Sri Gaura-purnima

Giriraj Swami: Today we are celebrating the anniversary of Sri Krishna Chaitanya’s appearance within the material world. According to the Vedic literature, especially Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the Absolute Truth is realized in three features: Brahman, Paramātmā, and Bhagavān.

vadanti tat tattva-vidas
tattvaṁ yaj jñānam advayam
brahmeti paramātmeti
bhagavān iti śabdyate

“Learned transcendentalists who know the Absolute Truth call this nondual substance Brahman, Paramātmā or Bhagavān.” (SB 1.2.11)

The preliminary realization of the Absolute Truth is impersonal (brahmajyoti), an impersonal spiritual light that is actually the effulgence of the divine form of the Lord. That impersonal realization of brahman is the goal of jnanis, who want to merge and become one with the light. The second stage of spiritual realization is Paramātmā, the localized expansion of the Lord within the heart. That localized feature, the Paramātmā, or Supersoul, can be realized by the practice of aṣṭāṅga-yoga. Dhyānāvasthita-tad-gatena manasā paśyanti yaṁ yoginaḥ: The yogis fixed in meditation realize the Lord within the heart. But the last word in God realization is Bhagavān, or the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is known in Sanskrit as Krishna, and by other names as well.

That Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, who is realized by devotees (bhaktas) through the practice of bhakti-yoga, appeared five thousand years ago and taught the science of yoga—karma-yoga, jnana-yoga, aṣṭāṅga-yoga, and bhakti-yoga—in the Bhagavad-gītā. And at the conclusion of the Bhagavad-gītā, Krishna instructed,

man-manā bhava mad-bhakto
mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru
mām evaiṣyasi satyaṁ te
pratijāne priyo ‘si me

“Always think of Me, become My devotee, worship Me and offer your homage unto Me. Thus you will come to Me without fail. I promise you this because you are My very dear friend.” (Bg 18.65)

The Lord taught, man-manā: “Engage your mind in thinking of Me"; bhava mad-bhakto, “become My devotee"; mad-yājī, “worship Me"; and māṁ namaskuru, “offer obeisances unto Me, and in the end you will come to Me.”

Now, how to be a devotee of Krishna, how to fix the mind on Krishna, how to worship Krishna, was not so clear. So Krishna came again, five hundred years ago, in the form of Sri Krishna Chaitanya, in the guise of a devotee of Krishna, to teach us man-manā, how to fix the mind on Krishna. And Krishna Chaitanya taught that the best way to fix the mind on Krishna is to always chant the holy names of Krishna. He quoted a verse from Bṛhan-nāradīya-Purana:

arer nāma harer nāma
harer nāmaiva kevalam
kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva
nāsty eva gatir anyathā

“One should chant the holy name, chant the holy name, chant the holy name of Sri Hari [Krishna]. There is no other way, no other way, no other way to success in the present age.”

We have been discussing the Absolute Truth, or the absolute reality. On the absolute platform the name of Krishna and Krishna Himself are the same. So by chanting the holy name of Krishna we are actually associating with Him. And because Krishna is all pure, by chanting His name we become purified. Krishna is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha, the form of eternity, knowledge, and bliss. So by associating with Krishna, by chanting the holy names, we also become eternal, full of knowledge, and full of bliss. Or to be more precise, we realize our pure spiritual nature, which already exists and is everlasting, full of knowledge, and full of bliss.

So, five hundred years ago Sri Krishna Chaitanya appeared and propagated the chanting of the holy name, and He described the entire process of bhakti-yoga, how to become a devotee of Krishna (bhava mad-bhakto). The instructions that Lord Chaitanya gave on the subject have been elaborated by His chief disciples, especially Srila Rupa Gosvami, in various books such as the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, which is the textbook for the practice of bhakti-yoga. And not only did He teach by His words, but he also taught by His example. He personally chanted the holy names (mana-mana) and worshiped the Lord (mad-yājī). In Jagannatha Puri, He would go daily to the temple of Lord Jagannatha (here we also have deities of Jagannatha, Baladeva, and Subhadra) and offer obeisances to the Lord (māṁ namaskuru). To appreciate what Lord Chaitanya came to teach and demonstrate, one must understand that in the ultimate, God, or the Absolute, is personal, not impersonal.

Lord Krishna had another, internal reason for His appearance as Sri Krishna Chaitanya: to experience the most confidential mellow of love for Krishna. Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta describes that in the beginning there was one, Krishna. And the one became many (eko bahu syām). In particular, the one, to increase His pleasure, became two. Thus Krishna separated a portion of Himself as Radha. The highest form of worship for devotees of Krishna—especially Gaudiya Vaishnavas, the followers of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu—is the worship of Radha and Krishna, as we have in the temple here. So, Radha and Krishna are the exchange of transcendental love. But in that exchange of spiritual love, Krishna, although He is God and omniscient and omnipotent and omnipresent, felt that He was unable to experience love—love for Krishna—the way Sri Radha does. He thought that if He came as a devotee and took the position of Radha, the position of a devotee, then He could experience the glory of Her love for Him, He could experience the qualities in Himself that She experiences when She beholds Him, and He could experience the happiness that She experiences in Their loving exchange.

śrī-rādhāyāḥ praṇaya-mahimā kīdṛśo vānayaivā-
svādyo yenādbhuta-madhurimā kīdṛśo vā madīyaḥ
saukhyaṁ cāsyā mad-anubhavataḥ kīdṛśaṁ veti lobhāt
tad-bhāvāḍhyaḥ samajani śacī-garbha-sindhau harīnduḥ

“Desiring to understand the glory of Rādhārāṇī’s love, the wonderful qualities in Him that She alone relishes through Her love, and the happiness She feels when She realizes the sweetness of His love, the Supreme Lord Hari, richly endowed with Her emotions, appeared from the womb of Śrīmatī Śacī-devī, as the moon appeared from the ocean.” (Cc Ādi 1.6)

Thus Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta explains that Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appeared for two reasons. The external reason was to teach and show by example how to be a devotee of Krishna, how to fix one’s mind on Krishna and worship Him. And the internal reason was to experience Srimati Radharani’s love for Krishna, and to distribute love in that mood.

There are different intimate relationships that one can have with Krishna, in different rasas, or mellows. There is dāsya-rasa, in the mood of being a servant. There is sākhya-rasa, in the mood of being a friend. There is vātsalya-rasa, in the mood of being a parent. And there is mādhurya-rasa, in the mood of being a lover. Sri Krishna Chaitanya came to experience mādhurya-rasa from the position of Srimati Radharani and to reveal these different types of relationships, especially mādhurya-rasa, that one can have with Krishna in the spiritual world, Goloka Vrindavan.

So, this is a confidential topic. It can really be understood only when one is free from the bodily conception of life. But the ultimate result of the practice of Krishna consciousness—of chanting the holy names without offense, free from material desires—is that one will be able to develop and actually enter into a direct relationship with God Himself in one of these four mellows. That is the special contribution of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the special contribution of the Krishna consciousness movement: to enable people, by the practice of bhakti-yoga, especially following in the footsteps of the followers of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, to actually enter into a direct personal, intimate relationship with the Godhead, culminating in, if one has that in him (or her), mādhurya-rasa.

anarpita-carīṁ cirāt karuṇayāvatīrṇaḥ kalau
samarpayitum unnatojjvala-rasāṁ sva-bhakti-śriyam
hariḥ puraṭa-sundara-dyuti-kadamba-sandīpitaḥ
sadā hṛdaya-kandare sphuratu vaḥ śacī-nandanaḥ

“May the Supreme Lord who is known as the son of Śrīmatī Śacī-devī be transcendentally situated in the innermost chambers of your heart. Resplendent with the radiance of molten gold, He has appeared in the Age of Kali by His causeless mercy to bestow what no incarnation has ever offered before: the most sublime and radiant mellow of devotional service, the mellow of conjugal love.” (Cc Ādi 1.4)

The author of Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta states that pastimes of Lord Chaitanya are like an ocean. We can’t even begin to touch the limits of an ocean. But one drop from this ocean of nectar is so powerful that it can change your life with love of Godhead. In fact, it can inundate the whole world with the transcendental bliss of bhakti-rasa—Krishna consciousness.

Hare Krishna.