CC Adi 1.62 – Reasons for Lord Chaitanya’s Sannyasa

Giriraj Swami: Today we read from Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi-līlā, Chapter One: “The Spiritual Masters.”

jaya jaya śrī-caitanya jaya nityānanda

jayādvaita-candra jaya gaura-bhakta-vṛnda

This verse is actually a Sanskrit verse from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam which is quoted here in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta.

TEXT 62

sādhavo hṛdayaṁ mahyaṁ

sādhūnāṁ hṛdayaṁ tv aham

mad-anyat te na jānanti

nāhaṁ tebhyo manāg api

TRANSLATION

“Saints are My heart, and only I am their hearts. They do not know anyone but Me, and therefore I do not recognize anyone besides them as Mine.”

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

This verse appears in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (9.4.68) in connection with a misunderstanding between Durvāsā Muni and Mahārāja Ambarīṣa. As a result of this misunderstanding, Durvāsā Muni tried to kill the king, when the Sudarśana cakra, the celebrated weapon of Godhead, appeared on the scene for the devoted king’s protection. When the Sudarśana cakra attacked Durvāsā Muni, he fled in fear of the weapon and sought shelter from all the great demigods in heaven. Not one of them was able to protect him, and therefore Durvāsā Muni prayed to Lord Viṣṇu for forgiveness. Lord Viṣṇu advised him, however, that if he wanted forgiveness he had to get it from Mahārāja Ambarīṣa, not from Him. In this context Lord Viṣṇu spoke this verse.

The Lord, being full and free from problems, can wholeheartedly care for His devotees. His concern is how to elevate and protect all those who have taken shelter at His feet. The same responsibility is also entrusted to the spiritual master. The bona fide spiritual master’s concern is how the devotees who have surrendered to him as a representative of the Lord may make progress in devotional service. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is always mindful of the devotees who fully engage in cultivating knowledge of Him, having taken shelter at His lotus feet.

COMMENT

This verse is placed by Srila Krishnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami here in the First Chapter of Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta in which he discusses the spiritual masters. Of course the spiritual master must be a devotee of the Lord and here Krishnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami describes different characteristics of devotees and in the present series of verses in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta he discusses the fact that the Lord resides in the heart of the devotee. Therefore the devotee receives inspiration from the Lord within the heart and the devotee should be offered respects just like the Lord.

In the present verse, Lord Vishnu describes the beautiful reciprocation between the Lord and the devotee. Basically the devotee knows nothing but the Lord and the Lord knows nothing but His devotee. The Lord dwells within the heart of the devotee and the devotee lives within the heart of the Lord.

When I came before Sri Sri Radha-Gokulananda this morning, I thought of Srila Prabhupada, how he had come here and installed the Deity. There are many wonderful pictures of him and even live footage of him offering ārati and dancing in kirtan before the Deities. I thought how Srila Prabhupada endeavored ceaselessly to preach the message of Sri Krishna Chaitanya and to give facility to devotees to progress in Krishna consciousness. I thought also how Srila Prabhupada was seventy years of age when he reached America by steamship all alone without knowing anyone there and how he preached and spread Krishna consciousness and created so many facilities for the devotees like Bhaktivedanta Manor all over the world between the age of seventy and eighty-two. I thought, “What selfless service. What surrender. What dependence on the Lord. How much the Lord must love Srila Prabhupada.” 

Then I thought of myself, “Now I am sixty-two. Who knows what condition I will be in when I am seventy,” which was the age at which Srila Prabhupada arrived in America. And I have so many people to help me. There are devotees practically everywhere I go. I have people to travel with me, help me with my luggage. I fly. I don’t go by steamship, by cargo carrier. And even then it is so hard to travel. It is really hard to travel. 

And Srila Prabhupada had no one. Externally he was all alone. He began at the age of seventy, travelled by steamship—cargo carrier—and served the Lord in the best way by preaching the message of Krishna, making devotees, caring for them, protecting them, and encouraging, and giving them every facility to make progress in Krishna consciousness. So what deep love resided in Srila Prabhupada’s heart for Krishna, for his spiritual master, and for the conditioned souls, and reciprocally, what love Krishna had for Srila Prabhupada.

What I am going to do now is I’m going to jump ahead to the pastime of Lord Chaitanya’s sannyasa and relate it to the verse. 

The essence of this verse is the reciprocation between the Lord and the devotee. The devotee knows no one but the Lord and the Lord knows no one but the devotee. This is Krishna’s promise: ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham. Krsna says that, “As one surrenders to Me, I reciprocate accordingly.” Krishna is always true to His promise. He always reciprocates with His devotees. In fact He reciprocates with everyone who approaches Him in whatever way they approach Him. But Krishna’s promise, immortal, eternal promise was broken by the love of the gopīs. Of course this is a very high topic, but it’s relevant to Lord Chaitanya’s acceptance of sannyasa.

Earlier in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta—-that means before Krishnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami describes His sannyasa—he explains that the Lord appeared for two reasons: internal and external. The external reason was to propagate the yuga-dharma of hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana and the internal reason was to experience the love of Radharani for Krishna, especially in separation, and at the same time to distribute the pure love of the residents of Vrindavan for Krishna to the conditioned souls in the material world. So, in the same way, there are two reasons for the Lord’s acceptance of sannyasa, internal and external. So the external reason is explained very clearly in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta that people, contemporaries of Lord Chaitanya, could not recognize Him. They thought He was an ordinary human being and some disrespected Him. They blasphemed Him. And the Lord knew that unless they accepted Him, they would not be able to get the benefit of Krishna consciousness and therefore, out of mercy to them, to the fallen souls in general, but in particular to the offenders, He accepted sannyasa. 

So I will read just a few verses from Caitanya-caritāmṛta that describes the Lord’s thinking. This is Ādi-līlā, Chapter Eight: “The Author Receives the Orders of Krishna and Guru.”

TEXT 10

more nā mānile saba loka habe nāśa

ithi lāgi’ kṛpārdra prabhu karila sannyāsa

TRANSLATION

Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu thought, “Unless people accept Me they will all be destroyed.” Thus the merciful Lord accepted the sannyāsa order.

COMMENT

This is very significant. Unless we accept Lord Chaitanya, we cannot approach Lord Krishna. And in the next verse:

TEXT 11

sannyāsi-buddhye more karibe namaskāra

tathāpi khaṇḍibe duḥkha, pāibe nistāra

TRANSLATION

“If a person offers obeisances to Me, even due to accepting Me only as an ordinary sannyāsī, his material distresses will diminish, and he will ultimately get liberation.”

COMMENT

Then Krishnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami says:

TEXT 13

ataeva punaḥ kahoṅ ūrdhva-bāhu hañā

caitanya-nityānanda bhaja kutarka chāḍiyā

TRANSLATION

Therefore I say again, lifting my arms: O fellow human beings, please worship Śrī Caitanya and Nityānanda without false arguments!

COMMENT

Maybe it is a coincidence, but I find before me on the lectern golden rules for japa meditation. I think it must have been the bookmark and I just put it on the lectern. The first statement is to obtain the full blessings of Lord Krishna for good japa, chant the Pancha-tattva mantra first: śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda. So that is the purport of this one line by Lord Chaitanya that, “If people do not accept Me, they will be ruined.” In other words, their human form of life will be ruined because they will not achieve Krishna consciousness. So, in order to achieve Krishna consciousness, we have to accept Lord Chaitanya. Then we can approach Lord Krishna. So in the same way, before we chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, we first chant the holy names of Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda: śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda. 

Lord Chaitanya took sannyasa so that the offenders would not blaspheme Him, but to the contrary, they would offer Him respect, if for no other reason than He was a sannyasi. At the time and even today in Vedic culture people offer respect to sannyasis. So Lord Chaitanya took sannyasa for the sake of the fallen souls to deliver them. That is the external reason.

The internal reason is explained in a very confidential talk that Lord Chaitanya had with Lokanatha Gosvami which is recorded in a book called prema-vilāsa by a devotee named Nityananda dasa who was a disciple of Jahnava Mata, the eternal consort of Nityananda Prabhu and the leader of all the Vaishnavas after the disappearance of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and His associates. Srila Prabhupada mentions this book, prema-vilāsa, in one purport in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta. 

In this conversation Lord Chaitanya reveals His mind to Lokanatha Gosvami. He says that, “I have come into the material world and I have directed some people to Nityananda Prabhu and to Advaita Acharya, but I have My own personal reasons for having descended. And to whom can I tell these reasons? To whom can I reveal My heart?” And then He said to Lokanatha Gosvami that, “I carry deep pain within My heart for two reasons. One reason is that there is a brahman who has not recognized Me. He has not recognized Krishna. Instead of worshiping Krishna, he worships Krishna’s servants who are known as demigods, without knowing Krishna’s position, and thus he is going to hell. So, for the sake of these brahmans who do not recognize Krishna and are offensive to Krishna, I feel I must take sannyasa.”

But then He says there is another reason that He is feeling great pain in His heart and that is because He feels that He owes a debt to Srimati Radharani for Her glorious qualities and service and that He is unable to repay His debt to Her and that is causing Him great distress. 

So we come back to Krishnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami’s statement that Krishna says that He reciprocates the love of His devotees, but that His solemn promise for all times was broken by the love of Srimati Radharani and the gopīs, because in Krishna’s discussion with them, after He had left them during the rasa-līlā, He admitted: na pāraye ‘haṁ niravadya-saṁyujāṁ, that, “I cannot repay My debt to you. Even if I lived as long as Lord Brahma, I could not repay My debt to you.” 

Why is that so that Krishna who reciprocates the love of all of His devotees, why is it that He could not reciprocate the love of Srimati Radharani?

The answer is that Srimati Radharani and the other gopīs, as Krishna Himself says, they forsook their family attachments. When Krishna played upon His flute to call the gopīs, they ran out of the houses. They didn’t care for their husbands, for their children, for their elders. They didn’t think of anything other than Krishna and Krishna’s service. But Krishna did not do that. He would very carefully and stealthily sneak out of the house at night, and His mother and father did not know that He had gone out. In the early morning He would sneak back into the house, pretend to go to sleep or go to sleep in His own way. And in the morning His relationships with His mother and father and others were intact. 

Krishna reciprocates the love of all of His devotees. He reciprocates the love of His parents; He reciprocates the love of His boyfriends; He reciprocates the love of His servants; He even reciprocates the appreciation of Him by those in śānta-rasa; He reciprocates the efforts to love Him of devotees in the material world. As He says in this verse, “Saints are My heart and only I am their hearts.” For every saint, there is only one Krishna, but for the one Krishna, there are many saints. Especially for the gopīs, there was only Krishna. The unmarried girls had their parents, but they risked their relationship with their parents for Krishna like many of us did when we came to Krishna consciousness. Some of them were married. They risked their relationship with their husbands, with their in-laws. They didn’t think of anything but Krishna. But Krishna, His position is different. He has to think of everyone but because of that He could not reciprocate their love because they sacrificed everything for Him. They knew no one but Him, but He was cognizant of so many other devotees and so many other relationships. 

But still, He gave His promise: ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham, and He wanted to reciprocate their love, especially the love of Sri Radha, but He couldn’t and that was causing Him great distress and in that mood of distress He revealed His mind to Lokanatha Gosvami and He said, “The only way that I can reciprocate Sri Radha’s love for Me is if I leave My home, I leave My loved ones, I leave My friends. Therefore I must take sannyasa.”

Before Krishna left Vrindavan, Srimati Radharani would wear a blue colored sari, which would remind Her of Krishna, but after He left Vrindavan, She wore a saffron colored garment in the mood of separation. And She would not eat or sleep. She was just mad in the mood of separation from Krishna. She didn’t care for Her body. She didn’t care for anything. 

So Krishna thought, “The only way I can reciprocate Her love is if I take sannyasa and I wear the saffron color garments of separation. And in the mood of separation from Her as a sannyasi, I also won’t be able to sleep at night; I won’t eat properly. I will just lie down on the bare floor,” just like Srimati Radharani in Her separation from Krishna. And the gopīs, in their separation, proclaimed the glories of Krishna. So Krishna thought, “In My separation, I will proclaim the glories of the gopīs and in particular Srimati Radharani. And in this way I will begin to repay My debt to Her.”

This is a very deep and confidential topic and it is revealed to us by the mercy of our acharyas so that we can understand how to receive the precious gift that Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came to give. Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta describes and Srila Prabhupada has often repeated that Lord Chaitanya is Krishna, but He has come as a devotee to teach us how to serve Krishna, how to worship Krishna, how to love Krishna. Just like everything else in Lord Chaitanya’s appearance and activities, there is the external and the internal, and both are absolute. That is the nature of the Absolute Truth, the nature of Krishna. There is no difference between His inside and outside. He is absolute. 

Lord Chaitanya came to show us how to worship Krishna and externally He chanted the holy name of Krishna, He performed hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana, and until today and for all times, the followers of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu will chant the holy names of Krishna and perform hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana. That too requires some attention. We come back here to our golden rules. Lord Chaitanya is the golden avatar so it is proper we should have golden rules: “Chant the full maha-mantra on each bead. Chant each syllable aloud and clearly. Listen very carefully and concentrate on the sound of the maha-mantra. Very good instructions. 

Lord Chaitanya, in His instructions to Srila Sanatana Gosvami, describes the different processes of devotional service—nine processes of devotional service—and then He says, tāra madhye: amongst all these nine processes; sarva-śreṣṭha: the best of all is the chanting of the holy name of Krishna. Niraparādhe: and if one chants the holy name of Krishna without committing offenses, prema-dhana: one will get the treasure of love for Krishna. So we want that treasure and therefore we want to chant the holy name without offense. That is the only way we will get that prema-dhana. 

There are ten offenses, but one of them we conscientiously try to avoid while we are chanting japa and that is the offense of pramāda or inattention. That is something that we must conscientiously pursue when we chant. If the mind wanders from the sound of the holy name, we bring it back. We make a conscientious effort to remove that offense of inattention and that effort puts us on the clearing stage of chanting which by definition will clear us of anarthas and offenses, aparādhas, and eventually, by the mercy of Krishna and the devotees, we can perfect our chanting and receive the treasure of pure love of Godhead. 

It is said in scripture that if one offends Krishna, one can take shelter of the holy name of Krishna, but if one offends the holy name of Krishna, one has no other recourse except to continuously chant the holy name and try to become free from the reactions to one’s offenses. But within the ten offenses, there is a special offense, if you will, which Srila Prabhupada calls the worst offense, and that is sādhu-nindā or vaiṣṇava-aparādha. 

That offense was committed by Durvasa Muni in this section of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that is quoted here. Durvasa Muni was a great sage, a brahman, worshiper of Shiva, known to be temperamental. In any case, Maharaja Ambarisa was observing Ekādaśī, and in the strict observance of Ekādaśī, one does not eat or drink. In order to complete the observance of Ekādaśī properly, one must break the fast within a certain range of times the next morning. It is called the parāṇāṁ. It so happened that Durvasa Muni came to the court of King Ambarisa and then he took leave and he said that he would return. The etiquette was Durvasa Muni was a brahman, Maharaja Ambarisa was a kshatriya, so in breaking the fast, the first food should be offered to Durvasa Muni, and then others would take. That would be the proper etiquette, but time passed and Durvasa Muni did not return. The time was nearing when the fast would have to be broken otherwise the performance of the Ekādaśī would have been negated.

So Maharaja Ambarisa consulted the brahmans in his court, but they could not find a solution. Then finally the king himself found the solution that he would drink water. By drinking water he would break the fast because in his fast he didn’t drink water, but at the same time he wouldn’t break the fast by eating food until Durvasa Muni came and he would offer the first food to Durvasa Muni. Srila Prabhupada comments that although Ambarisa was a kshatriya, because he was a Vaishnava, he could find the solution to this dilemma whereas the brahmans in his court could not find the solution. So he broke the fast only by taking water and when Durvasa Muni came, he thought, “Oh, he broke the fast without waiting for me.” And he is the temperamental type, angry type, so he was so infuriated that he decided to kill Maharaja Ambarisa. 

Maharaja Ambarisa did nothing to protect himself. He just stood there helplessly in front of the sage, took shelter of the Lord, and the Lord immediately sent his Sudarśana cakra to kill the offender, Durvasa Muni. So the Sudarśana cakra with all of its heat was pursuing Durvasa Muni, but because Durvasa Muni was a great yogi, with his yogic powers he tried to escape the Sudarśana cakra. He went to the heavenly planet, to Lord Indra to get shelter. Lord Indra said, “I cannot help you.” Eventually he went to Lord Brahma. Lord Brahma said, “I cannot help you.” So eventually he tried to take shelter of Lord Vishnu and Lord Vishnu said, “I cannot forgive you. I do not have the power to forgive you. You have offended My devotee. You must go to My devotee for forgiveness.” 

Ultimately he went to King Ambarisa and begged for forgiveness, and King Ambarisa, being such an exalted devotee and humble, he said, “I don’t know why you are asking me to forgive you. I don’t think you’ve committed any offense. I am the one who committed the offense. I should be asking you to forgive me.” But the thing is that the Sudarśana cakra was there waiting to perhaps severe Durvasa Muni’s head from his trunk. So Durvasa Muni prayed to the Sudarśana cakra, prayed to Lord Vishnu, to call back the Sudarśana cakra, and thus Durvasa Muni was saved from the reaction of his offense.

This is an important lesson for us aspiring chanters of the holy name to avoid vaiṣṇava-aparādha. Srila Prabhupada said it is the worse offense against the holy name. And if we happen to have offended a Vaishnava, we should go to the Vaishnava and beg forgiveness. Sometimes devotees think that their criticism of a Vaishnava is justified. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura discusses this in Hari-nāma Cintāmaṇi that one may think that he is justified in criticizing a Vaishnava on the basis of the Vaishnava’s low birth, on the basis of his sinful activities before coming to the association of devotees, on the basis of some bad habit that he may have, even after coming into the association of devotees, or on the basis of an accidental fall down that he has had after coming into the association of devotees. Bhaktivinoda Thakura says that these are not grounds for criticizing a devotee. If someone criticizes a devotee on any of these grounds, he is guilty of sādhu-nindā or vaiṣṇava-aparādha.

Living in a society of devotees, there are bound to be little interactions and we should not take little disagreements very seriously. Once one disciple said to Srila Prabhupada that, “If I have to offer obeisances and beg forgiveness to every devotee every time I offend a devotee, I will be spending my whole time offering obeisances and begging forgiveness.” So Srila Prabhupada said, “No, we have introduced as part of the morning program Vaishnava pranama.” The idea is every morning after maṅgala-ārati, the devotees offer obeisances to each other, and within themselves they beg the other devotees to forgive them for their incidental offenses and then they start the day fresh and clean. So that should be our mood in the morning when we offer obeisances to beg the other devotees for forgiveness for our offenses and from our side we should also accept their request for forgiveness and forgive them and begin with a clean slate.

Sometimes unfortunately someone may commit a more grievous offense and in that case one should approach the devotee personally and ask for forgiveness. Generally the Vaishnava will forgive. Sometimes it may happen that the offense is such that the Vaishnava’s anger does not immediately subside when being approached by the offender and in that case the offender should try to find out what he can do to please the Vaishnava whom he or she offended. Eventually the merciful Lord, the merciful holy name, the merciful Vaishnava will relieve the devotee of the reactions. 

Lord Chaitanya wanted to relieve the offenders of their offenses but He also wanted to keep them from committing more offenses and so He took sannyasa so that instead of offending Him and blaspheming Him, they would offer Him respects, and that is also a lesson for us. That is the negative side that we don’t want to criticize devotees, we don’t want to offend devotees, but the positive side is we should offer respects to devotees, we should render service to devotees. If we are busy offering them respects, showing them appreciation, rendering them service, then where will be the chance to offend them.

By the mercy of Srila Prabhupada we are here. We have been given all the knowledge we need to become Krishna conscious. There is so much in Srila Prabhupada’s books. As His Holiness Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja used to say, Prabhupada’s books are like an ocean and at the bottom of the ocean there are many precious jewels and gems and to get those precious jewels we have to go deep into the ocean. In other words, we have to go deep into Srila Prabhupada’s books. There is so much in them—unfathomable. If we go deep, we will find the most precious jewels of transcendental knowledge and realization and prema.

He has given us the holy name. We can get everything just by chanting the thirty-two syllables: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. If one is not very literate or scholarly, one can get all knowledge revealed just by chanting the Hare Krishna maha-mantra niraparādhe, you chant without offense, prema-dhana, you get the treasure of love of Godhead. Srila Prabhupada has given us wonderful temples with beautiful Deities—as we are experiencing now—and he has given us the association of devotees. And that is really what this chapter of Caitanya-caritāmṛta is about—the association of devotees. Every devotee is a guru. Every devotee is a śikṣā-guru. Srila Prabhupada said we should address each other “Prabhu.” Prabhu means “master.” So every Prabhu is our master to be served and to learn from.

I had one very interesting talk with His Holiness Sacinandana Swami. Every year Maharaja goes to Vraja during Kartika to do nāma-vrata, a very strong nāma-vrata, chanting the holy name so many times. One year—I don’t know if it was the first year, but it was the first year that I was aware that he was there—he was staying at Radha-kunda and some of the time I was staying at Govardhana at the ashram that Tamal Krishna Goswami and I procured from the king of Chhatarpur. Although Sacinandana Swami hardly had time to eat or sleep—he had such a strong nāma-vrata—but he did find some time to spend with me one morning. 

He discussed this point of sādhu-saṅga which is one of the five most potent forms of devotional service Rupa Gosvami describes in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu. Sajātīyāśaye snigdhe sādhau saṅgaḥ svato vare. The sadhu should be likeminded. Literally sajātīya means “of the same caste,” but sajātīyāśaye snigdhe, Prabhupada translated it as having a similar affection for the Lord. Sādhau saṅgaḥ svato vare: and the devotee should be more advanced than oneself. 

So Sacinandana Swami and I discussed this point and Sacinandana Swami said that there are people who think that you have to go outside of ISKCON for sādhu-saṅga to associate with people who are more advanced. Sacinandana Swami said he didn’t agree because sajātīyāśaye snigdhe, they should have the same type of affection not only for the Lord but in our case, all important, they should have a similar type of affection for Srila Prabhupada, have a similar type of understanding of Srila Prabhupada. For us to associate with someone who doesn’t have a similar type of affection and appreciation for Srila Prabhupada as we do, will not be favorable for us. If our relationship with Srila Prabhupada is important to us and certainly in the case of Sacinandana Swami and me and I hope everyone in this room, it is important, it is all important, so for us to associate with someone who doesn’t have a similar appreciation and affection for Srila Prabhupada, will not constitute favorable sādhu-saṅga.

As far as the point of associating with someone more advanced (svato vare), Sacinandana Swami said that from the external point of view people may see that we are equals: “Sacinandana Swami and Giriraj Swami, they are peers,” but internally Sacinandana Swami said, “I think Giriraj Swami is more advanced than I am and I can learn from him,” and he said it and it was certainly true and Giriraj Swami is thinking, “Sacinandana Swami is more advanced than I am and I can learn from him. I should associate with him and hear from him and serve him.” In that way, being in the mood of a humble devotee, we will see there are so many more advanced devotees than us in ISKCON who have the same type of understanding of Srila Prabhupada that we have and so we can get sādhu-saṅga, according to Rupa Gosvami’s definition, right within ISKCON. In fact that might be the only place that we can get it, according to that definition.

Srila Prabhupada has given us every facility, he has given the holy name, he has given Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, he has given us the Deities, he has given us temples, he has given us temples in Vrindavan and Mayapur, and practically in every major city of the world, and he has given us the association of his faithful followers. So we really have everything we need. The only other thing we need is a humble, simple heart so that we can accept all that he has given us and get the full advantage. In that endeavor I pray that you will help me and to my capacity I will help you. We will all go back to Godhead together. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.

Gaura Bhagavan dasa: [inaudible]

Giriraj Swami: That is a very good comment. He says that every day in the Guru-vandanā prayers we sing: śrī-guru-caraṇe rati, ei se uttama-gati, that attachment to the lotus feet of the spiritual master is the perfection that fulfills all desires. So he is saying that if someone is attached to the lotus feet of Srila Prabhupada, he will achieve all perfection and he doesn’t need anything else, or associating with people who are attached to the lotus feet of Srila Prabhupada.

I agree with you. What I said in the class is confirmed by what you just quoted.

Gopi Vallabha dasa: Thank you for your class, Maharaja. We see in the example of Mahaprabhu that He used externally the sannyasa-ashrama to trick those blasphemers as we learn to almost vicariously worship Krishna. 

Over the year and a half or so, we have lost Sadaputa Prabhu and His Holiness Bhakti Svarupa Damodara Maharaja who helped to spearhead the Bhaktivedanta Institute which was a very dear project to Srila Prabhupada. The position of the scientists today is sort of on taking the role of the impersonalists in the time of Mahaprabhu in one regard.

I wondered if you could make a comment on or elucidate the perception that I had that a lot of the academics and scientists today who are leading society away from personalism will not hear the tattva unless they feel like you have a doctorate or some sort of distinction within their particular disciplines. They seem to be hard of hearing unless they think that you are within their fraternity as it were. 

To me that resembles how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu tricked the impersonalists or tricked the nondevotees into listening to Him. Prabhupada also said it is not necessary to become a doctor to be heard by the scientists. So there is this dilemma going on in some devotees’ minds, for instance mine. I wonder if you could resolve that. Am I being clear?

Giriraj Swami: Yes. What you said is very apt. In fact our godbrother Garuda Prabhu, he had the very same thought that Lord Chaitanya took sannyasa so people would listen to Him, so what’s the counterpart to sannyasa in today’s society in the West? It is getting a PhD. And so he got a PhD and people accept him as an authority. 

As to whether you need to have a PhD for people to listen to you, there will be people who will be open to you who even if you don’t have a PhD. Like the disciples who joined the Bhaktivedanta Institute like Bhakti Svarupa Damodara Maharaja, Sadaputa Prabhu, and others, they had PhDs, but the person who preached to them, Srila Prabhupada, didn’t have a PhD, but they still accepted what he said. Similarly, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, before taking sannyasa, preached and some people accepted Him, but not everyone. But when He took sannyasa, more people accepted Him.

So, you can preach to scientists and scholars without having a PhD, but because of their pride, that [huberous?], they may think you are not on our level to speak to us. Those types will hear better from someone who has a PhD. 

I am not sure whether this is just a hypothetical question or when you say it’s been of concern to you, but just a personal note of concern, it is much less risky to get a PhD in mathematics or chemistry or biology than in religious studies. To go into religious studies and not be affected by the deconstructionist, skeptical approach requires tremendous spiritual strength. Even then if one is able to go through the process and get a PhD to actually have any effect on the scholars in the field of religious studies, one has to be extremely intelligent. 

It is like any field. There are so many people who play cricket. Not everyone makes the world cup or whatever they have for cricket, the match. So it is not that everyone who gets a PhD is going to be able to mold people’s opinions about Gaudiya Vaishnavism and religious studies. To come to that level of influence you have to be extremely intelligent and you have to know how to deal with people and be very Krishna conscious.

Tamal Krishna Goswami was very Krishna conscious. He was very intelligent. And he knew how to deal with people. He could have an influence in the field of religious studies. Garuda Prabhu is very Krishna conscious, very intelligent, and very adept at dealing with people. He has had an influence. He is having an influence. But how many Tamal Krishna Goswamis are there or how many Garuda Prabhus are there? Very few. For most people who get a PhD in religious studies, if they are able to maintain their Krishna consciousness, for them it more or less becomes a job which is fine. “I am a devotee. I need money to maintain my devotional lifestyle. I like to study and teach and I like this subject of Vaishnavism, Gaudiya Vaishnavism, Vedic culture. I am going to have to do something. So I will teach religious studies.” 

But devotees who go into that field or who contemplate going into that field should be aware that it will put tremendous pressure on them to give up their faith and even if they pass through it without losing their faith, it would be a very rare and highly qualified soul that can really have any influence in the academic study of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Hare Krishna.

Radha Govinda dasa: In the beginning you started by describing [inaudible] Srila Prabhupada. Can you find any internal reason that Srila Prabhupada came to do what he did? There is no doubt that he was an associate of Lord Chaitanya. 

Giriraj Swami: Radha Govinda Prabhu asked yes, we understand that Srila Prabhupada came to the West on the order of his guru maharaja with love for Krishna and for his guru maharaja and for the fallen souls. Would it be going too far to ask if there was an internal reason?

The internal reason is in a way is the same as Lord Chaitanya’s internal reason. He wanted to give people vraja-bhakti. Bhurijana Prabhu analyzed this question. In other words, Srila Prabhupada had a burning desire for people to come to Krishna consciousness. If we are not fanatics and if we look at other religious traditions or spiritual traditions, we will find that there is a lot there. Every tradition has an esoteric, mystical tradition within it. There is a lot there. Much of what Srila Prabhupada gave us is available in other traditions if you know how to find it, but the one thing that the other traditions don’t have is Krishna in Vrindavan, vraja-bhakti. So the very same thing that Krishna came to give as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu which is vraja-bhakti is the very same thing which, according to Bhurijana Prabhu’s analysis, which made sense to me, is the very same thing that Srila Prabhupada came to give. Srila Prabhupada was not sectarian. He is not a fanatic. Srila Prabhupada knew that there is God consciousness everywhere—not just in ISKCON or not just in Gaudiya Vaishnavism or Vaishnavism in general.

For example in the early days when Srila Prabhupada came to America, one person, it was in 1968 in Seattle, one person asked Srila Prabhupada, “Is there anyone comparable to Joan of Arc in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam?” So Srila Prabhupada replied, “Why not Joan of Arc in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.” And then he explained what is Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam means the beautiful story of the Personality of Godhead and His devotees. So if Joan of Arc is a devotee, then her story is part of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Srila Prabhupada’s view was very liberal. Once Aitreya Rsi Prabhu who used to preach in Iran said to Srila Prabhupada that his dream was one day all the Muslims would chant Hare Krishna. Srila Prabhupada said, “Why do you want them to chant Hare Krishna? We are not fanatical. Let them chant ‘Allah Allah’” 

So Srila Prabhupada is not sectarian, he is not fanatical, he was not close-minded, but he had such a burning desire to spread Krishna consciousness to the extent that he risked everything to do it. So why, when there is so much in other traditions, why should he go to such extremes specifically to give people what we call Krishna consciousness? Bhurijana Prabhu concluded it is because it is only in Krishna consciousness that you get this vraja-bhakti, that you get Krishna in Vrindavan and the potential to serve Krishna in Vrindavan in these intimate, loving relationships. So if we want to say what was his internal purpose, I would say it was the same as part of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s internal purpose to give that specific type of love of Godhead that is found in the inhabitants of Vrindavan.

Guru Carana dasi: I was just wondering if someone does something which you take offense to, then what is the attitude that you can have so that you don’t again recommit an offense by thinking badly of the person. Should you forgive in your heart? Sometimes it is hard to let go. Should you go up to the person and tell them how you feel honestly? What is the correct mentality to have so that it doesn’t hinder them and your spiritual progress?

Giriraj Swami: You mean if you feel offended by someone?

Guru Carana dasi: Maybe Krishna sends a person to test me.

Giriraj Swami: That is a very good question. That is an excellent question. The answer would depend a lot on who offended you, what the offense was, what your relationship with the person is, and other factors. I heard that our dear godsister, Mana-Mohini dasi—she is a very, very nice devotee—I heard that one year at Mayapur she approached devotees who she felt offended by just to clear the air. I don’t think I would do that personally, but she is a very good devotee, very clean hearted, openhearted devotee. So I think there could be merit to that. 

I think what I would tend to do because usually when there is an offense, you can find something in your behavior that might have been offensive to the other person. Even if, from a certain point of view, one might think that, “The other person was 99 percent offensive and I was 1 percent offensive,” but still, this is how I approach it. I feel if I am 1 percent offensive I should apologize for my offensiveness and at least I will get free from the reaction to my share of it. And it might happen—I wouldn’t do it with that intention, but it might happen that the person feels, “Oh, this person is apologizing to me. I should probably apologize for my part in it.” That could be an approach.

Another approach, again depending who it is and what it is, is not to take offense. Just to let it go. To see that it is something that happened and not take it to heart so much. It would depend if there was malice or not. And even the malice how deep it was.

Once I discussed a related topic with His Holiness Radhanath Swami and I felt he gave a very nice answer. We were on the beach in Santa Barbara. He said it is just like the ocean is very deep and underneath the ocean the water is still, but because of the wind, waves come up. He said you might be near the ocean and a big wave might come up and hit you and get you wet. It might even knock you over. So you might be angry at the wave, but in the case of a sincere devotee, what’s underlying is their love for Prabhupada and Krishna. That is like the ocean. That doesn’t change but because we are in the material world and there are winds blowing in different directions from society, from the material modes, on top of that ocean of devotion for Prabhupada and Krishna. Just because of being in the material world, some superficial wave could come up and that wave could hit you and make you wet and knock you over. So you feel it. But he said if we think of the underlying love and devotion which is really the person’s essential character and see that that wave that happened to hit you was just a temporary thing due to being in the material world, we can let it go and not sake it too seriously.

Devotee: If we could come back to the reason for Prabhupada’s descent, the internal reason, it strikes me that in one sense, it seems very safe to say that it is because he gave to give vraja-bhakti. You can’t argue that because that is philosophically very sound, but he also enumerated—I don’t know if you call it an internal reason—but he made time to refer to this commentary by Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura where he talked about the duty of the disciple is to make the order of the spiritual master his life and soul. He has to try to execute that order as his only business. So I don’t know if that is exactly an internal reason, but at least it seems from when we study Prabhupada’s life that that was certainly the force that was driving him was that sense of obligation to his spiritual master. And making it his only desire really. That was practically the only thing that was important to him was to try to execute that order.

Giriraj Swami: Definitely. Perfect. That supports Gaura Bhagavān dasa’s Guru-vandanā.

Devotee: Srila Prabhupada also says that his purports are his personal ecstasies 

Giriraj Swami: Yes. He says that Srila Prabhupada said that his purports are his personal ecstasies. I think Srila Prabhupada was pretty open about what his motives were and what his intentions were. He always said he came on the order of his spiritual master. Guru-mukha-padma-vākya, cittete kariyā aikya, āra nā kariha mane āśā: make the order of the spiritual master one with your heart and do not desire anything else. That is fundamental, most fundamental reason.

Rasa Sundari dasi: Maharaja Ambarisa was in a dilemma about breaking his fast. [inaudible]

Giriraj Swami: The question is that in King Ambarisa’s dilemma between being faced with offending the sadhu or not getting the benefit of the Ekādaśī, wouldn’t it be better to not get the benefit of Ekādaśī than to offend the sadhu?

Whatever a pure devotee does, including observing Ekādaśī, is for the pleasure of the Lord. A pure devotee doesn’t do things with any selfish desire. The observance of Ekādaśī is a very basic principle. It is one of the ten first items in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu. Lord Chaitanya observed it strictly. Yes, in a way we do it to get some benefit, but we really do it to please Krishna. And what is the benefit we get? The benefit we get is in the power to serve Krishna better and please Krishna more. I do get your point but I think King Ambarisa wanted to accomplish both—please Krishna by following His instructions to observe Ekādaśī and avoid offending Durvasa Muni. 

It reminds me of a little story from when Srila Prabhupada was present in Vrindavan, one of his disciples, Gargamuni, had long hair, and Srila Prabhupada was very concerned about long hair in his disciples, and he really chided Gargamuni for having long hair. It happened to be Ekādaśī. So he shaved up on Ekādaśī and he said that he feared Srila Prabhupada’s wrath more than he feared the reactions to shaving up on Ekādaśī [laughter]. So that supports your idea. But Srila Prabhupada was his spiritual master.

Thank you very much. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.