Text 33
āra dina miśra āila prabhu-vidyamāne
prabhu kahe,–'krsna-kathā śunilā rāya-sthāne'?
SP: The next day, when Pradyumna Miśra arrived in the presence of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, the Lord inquired, "Have you heard talks about Krsna from Śrī Rāmānanda Rāya?"
MS: Pradyumna Miśra returned to Mahāprabhu and met Him the next day, and the Lord inquired, "Have you heard talks about Krsna from Śrī Rāmānanda Rāya?"
Text 34
tabe miśra rāmānandera vrttānta kahilā
śuni' mahāprabhu tabe kahite lāgilā
SP: Pradyumna Miśra thereupon described the activities of Śrī Rāmānanda Rāya. After hearing about these activities, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu began to speak.
MS: Pradyumna Miśra described the activities of Śrī Rāmānanda Rāya. After hearing about these activities, Mahāprabhu began to speak.
Text 35
"āmi ta' sannyāsī, āpanāre virakta kari' māni
darśana rahu dūre, 'prakrtira' nāma yadi śuni
tabahin vikāra pāya mora tanu-mana
prakrti-darśane sthira haya kon jana?"
SP: "I am a sannyāsī," He said, "and I certainly consider Myself renounced. But not to speak of seeing a woman, if I even hear the name of a woman, I feel changes in My mind and body. Therefore who could remain unmoved by the sight of a woman? It is very difficult.
MS: Mahaprabhu said to Pradyumna Misra, the brahmana, “I am a sannyāsī, I certainly consider Myself renounced. What to speak of seeing a woman, if I even hear the name of a woman, I feel changes in My mind and body. Therefore who could remain unmoved by the sight of a woman? It is very difficult.”
Text 37
rāmānanda rāyera kathā śuna, sarva-jana
kahibāra kathā nahe, yāhā āścarya-kathana
SP: "Everyone please hear these topics about Rāmānanda Rāya, although they are so wonderful and uncommon that they should not be spoken.
MS: "Everyone please hear these topics about Rāmānanda Rāya, although they are so wonderful and uncommon that they should not be spoken.” So Mahaprabhu is actually going to personally glorify His devotee. So of course there are different levels of this pastime – pastime for itself and by itself, but then the teaching conveys to all of us, the readers. It shows that Lord Caitanya, He finds great happiness and takes every opportunity He can to honestly and genuinely glorify the devotees of the Lord.
So you can see this is the heart of the devotee that he loves the Lord and he loves Lord’s devotees. He loves to glorify the Lord and he loves to glorify the Lord’s devotees. He is not a separatist, he has equal vision.
So Lord Caitanya is not thinking, “O no, I am Krsna in Radha bhava and all of My mind and heart and words and meditation and glorification are reserved solely and only for Krsna. ‘Krsna Krsna Krsna Krsna where is My Krsna, Krsna kahan?’ I do not want to take any timeout to separately glorify the devotees of Krsna. I want to spend every moment of My time searching for Krsna and glorifying Krsna.”
But no, we see here and so many other places, Lord Caitanya also spends time glorifying His devotees. So He loves…’Love me love my dog’ as they say. So if we love the person, then we love anyone connected with the person. So Lord Caitanya loves the Lord, loves Krsna and He also loves all the devotees. So He is telling the glories.
Text 38
eke deva-dāsī, āra sundarī tarunī
tāra saba anga-sevā karena āpani
SP: "The two professional dancing girls are beautiful and youthful, yet Śrī Rāmānanda Rāya personally massages oil upon their bodies.
MS: Mahaprabhu said, “There are two professional dancing girls, deva-dāsīs, “they are very beautiful, sundarī and tarunī, youthful, yet Rāmānanda Rāya personally massages their bodies with oil,” saba anga-sevā karena āpani.
Text 39
snānādi karāya, parāya vāsa-vibhūsana
guhya angera haya tāhā darśana-sparśana
SP: "He personally bathes and dresses them and decorates them with ornaments. In this way, he naturally sees and touches the private parts of their bodies.
MS: “Rāmānanda Rāya personally bathes these deva-dasis and dresses them and decorates them with ornaments. In this way, he naturally sees and touches the private parts of their bodies.” Guhya, very interesting, guhya means cave or secret or hidden. Sarva guhyatamam. Guhya angera, guhya anga, the parts, the body, the limbs.
Text 40
tabu nirvikāra rāya-rāmānandera mana
nānā-bhāvodgāra tāre karāya śiksana
SP: "Nevertheless, the mind of Śrī Rāmānanda Rāya never changes, although he teaches the girls how to physically express all the transformations of ecstasy.
MS: “Despite doing this activity Rāmānanda Rāya never changes, although he teaches the girls how to physically express all the transformations of ecstasy.” Bhāvodgāra, udgāra means rising. Rising bhavas, nānā means various. nānā-bhāvodgāra….nirvikāra. So he is nirvikara, there is no transformation. He is steady.
Text 41
nirvikāra deha-mana–kāstha-pāsāna-sama!
āścarya,–tarunī-sparśe nirvikāra mana
SP: "His mind is as steady as wood or stone. Indeed, it is wonderful that even when he touches such young girls, his mind never changes.
MS: “Rāmānanda Rāya’s mind is as steady as wood or stone. Indeed, it is āścarya, it is wonderful that even when he touches such young girls, his mind never changes.”
Text 42
eka rāmānandera haya ei adhikāra
tāte jāni aprākrta-deha tānhāra
SP: "The authority for such acts is the prerogative of Rāmānanda Rāya alone; for I can understand that his body is not material but has been completely transformed into a spiritual entity.
MS: Mahaprabhu continues to glorify Rāmānanda Rāya – “The authority for such acts is the right of Rāmānanda Rāya alone, for I can understand that his body is not material but has been completely transformed into a spiritual entity.” jāni aprākrta-deha, aprākrta-deha.
bhumir apo 'nalo vayuh
kham mano buddhir eva ca
ahankara itiyam me
bhinna prakrtir astadha
(Bhagvad-gita, 7.4)
Asta prakrti, our material bodies are made of eight elements, that compose this world around us also and they are called prakrta deha. The spiritual transcendental body which is full of this energy of the Lord, this sandhini, samvit, hladini sakti, the spiritual body, this is called aprakrta deha.
So Ramananda Raya, since he is an eternal associate of Krsna, his body is obviously aprakrta deha, be he in the bramhana svarupa or gopi svarupa.
In gopi svarupa in Krsna lila, Ramananda Raya of course is Visakha sakhi and Visakha sakhi is svarupa sakti of Radha, khaya-vyuha, expansion of Radharani’s body. And Radharani’s body is sandhini, samvit and hladini. Of course there is a predominance of hladini acting there but all three are comprised there, collected there.
So Ramananda Raya’s body is aprakrta deha, transcendental body. So therefore when he engages in these intimate activities of bathing and dressing the deva-dasis, his mind is cool, calm and collected. His mind is not disturbed.
Text 43
tānhāra manera bhāva tenha jāne mātra
tāhā jānibāre āra dvitīya nāhi pātra
SP: "He alone, and no one else, can understand the position of his mind.
MS: Mahaprabhu said, “Only Rāmānanda Rāya and no one else, can understand the position of his mind.”
Text 44
kintu śāstra-drstye eka kari anumāna
śrī-bhāgavata-śāstra–tāhāte pramāna
SP: Mahaprabhu said, I can make a guess in terms of directions from the sastras. The vedic scripture Srimad Bhagavatam gives a direct evidence in this matter.”
MS: Mahaprabhu said, “I can make a guess in terms of directions from the sastras. The vedic scripture Srimad Bhagavatam gives a direct evidence in this matter.”
It is very interesting how this pastime goes from the highest level of aprakrta deha and how Ramananda Raya is completely identifying with his siddha deha, his perfect form and he is absorbed in his internal identity, that externally I am a kayastha varna, kayastha caste, involved with politics and now I have renounced that to serve Lord Caitanya in Gambhira. But nevertheless my external form is male but I am rendering this service to Lord Jagannatha to train up these deva-dasis to express the bhavodgara, to express the various symptoms of bhava in the dramas, specially the drama that I have written for the pleasure of the Lord, Jagannatha Vallabha Natakam. And especially to demonstrate the all the different anubhavas and vibhavas and sancari bhavas of Jaideva Gosvami’s classic – Gita Govinda, which is sung every night for the pleasure of Jagannatha Swami.
So this is my service. So that service entails me that I must… the physical bodies of these deva-dasis must be very toned and strong and they must be shown how to convey all moods and mellows of the lila drama. So therefore I am bathing them, I am massaging them, I am dressing them and decorating them, I am showing them the mudras, the dance steps and teaching them everything, from inside out. But I am completely undisturbed; my mind is like wood or stone. It does not move. It does not vibrate. No transformation, nirvikāra, mana nirvikāra. My mind is completely transformed because I do not have purusa bhava, I do not have the enjoying spirit.
Material men and women living in prakrta dehas, materially constituted bodies, they are saturated with the purusa bhava, the enjoying spirit. So when a woman sees man, she wants to enjoy man. When man sees woman he wants to enjoy, the enjoying spirit.
But these deva-dasis, they are female and Ramananda Raya is also totally identifying, I am also female. I am Visakha sakhi. That’s not a case of false identification. That’s quite correct and real, eternally.
So Mahaprabhu is saying that no one can really understand the mind such an exalted personality as Ramananda Raya, not even Me. Not even God can understand the mind of His devotee. Vaisnvera kriya mudra, that phrase is there, it is very difficult to understand the mind and mudra. Mudra means postures, actions, positions, inclinations of a Vaisnava. A genuine Vaisnava, I don’t mean prakrta bhakta or Vaisnava praya, like ourselves. But I mean genuine Vaisnava, devotee of the Lord, transparent devotee. Very difficult to understand their transcendental behavior and movements, even Lord Caitanya is admitting, “It befuddles Me, I can’t catch it”. But He said, “Well, I can make a guess”.
He says, “śāstra-drstye eka kari anumāna” Anumāna means, I can guess, I can make a guess, anumāna, on the basis of sastra drsti, divya drsti, sastra drsti, means seeing through the sastras, which is how devotees see. You can see also how Lord Caitanya is so much careful to present the mode of analyzation of a devotee.
The devotee examines the situation or interaction of other devotees with his mind, with his eyes, with his sarira drsti, or the vision of his body. ‘I see this happening with this devotee and that devotee and I hear what they are saying, I have some understanding.’ But that is not enough. There must be a higher vision, there must be some higher discriminatory power introduced here. So he doesn’t rely on his own mental understanding of a situation or his mental assessment of what he perceives through his organs of perception. He goes one step higher, he goes to sastra drsti.
It says drstye, śāstra-drstye. This is the ultimate vision. This is the final place, the final verdict or conclusion is – well I am seeing it like this, I am hearing it like this, I am understanding it like this, but actually what is my power of seeing? What is my power of hearing and understanding? It’s limited, it’s faulty by construction. Pramada, vipralipsa, bhrama and karana-patava, I have these four inborn defects. As a conditioned soul, I have four inborn defects. Just like you buy a new car and they have four options – wide oval tyres or something, quadraphonic stereo or something, reclining seats or power seats, power windows.
So these are options, these are additional gadgets which make the car better, enhance the car, the value and comfort of the car. But on the contrary, we in the human body, we have defects; we have very powerful defects – tendency to commit mistakes, illusion, cheating and imperfection of the senses.
So this limits our power to understand reality, because we are defective. So our vision is defective, our understanding is defective, our discrimination is defective. It is not perfect, complete or flawless. So therefore what to do? Well, we have to turn to some flawless personalities or some perfect seers of the truth. Those who have the power to distinguish reality from illusion as Prabhupada describes in Bhagavatam. So the bhagvatas in the Bhagavatam have the power to separate or distinguish reality from illusion. This is real, this is not. This is brahma satyam, this is mitya. Brahma satyam, jagan mitya. This is satyam, this is truth, this is mitya. Param satyam ca di mahi. So the Bhagavatam is giving the para satyam, the transcendental truth, the highest truth, the perfect truth.
So Lord Caitanya is showing, “Yes devotees, I am also showing the role of an ideal devotee.” Because a large part of Lord Caitanya’s pastimes, He is acting, He is thinking, He is speaking, He is moving exactly like the perfect ideal devotee or the ideal bhakta to teach us. So in some places it is possible to follow in the footsteps of Lord Caitanya, to do like He is doing, in other places we simply worship His ecstasies and we meditate on them. Because then, when He is acting as Radharani or Krsna, then of course this is another tattva, we can’t imitate that.
So we have to know when to draw the line of imitation or following the footsteps and that’s what our guardians describe to us. So here of course He is setting the example of understanding a situation and conveying that to Pradyumna Misra. It is very interesting because often devotees do that, they are saying “I don’t really know” although they do know because they are taking the role of the devotee or the bhakta.
So Lord Caitanya is speaking to Pradyumna Misra, now think of this story. Pradyumna Misra has gone to meet Ramananda Raya and he has heard that he is massaging naked girls or maybe he saw something or whatever. And now his perception with his faulty senses and understanding is faulty, so he has kind of a bent viewpoint of Ramananda Raya’s devotional position. Although he was advised by Mahaprabhu to go learn about devotion from Ramananda Raya, now he has second thoughts. He says, “Wait a minute! I went there and the servant told me, ‘Sir, Ramananda Raya is in the back room with two naked girls and he will be right out, please sit down and wait.’ Two naked girls! And I am supposed to take spiritual instructions and bhajana siksa from him!? Arre? Baap re baap! What is this!?”
So he didn’t go to sastras and he just depended on his material viewpoint, his sense perception, what he heard, what he figured out and what he smelt and figured out was – this doesn’t smell good. Doesn’t look good or seem right.
So he went back in a little disturbed state of mind and Lord Caitanya understood everything. He said, “How was it? You met Ramananda Raya and learnt somethings?”
“Oh ya, right! Ya, sure. You are making fun of me? Sending there, what to learn? What am I supposed to learn? I already know all these kinds of things, there is nothing to learn over there, its not new subject for me.”
So then Lord Caitanya said, “Yes yes, he is doing like this and that and I can’t understand Myself,” and then of course, hearing this from Lord Caitanya, Pradyumna Misra is saying, “Yeah yeah, that’s right. You don’t understand either, I don’t understand either!”
So then Lord Caitanya said, “So well, let’s not leave it there, that we are both confused. Let’s take the sastras drsthye. Let’s look through the eyes of sastras, Pradyumna Misra and may be the sastras can help you and Me to understand what Ramananda Raya is doing with those deva-dasis.”
So then Lord Caitanya says – kintu sastra-drstye eka kari anumana
He said, “I can guess, may be when we look at sastras then we can understand what is going on.” Then He says, śrī-bhāgavata-śāstra–tāhāte pramāna.
“Now, Pradyumna, let us look at Sri Bhagavata, let us look at – not any sastra, we said sastra-drstya, in the first line, lets see the viewpoint of sastra, but not any sastra, but Sri Bhagavat – that beautiful story that describes the unique love of Radharani, let us use that out pramana, our source of evidence to understand the phenomenon that we have just witnessed, which you have told me about and you have seen and understood.”
So then the Lord continues enlightening Pradyumna Misra and us.
Text 45-46
vraja-vadhū-sange krsnera rāsādi-vilāsa
yei jana kahe, śune kariyā viśvāsa
hrd-roga-kāma tānra tat-kāle haya ksaya
tina-guna-ksobha nahe, 'mahā-dhīra' haya
SP: "When one hears or describes with great faith the pastimes of Lord Krsna, such as His rāsa dance with the gopīs, the disease of lusty desires in his heart and the agitation caused by the three modes of material nature are immediately nullified, and he becomes sober and silent.
MS: Mahaprabhu says, “When one hears with great faith,” visvasa “the pastimes of Krsna such as His rasa dance,” rasadi-vilada, the vilasa beginning with rasa which is the topmost. In other words, begin by hearing the topmost pastime and work it down from there, rasadi-vilasa. Vilasa means pastimes of intimate exchange of love between the Lord and His associates, pastimes beginning with rasa, what rasa? Sakhya rasa or madhurya rasa or vatsalya rasa? He says vraja-vadhu-sange, that rasa that Krsna relishes, that divine rapture that Krsna relishes in the association with the new married brides of Vrndavana, vraja-vadhu-sange rasadi-vilasa. We don’t know anything about the language but it certainly sounds beautiful, compared to English, anything sounds beautiful! But this is extremely beautiful, parama sundara.
vraja-vadhū-sange krsnera rāsādi-vilāsa
yei jana kahe, śune kariyā viśvāsa
hrd-roga-kāma tānra tat-kāle haya ksaya
tina-guna-ksobha nahe, 'mahā-dhīra' haya
MS: When one hears or describes with great faith the pastimes of Lord Caitanya such as His rasa dance with the gopis, the disease of the lusty desires in his heart and the agitation caused by the three modes of the material nature are immediately nullified and he becomes sober and silent, maha-dhira, very sober. Tina-guna-ksobha, the agitation of the three modes of nature, tat-kale. Tatkal, we have this type of ticket you can reserve in the train, means we go on day of the train, it is called tatkal, right? So this is tat-kale, at that time, hrd-roga. So the time when you read Krsna’s rasa dance, if you read with great faith, then you will be in good shape and when you stop reading the rasa dance, then you will be in a bad shape (laughs).
The three modes will capture, it seems to indicate that, although it’s not translated that way.
It says – hrd-roga-kāma tānra tat-kāle haya ksaya
Ksaya means kasaya, like you have in the Ayurvedic medicines they have a medicine called ksaya. Basically in English we say decoction – you take a bunch of leaves and then you cook. You have like two liters of water and one kilo of leaves and then cook that down to 200ml of water, so it is highly concentrated water with lots of herbal oils, that’s called the kasaya and it's used in herbal medicine, Ayurveda.
So Lord Caitanya, in His own words He has actually summarized the famous verse from Rasa pancodaya where Suka Muni concludes the beautiful description of the maha-rasa dance in the Sarada season, in chapter 33, verse 39, giving the ultimatum of benedictions, that anyone who hears this dance…
So Lord Caitanya first puts it in His language. So it is nice to hear the verse twice, once from Sukadeva Gosvami and again from Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. In other words, this verse is certified.
So what’s the beautiful thing that is happening here is that Caitanya Mahaprabhu is confirming that “Guess what everybody, in case you don’t believe it, in case your visvasa in Bhagavatam is bahut kam hai, if you don’t have much faith in the Srimad Bhagvatam, O Sukadeva Gosvami and Vyasdeva is writing
vikriditam vraja-vadhubhir idam ca visnoh
sraddhanvito ‘nusrnuyad atha varnayed yah
bhaktim param bhagavati pratilabhya kamam
hrd-rogam asv apahinoty acirena dhirah
(Srimad Bhagvatam, 10.33.39)
He is writing in Srimad Bhagvatam in 10.33.39 that if you hear the rasa lila with the gopis with faith, sraddhanvita, with special type of faith, then you will get free from hrd-rogam. But before that happens, parama bhakti labhyate, you will attain a very special, high class of bhakti that is very rarely found in the entire universe and it is found in the land of Vraja, vraja-bhoomi. This is Vraja bhakti, vraja prema.
So he is saying that bhaktim param bhagavati, Bhagavati means Radharani and there is Bhagavan and Bhagavati. Bhagavan is Sri Krsna. Bhagavati Radha. Gauri-Syama, Kisor-Kisori, Radha-Madhava. So
bhaktim param bhagavati pratilabhya kamam
hrd-rogam asv apahinoty acirena dhirah
So what happens by hearing the rasa katha of Krsna with the gopis in Vraja especially is that first, one gets intense devotion, it comes in the heart, Vraja bhakti, parama bhaktim bhagavati, Bhagavati means Radha, parama bhaktim means that highest madhurya prema that is available in Vrndavana that is expressed as an unlimited ocean in the heart of Srimati Radharani, Bhagavati Radha.
pratilabhya kamam, prati like we say in ceto-darapana-marjanam- pratipadam means step after step after step. Pratilabhya, so one will gain step by step and ever increasing steps and ever increasing drops and ever increasing increments, one will attain this param bhaktim bhagavati by hearing repeatedly the rasa lila with sraddhanvita, with great faith.
So if we read one time, we get a drop of faith, because the drops are coming from the ocean of mahabhava, mahabhava samudra in the heart of Radharani. If we read rasa lila once, we get one drop of para bhakti, vraja bhakti, madhurya bhakti. If we read twice then we get two drops, three times three drops.
If we become sastra ninda or Vaisnava ninda then the drops of bhakti get burnt off. Because ninda means tapa, tapa means fire. So when one performs ninda then he burns up his sukriti and bhakti.
So the drops of bhakti that come, they get evaporated in the heat of aparadha. It is like you have some water in a pot and you put it on the stove with heat, what happens to the water? The flame is under the pot, it boils away. So this sastra ninda and sadhu ninda is like fire, it burns up the bhakti rasa in the heart. So we get three drops, and we boil off two! We burn off two!
So this sraddhanivta means we have faith in the Vaisnavas. Vaisnava visvasa, sastra visvasa, sastriya visvasa and sastriya sraddha. Unbreakable faith in the sastras, unbreakable faith in Vaisnavas, but when that faith breaks and we become ninda – sadhu ninda or sastra ninda, then it burns up the drops of bhakti.
So Lord Caitanya is confirming that, “Yes, 5000 years ago, when Sukadeva Gosvami spoke this verse in Bhagavatam, this phala sruti of the rasa lila chapters, rasa pancodaya, its true! I am coming again, I am telling you Myself, I am Radharani, I am telling you in My own words, I am also saying that you will get this bhaktim param bhagavati..”
vraja-vadhū-sange krsnera rāsādi-vilāsa
yei jana kahe, śune kariyā viśvāsa
hrd-roga-kāma tānra tat-kāle haya ksaya
tina-guna-ksobha nahe, 'mahā-dhīra' haya
So Mahaprabhu is saying exactly the same thing as Sukadeva Gosvami spoke to Pariksit Maharaja which Vedavyasa wrote in 10.33.39.
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura writes in this connection – Any person seriously inclined to hear about the pastimes of Krsna’s rasa dance in Bhagavatam with great faith and a transcendental spiritually inspired mind is immediately freed from the natural lusty desires found within the heart of a materialistic man.
So of course, different devotees have given their different interpretations on the commentary of Bhaktisiddhanta, a transcendental spiritually inspired mind, but then you have to adjust two things in this sentence because Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati is saying, because we usually chop it off and quote out of context what he said. He said, “If someone hears with great faith.”
So you have to hear with faith, sraddha, your heart has to be in the position of sraddha, faith. And your mind has to be in a certain position, he saying your mind has to be transcendental and spiritually inspired, then if that is the position, then lusty desires in the heart will be removed. Because it says – then one is immediately freed from the lusty desires found in the heart of a materialistic man.
So there is only one man being discussed here, right? The man is materialistic, he is a prakrta Vaisnava, because he still has lust within him, he is still not pure Vaisnava, he is a Vaisnava praya. So he is the materialistic man, he has lusty desires, but he has faith, sastriya sraddha. And now, does he have a transcendentally inspired spiritual mind? So there are a lot of arguments – “O see? You don’t have, so you can’t read!” No, it is incorrect. What does it mean? Because first it says, he is a materialistic man, which means he is a materialistic man or lady devotee, a prakrta bhakta, not pure bhakta. So ok, he has kama, krodha, lobha, he is in anartha nivrtti, but he has guru sraddha and sastriya sraddha and his mind is transcendental and spiritual because he has taken Vaisnava diksa. And it is explained by Lord Caitanya in the teachings of Sanatana – diksa kale aprakrta deha prapti…that at the time of diksa one obtains aprakrta deha, it begins with the mind. The mind of the devotee is transcendental and spiritually inspired, that means we are moving on guru ajna. We are following the order of guru, we are surrendered to guru, we are following the four regulative principles, we are engaging in guru seva. That’s what it means to have a transcendentally inspired mind in the context of this verse, otherwise it doesn’t make sense.
Because there are many people who argue this purport of Bhakti Siddhanta Sarasvati and they say – “Therefore you can’t read any rasa lila because you don’t have a transcendentally inspired mind.”
When your mind is completely transcendental and you are completely spiritual minded, the rasa lila will be in your mind, you don’t have to read about it. And if your mind is transcendentally, spiritually inspired, then you can’t on one side have a transcendentally inspired mind and at the same time be a lusty, materialistic man. It is impossible.
So therefore one has to understand what is being said here, otherwise there is no reason to publish Krsna Book, Srimad Bhagvatam, it should be kept in brown paper bags underneath the counter. When you go to the book store they will say, “Are you over 21? Show me your driver’s license. Ok, you can buy this Bhagavatam” and they give it to you in a brown paper and say, “Don’t show this to anyone and don’t let your little brother, sister see it!”
It is not like that. So this is a misrepresentation. Then Srila Prabhupada goes on to say his commentary on this verse, Antya lila, chapter 5, CC verse 45 and 46, spoken by Caitanya Mahaprabhu.
When a pure Vaisnava speaks on Bhagavatam and another pure Vaisnava hears Bhagavatam from such a realized soul, both of them live in the transcendental world where the contamination of the modes of material nature cannot touch them. Freed from the contamination of the modes of material nature, the speaker and the hearer of Bhagavatam are fixed in a transcendental mentality knowing that their position on the transcendental platform is to serve the Supreme Lord.
So this is what is happening. If you hear from a very advanced devotee, the Bhagavatam, all that’s on your mind is the subject of Bhagavatam and all that’s on the mind of the speaker is the subject of Bhagavatam. There is no material exchanges, no gender this that. It is just a pure atmosphere, that is why sadhu sanga is so much emphasized.
Text 47
ujjvala madhura prema-bhakti sei pāya
ānande krsna-mādhurye vihare sadāya
SP: "Tasting the transcendental, effulgent, sweetly ecstatic love of Krsna, such a person can enjoy life twenty-four hours a day in the transcendental bIiss of the sweetness of Krsna's pastimes.”
MS: “Tasting transcendental effulgent, sweetly ecstatic love of Krsna…” Now that is quite a beautiful translation. Srila Prabhupada must have relished when he spoke this into the Dictaphone.
Can you imagine being a pure devotee like Srila Prabhupada, perfect siddha saint, absorbed in madhurya bhava, vraja bhava and speaking, tasting, realizing, seeing, perceiving, feeling this phrase. “Tasting transcendental effulgent, sweetly ecstatic love of Krsna, such a person who hears or describes rasa dance of the gopis, he can enjoy life 24 hours a day in a transcendental bliss of the sweetness of Krsna’s pastimes.”
This one verse, chapter 5 verse 47 spoken by Mahaprabhu is like the autobiography of Srila Prabhupada. Because unless someone was tasting transcendental bliss of Krsna’s pastimes 24 hrs a day, he could never do what Srila Prabhupada did. He could tolerate the most bitter external experiences, the most poisonous, bitter and sour relationships and experiences in the material world in preaching and traveling because he was tasting the sweet bliss of Krsna’s lila, 24 hrs a day.
Just like if someone is high on some kind of material drug, you can do anything to their body – you can beat it, smash it, drag it to the streets, they will just, “Ha, ha ha” They will just laugh and you are dragging. You tie their two feet behind the car bumper and drag him down the street, he will just laugh, because he is out of his body, he is in a total stupor of tama guna, induced by some high power tamasic drug. So this is the experience – ignorance is bliss, right?
But Srila Prabhupada was in the transcendental ecstasy, ujjvala madhura prema-bhakti sei pāya ānande krsna-mādhurye vihare sadāya
Krsna madhurye vihare, Rasa bihari, bihari.
Imagine if we knew Bengali, we would really faint reading this book. All these verses, such beautiful summary of the Bhagavatam verse which is about to be spoken by the Lord. The Lord is like the parrot, he lands on the Mango tree and he sees – “O look at that mango, it looks like the rising sun, it is yellow on one side and nice red tinge on the other side and little bit of red is coming to the yellow side. Umm that mango smells something nice and I see there is some little bit of tiny juice coming out of the end of that mango, I think that is the sweetest mango in the tree. I am going for that one.”
And then the bird jumps a few branches up and climbs up at the end of the branch, holds on very firmly with his talons so that he doesn’t slip off and miss the nectar. Then he bends his head down, toink and he pokes his little red beak in to that beautiful luscious sweet sun-ripened mango. Not gassed mango in a box and he sticks his little red beak in there and then he sucks up some juice and then he is so ecstatic, he becomes so full of bliss that he can’t take anymore and he falls off the mango – “O my God I forgot to fly!”
And he is just falling backwards and thinking, “No, no I got to fly!” and then the instinct takes over because he is in mahabhava and then he starts flapping his wings and pulls out of his downspin and he flies off to another tree to relish some more. So that’s why you only see one bite whenever you get a sun ripened mango because it gets totally intoxicated, only takes one bite. I bet you can’t eat one, right? (laughs)
So this is what Lord Caitanya is doing to the Bhagavatam. Sukadeva Gosvami heard the Bhagavatam from his father Vyasadeva and he bit it, suka and he made it extra sweet for Pariksit.
But now what has Lord Caitanya done to the Bhagavatam? He hasn’t just pecked it with His beak one time like a parrot, Lord Caitanya has taken the ripened fruit of the Bhagavatam (nigama kalpataru galitam phalam) and He has swallowed the entire fruit and He started to express in every movement of His body and every word from His mouth, He started to express all the mahabhavas of Radharani contained in the Bhagavatam.
Because Caitanya Mahaprabhu is rasaraja mahabhava svarupini Sri Radha-Krsna combined, sri krsna caitanya radha krsna nahi anya.
So when Caitanya Mahaprabhu speaks on Bhagavatam, it must be something extraordinary. Which reminds me of a very funny anecdote. Srila Prabhupada was interviewed one time by these reporters – “Srila Prabhupada, what do you think about the hippies?” Of course he said different things but he said this also, this was in 1967 in San Francisco by the San Francisco Oracle which was some underground hippie paper or something. “Srila Prabhupada, what do you think about the hippies?”
So Prabhupada looked at him then his eyes got really big like they often do, with big white sclera around his eyes, his answer was – “Something extraordinary!” in his Bengali English accent. And that guy had no more questions to ask, you could understand, ‘Ok that says everything, you are exactly right, something extra ordinary.’
So Lord Caitanya has made the Srimad Bhagvatam something extra ordinary by His speaking about it, because these two verses are His explanation of Sukadeva Gosvami’s verse, this is Mahaprabhu’s tika. If you are reading the Bhagavatam, you could ask someone,
“Have you ever read Mahaprabhu’s tika on the Srimad Bhagavatam?”
“I didn’t hear about Mahaprabhu’s tika, I thought He threw that in the Ganga or something like that! I didn’t hear about it.”
“No no! It’s here, I read it.”
“Acha?”
“Yes, it's here and there are quotation marks here, He is speaking –
vraja-vadhū-sange krsnera rāsādi-vilāsa
yei jana kahe, śune kariyā viśvāsa
hrd-roga-kāma tānra tat-kāle haya ksaya
tina-guna-ksobha nahe, 'mahā-dhīra' haya
ujjvala madhura prema-bhakti sei pāya
ānande krsna-mādhurye vihare sadāya
This is His tika on this verse.
vikriditam vraja-vadhubhir idam ca visnoh
sraddhanvito ‘nusrnuyad atha varnayed yah
bhaktim param bhagavati pratilabhya kamam
hrd-rogam asv apahinoty acirena dhirah”
Sukadeva Gosvami said in 10.33.39 – A transcendentally sober person who with faith and love continually hears from a realized soul about the activities of Lord Krsna in His rasa dance with the gopis or one who describes such activities can both attain full transcendental devotional service at the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
So that happens. Then as a result of this, this comes first, not first lust goes and bhakti comes. Then lusty material desires which is the heart disease of all materialistic persons, are for him quickly and completely vanished.
Srila Prabhupada’s purport – all the activities of Lord Krsna are transcendental and the gopis are also transcendentally situated, therefore the activities of gopis and Krsna if seriously understood, will certainly free one from material attachment, then there is no possibility that lusty material desires will be awaken.
So we will continue this story there tomorrow. It goes on for some more verses. Lord Caitanya continues to speak for another 5-6 verses, which we will read tomorrow.