjoyment is within the heart of the conditioned soul, he can be overpowered by a flood of transcendental activities performed in love of God. In this way his potential seed cannot fructify into a conditional life of material existence. The conditioned living entities in the material world, especially in the present age of Kali, are overpowered by the flood of love of God inaugurated by Lord Caitanya and His associates.
#$p#In this connection there is a verse written by His Holiness Prabodhānanda Sarasvatī in his book #i#Śrī Caitanya-candrāmṛta#/i# which states that materialistic persons are very enthusiastic to maintain their family members, wife and children, and that there are also many mystic speculators who are engaged in speculating about liberation from the miseries of material life and who therefore undergo various austerities and penances. But those who have discovered the greatest transcendental flavor in the movement of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu no longer have a taste for such activities.
#$p#Those who are under the impression that there is material contamination in the form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and in His devotional service are called Māyāvādī. According to their imperfect speculation, the impersonal Brahman is considered to be the only existence in the cosmic manifestation. As soon as the Supreme Personality of Godhead is introduced, they consider that His personality arises from #i#māyā#/i#, or the external material energy. Such persons consider all incarnations of the Supreme Lord to be contaminated by this material nature. According to them, the material body and the activities of matter which identify the living entity are all material manifestations. According to them, liberation means the end of individual identification, or of the pure living entity. In other words, the Māyāvādīs maintain that when a living entity is liberated, he becomes one with the supreme impersonal Brahman. According to such Māyāvādī philosophy, the Personality of Godhead, His abode, His devotional service and His emotional devotees are all under the spell of #i#māyā#/i# and are consequently subjected to the material condition. Those who forget the transcendental nature of the Supreme Lord, His abode, His devotional service and His devotees consider all these to be but manifestations of material activity. When one thinks that there is a possibility of arguing about transcendence, he is called an agnostic, and when he thinks that there is a possibility to criticize transcendence, he is called an atheist. Lord Caitanya wanted to accept all kinds of agnostics, atheists, skeptics and unfaithfuls and swallow them in the flood of love of God. Therefore He accepted the renounced order of life in order to attract all these forces.
#$p#Lord Caitanya remained a householder until His twenty-fourth year, and in the twenty-fifth year of His life, He accepted the renounced order. After accepting the renounced order (#i#sannyāsa#/i#), He attracted many other #i#sannyāsīs#/i#. When He had been spreading the #i#saṅkīrtana#/i# movement as a family man, many Māyāvādī #i#sannyāsīs#/i# did not take His movement very seriously, but after the Lord accepted the #i#sannyāsa#/i# order of life, He delivered speculative students, atheists and those who are attached to fruitive activities and unnecessary criticism. The Lord was so kind that He accepted all these people and delivered to them the most important factor in life: love of God.
#$p#To fulfill His mission of bestowing love of God upon conditioned souls, Lord Caitanya devised many methods to attract those people disinterested in love of God. After He accepted the renounced order, all agnostics, critics, atheists and mental speculators became His students and followers. Even many who were not Hindus and who did not follow the Vedic principles accepted Lord Caitanya as the supreme teacher. The only persons who avoided the mercy of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu were those #i#sannyāsīs#/i# who were known as the Māyāvādī philosophers of Benares. The plight of such Māyāvādī philosophers is described by Śrī Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī: "The Māyāvādī philosophers of Benares were less intelligent because they wanted to measure everything by direct perception. But everything that is perceived is calculated by material perception. The Absolute Truth is transcendence, but according to them there is no variegatedness in transcendence, for they say that anything that is full of variegatedness is #i#māyā#/i#."
#$p#During Caitanya Mahāprabhu's time there were also other impersonalist philosophers known as the Māyāvādī philosophers of Saranātha. Saranātha is a place near Benares where Buddhist philosophers used to reside, and even today many #i#stūpas#/i# of the Buddhist Māyāvādīs can be seen. The Māyāvādī philosophers of Saranātha are different from the impersonalists who believe in the impersonal manifestation of Brahman. According to the Saranātha philosophers, there is no spiritual existence at all. The fact is that both the Māyāvādī philosophers of Benares and the philosophers of Saranātha are entrapped by material nature. None of them actually know the nature of Absolute Transcendence. Although superficially accepting the Vedic principles and considering themselves to be transcendentalists, the philosophers of Benares do not accept spiritual variegatedness. Because they have no information about devotional service, they are called nondevotees, or those who are against the devotional service of Lord Kṛṣṇa.
#$p#The impersonalists speculate on the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His devotees and subject them to the tests of direct perception. However, the Lord, His devotee and His devotional service are not subject to direct perception. In other words, spiritual variegatedness is unknown to the Māyāvādī philosophy; therefore all the Māyāvādī philosophers and #i#sannyāsīs#/i# criticized Lord Caitanya when He was conducting His #i#saṅkīrtana#/i# movement. They were surprised to see Lord Caitanya after He accepted His #i#sannyāsa#/i# order from Keśava Bhāratī, for Keśava Bhāratī belonged to the Māyāvādī school. Since Lord Caitanya therefore belonged to the Māyāvādī sect of #i#sannyāsīs#/i#, the Māyāvādīs were surprised to see Him engaged in chanting and dancing instead of hearing or reading #i#Vedānta#/i#, as is the custom. The Māyāvādī philosophers are very fond of #i#Vedānta#/i#, and they misinterpret it in their own way. Instead of understanding their own position, they criticized Lord Caitanya as an unauthorized #i#sannyāsī#/i#, arguing that because He was a sentimentalist, He was not actually a bona fide #i#sannyāsī#/i#.
#$p#All these criticisms were carried to Lord Caitanya when He was at Benares, and He was not at all surprised at them. He even smiled when the news was carried to Him. He did not associate with the Māyāvādī #i#sannyāsīs#/i# but remained alone and executed His own mission. After staying for some days in Benares, He started for Mathurā.
#/div# |
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