MS: This is kind of a light interlude; this is kind of a heavy sandwich with cream cheese in the middle. Philosophy, cream cheese and philosophy. Bhajan Rahasyam is philosophy but there is sweetness now, lot of sweetness and then the philosophy of Bhakti Rasamrta Sindhu – vaidi sadhana tattva, abhidheya tattva. Rupa Gosvami. But this Caitanya Caritamrta, these classes are some, say relish of the lila of the Lord. And say of course it is also teachings here.
So this particular story is a short story from Adi lila chapter 17. The title of the story is ‘The curse of the angry brāhmaṇa’. So now you have to think about, search your memory banks, who is that angry brāhmaṇa. Is it me? Is it you? And who did he curse or why? So may be those that are deeply absorbed in Gaura lila then they already see the lila unfolding before the screen of their pure hearts and they are already starting to relish different anubhavas and ecstatic symptoms. Thinking that yes, may be I would be so fortunate as the person who was cursed and I would also be cursed like this.
So this is Adi lila chapter 17, this begins on verse 60. After hearing about gopal capal, now there is another brāhmaṇa who comes on the scene. It is very interesting; you would think that if you were in the brahminical community or if you were a brāhmaṇa then you would not want to give brāhmaṇas a hard time. For example if you are an Agarwal, you are a business person, then you don’t want to give Agarwal…, you will never say anything bad about another Agarwal because you are one. There may be millions of them but if someone comes up to you and says, “Oh this Agarwal ripped me off”. Then you will say, “No he is not a bad person, he is ok.”
You have to see it from a different viewpoint, then you walk out and you wonder who? What’s his name? And then you look at the store, so he is also Agarwal. They all stick together like the pandavas, if you fight one then you have hundred and one or whatever. You have this Mahabharata statement saying when you attack the kauravas then all five plus the hundred come, hundred and five.
But Lord Caitanya doesn’t spare anyone. We see that the Lord doesn’t spare anyone. In Krsna lila or any lilas of the Lord, the Lord will even punish His own son. God will kill His own son, if the son is irreligious or of he hangs out with the wrong crowd. Right? God will kill His own son if His son hangs out with the wrong association. Can you imagine? He is ruthless. I mean he killed His own son! Does anyone have any idea about who that is? Narakasura, Bhaumasura, the son of Varaha and Bhumi in satya yuga. It is supposed to satya, the yuga of truth. God should be the purveyor of truth but He bumped off His own son as they say. Why? Because Narakasura, he left the sankirtana party, he got into some bad association. He started associating with who? Banasura and he took on bad qualities. But that’s Krsna lila. God killing His own son.
So now we see Gaura lila that Lord Gauranga is giving the brāhmaṇas a bad name. He speaking badly about the brāhmaṇas. He is taking them to the task. He is exposing the smarta brāhmaṇas and the puffed up brāhmaṇas. He is revealing that the brāhmaṇas are worshipping Durga. Although He is a brāhmaṇa. He is a pandita, Nimai Pandita and all His friends are panditas. If you look at all associates in Mayapur, so and so Gangadas pandita, Jagadananda pandita and this pandita and that pandita. They are all panditas. Birds of a feather flock together. Agarwals hang out with Agarwals. Gundas hang out with gundas. Devotees hang out, associate with devotees.
So around Mahaprabhu everyone is a pandita. If you look right, left or centre. Even their kids when they are playing, they are wrestling and throwing ink at each other and calling each other bad names, at least Sanskrit bad names, not Bengali bad names, they use proper Sanskrit when they call each other bad names. Bengali is the common vernacular. Of course it is suddha Bengali. But when they are cursing each other, they make sure that they curse each other in Sanskrit, and then they throw ink on each other and stumble into the Ganga and swim around, splash and have a great time. But they are all panditas, and brāhmaṇas having their fun.
But still in Gaura lila, He doesn’t spare His relatives. Even His own mother! He is distributing freely, one day He was distributing freely Krsna prema but not to His mother Saci.
Then everyone said, “Oh why? You don’t give to Your mother?
“Why should I give it to My mother? She is an aparadhi!”
“No but she is jagatmata. She is param Vaisnavi. You are seeing like that but we are not seeing like that. We don’t see any offense. You better change Your sunglasses. Change Your prescription. No one is seeing, only You are seeing.”
“No, no I am seeing and I am giving and I am not giving.”
“So cruel You are. So cruel. Your own mother! You give it to everyone but not Your mother!”
“Yes, that’s right! Don’t say anything more of this.”
Then they inquired further, “What is the issue?”
“She offended Advaita Acarya.”
“Accha!”
“Jagatmata, Sacimata has offended Maha Visnu! Is it possible? Mother Yasoda! Is it possible?”
Anyway, that’s a pastime. So now here in Caitanya Caritamrta the Lord Caitanya is exposing the brāhmaṇas. Beause usually politicians never like to, they never expose each other. Right? Somebody else will expose them, some of the opposite party. But if you are in the Congress party, you are not going to say anything bad about anyone in Congress party. You won’t expose your own kind. But here He is exposing His own kind for the benefit of all of us and for the purification and blessings and to give mercy to that brāhmaṇa.
Text 60
āra eka vipra āila kīrtana dekhite
dvāre kapāṭa,–nā pāila bhitare yāite
SP: Another brāhmaṇa also came to see the kīrtana performance, but the door was closed, and he could not enter the hall.
MS: Another brāhmaṇa came to see the kirtana performance, kīrtana dekhi, in Srivasa Angama. The antarang bhaktas in their nocturnal kirtanas! raat kirtanas! madhya raat! Madhya raat means the middle of the night. Ratri lila, rasa lila kirtana, rasa sankirtana in the confines of Srivasa Thakur’s compound. Two hundred private card carrying members were allowed entrance to the door. They had to show their security card for clearance. Their photo ID.
Yes. Look out the door. “Oh, yes you come.”
“You, No!”
“Yes.”
One by one they would let in. And then they had the invitation list. Tick. Tick. Check off. So only those premi bhaktas could come in for that kirtana.
We would get the mrdangas and kartals and say, “Come on bhakta Joe, come on everybody, lets go on sankirtana. Everyone is eligible. We don’t make any discrimination but there, only those that are eligible to enter the rasa lila can enter that kirtana for Srivasa Angam. That’s high eligibility.
So another brahmana one day came to see the kirtana, kirtana dekhi, but the door was closed, kapāṭa. And he could not enter the hall. Bhitare, could not go inside. No admittance.
You know what’s our line? No Submission. No Permission. No Permission. No admission. So he did not submit to Gauranga’s mercy. He didn’t surrender saranagata. He didn’t have the quality of saranagata.
Text 61
phiri’ gela vipra ghare mane duḥkha pāñā
āra dina prabhuke kahe gaṅgāya lāga pāñā
SP: He returned home with an unhappy mind, but on the next day he met Lord Caitanya on the bank of the Ganges and spoke to Him.
MS: That brāhmaṇa returned to his home. phiri’ gela vipra ghare, he went to the vipra ghar, the brāhmaṇa’s house. And he was mane duḥkha, man dukh. His mind was dukhi, it was unhappy. His mind was unhappy. And so when your mind is unhappy, it is somewhat contracted, it is somewhat suppressed, somewhat agitated. Not relieved. Not peaceful. Can’t sleep at night, unhappy.
The next day he met Lord Caitanya on the bank of the Ganga and he spoke to Him. It is interesting, this is the translation Srila Prabhupada gives but in his own word-for-word he says, prabhuke – means Mahaprabhu or we can say Nimai pandita, Sacinandana. prabhuke kahe gaṅgāya lāga pāñā. Laga means getting in touch. It says here in word-for-word, getting in touch. I will get in touch with you. So it says on the bank of the Ganga he got in touch with Gauranga. It’s very interesting. Then Prabhupada says that means he spoke to Him. But it wasn’t very good touch. It wasn’t very good contact as we will find out. When that contact, that brāhmaṇa, when that dukha mana brāhmaṇa met Mahaprabhu on the banks of the Ganga, it was not a very touching scene.
Like sometimes they say, “Oh it was very touching and emotionally charged scene, very touching to the heart.
And the next verse says
Text 62
śāpiba tomāre muñi, pāñāchi mano-duḥkha
paitā chiṇḍiyā śāpe pracaṇḍa durmukha
SP: That brāhmaṇa was expert in talking harshly and cursing others. Thus he broke his sacred thread and declared, “I shall now curse You, for Your behavior has greatly aggrieved me.”
MS: Durmukha means bad face. That particular brāhmaṇa, he had one expertise. He was very expert. What was he expert in? Talking harshly and cursing others. In Hindi they say I think sap. Sap means curse. Same thing. In Bengali it says sapiba. In hindi its sap. It is interesting because we have a word in English, sharp. Sharp means pointed. Sharp words. “Oh you use sharp words against me.” Harsh words. Sharp words. Sharp in English is the same as Hindi and Bengali. Sap means to curse someone.
That’s what is told in the Bhagavatam, when Srngi, this boy brāhmaṇa, brāhmaṇa upstart. His name was Srngi, he cursed Pariksit Maharaja. 1st canto of Bhagavatam. He was the son of Samaka Rsi.
We were saying yesterday. We were talking about that, Kali means black. Kali is the age of darkness. So the first person that Kali painted black was Srngi. First he painted the brāhmaṇas black. He painted the face of Srngi with black paint. Black paint means ignorance. He painted his face black and he became ignorant and acted in ignorance. Then he went to Naimisaranya and he painted all the faces of the sages black with smoke because they were trying to a thousand year yajna to counteract kali. Kali said “Really! You are going to counteract me? I will paint your face black also”
So he changed the direction of the wind, because you never do yajna with down wind. You never sit down wind of the fire. You always test the wind and decide the direction of your yajna. You don’t sit svaha and smoke comes on your face, it is supposed to go of in certain direction, not in your face. So all the smoke of the yajna came on their face. Smoke is black. So kali painted their faces black. We were saying that. Kali went around and started painting everyone’s faces black. Which means ignorance, forgetfulness of god, sin. Black face. Kali. Make everything black. Darkness. Forgetfulness. So this pracanda durmukha, he was fiercely, pracanda, speaking harshly and cursing, chindiyā.
That brāhmaṇa was expert in talking harshly and cursing others. He broke his sacred thread and declared “I shall now curse You for Your behavior has greatly aggrieved me”. Drama you know!
See when we read the sastra, we can’t just read like we are sitting on a commuter train, on the L train going from Brooklyn to Bedford Sty or whatever and we are reading the daily mirror and trying to keep from falling asleep on the way to work. We should actually, as I mentioned in my classes in Purusotama, we should be there. Are you there? Be there now! Because now timing is nitya, nitya means nitya lila. Gaur’s lila is eternal. It is going on. He is there standing on Gangaya, Gangaya tata. He is standing on the bank of the Ganga and this brāhmaṇa has showed with a dukha mana, with an angry mind and he is pracanda durmukh. He is in a fierce mood. Do you see his face? Do you see how he is durmukha? How fierce his face is? Scrunched up and his face is all red and you know he is practically biting his teeth. He is angry. All night long his mind…he wasn’t allowed in the Sankirtana, to see the Sankirtana at Srivas Angam.
So we understand when you have desire and your desire is frustrated, what happens? dhyayato visayan pumsah sangas tesupajayate sangat sanjayate kamahkamat krodho ‘bhijayate…This is Bhagavad Gita. kamahkamat krodho bhijayate, bhijayate, it rises up and takes over you. It becomes victorious over you, your uncontrolled desire. When your desire is not fulfilled, then krodha, you become angry. kamahkamat krodho ‘bhijayate, and that ‘bhijayate means we say, “param vijayate Sri Krsna sankirtana.” Well you say that but kali says, “param vijayate Sri kamahkrodhayate.”
You know Kali is conquering everyone with lust, anger and greed. Trividam narakasyedam. There is three gates leading to hell – lust, anger and greed. Kama Esha Krodha Esha Rajo-guna Samudbhavah. So this brāhmaṇa is first class angry. Ekdam angry. Ekdam krodhi. Bilkul krodhi. He is very angry. And the Ganga is just going by so peacefully, so beautifully, and so many flowers are there and the breeze is blowing and the beautiful coconut trees and Bakul trees and banana trees on the banks. Such a beautiful setting in Mayapur, even now it practically seems the same as five hundred years ago, and this beautiful effulgent Lord with long beautiful hair and lotus eyes and red dhoti or yellow dhoti, maybe yellow dhoti and yellow chaddar.
Because brāhmaṇas wear yellow interestingly enough which is a curious note – pitambara. Because Lord Krsna is always wearing pitambara chaddar and dhoti because He is always absorbed in remembering Radhrani’s kanti, Radhakanti. Tapta kancana Gaunragi, Radhakanti. She is golden in color so He wants to be wrapped with Radharani. Remembering. “O this look Radharani’s color. O yes Radharani is around my neck. This is very nice. I have a yellow chaddar around neck. Radharani is hanging around my neck, this is very nice. I always want Radharani hanging around my neck. This is Krsna’s svabhava. His mentality. His thinking. Because behind all of Krsna’s actions there is bhava, there is love. There is love in His cloths. There is love in His words. There is love in His flute. Everything is saturated with prema and same with Radharani.
So Mahaprabhu, this beautiful figure is standing there, He is very happy. There is no enemy for Him, ajata satru. There is no enemy ever born. He loves everyone. He is the personification of love, the prema avatar. He is just exuding love with every pore, every glance, every word, every gesture, and he is come there.
And He has just been dancing in rasa lila all night. All night He has been dancing with rasa lila with two hundred gopis, manjaris, sakhis, associates, right? In the rasa lila kirtana in Srivas Angam in their internal bhava, braja bhava. And now He is coming for a morning snana at Ganga and do puja. One assistant is carrying puja paraphernalia, one brāhmaṇa, kisor brāhmaṇa. May be its you! May be you are standing there carrying the puja paraphernalia. May be you are carrying a little plastic case like Vrajavasis with all the puja paraphernalia. Of course they don’t have plastic in the spiritual world, thank God! Thank God for that because He did not make plastic, we did. Unfortunately, another miçäpa.
So He is there and everything is beautiful, sweet, charming, and delightful. Sun is rising, beautiful colors, sky is full of colors. Then along comes this fierce brāhmaṇa. This is a bad guy right now. Some cloud over his head, a bunch of wasp beeping over his head and a bunch of scorpions walking beside his feet, black scorpions. Really! like the bad guy.
Sastras are the gateway to philosophy, lila and lila is full of philosophy also. In terms of Gaura lila and Krsna lila, what is presented by our acaryas. So we should not stand at the gate and look at the door. Sri Caitanya Caritamrta. Enter here. “O! ya! It is a very nice door. Hmmm. But I don’t think I will open it.” No. We are supposed to open the door, enter and open the pages and go deep into the lilas. Become absorbed, avesa, sastra avesa. We mix our mind in the sastra and we mix our heart in the sastra. We mix our mind in these verses, we mix our heart there and we just transport there.
We have all grown up in the age of si-fi, science-fiction movies and Star trek and cell phones and all kinds of fabulous creations of Hollywood and Bollywood and all these crazy movies. So transportation and ESP and out of body experiences, and all these type of things are very much in our worldview, in our paradigm. Transporting and psychic phenomenon and ESP. But what about us? What about our ESP? What about transporting us? Why don’t we do it in the sastra. Go into the pastimes. Go into the lila. And then what happens is that when you get merged into the sastras, then you forget the whole other world which is all illusion anyway. Because this is the real world. These books are invitations to the real world. Krsnadasa Kaviraja is saying “Would you like to come with me? Would you like to hold my hand? Would you like to come with me into the eternal world?”.
“Manjari thank you for that book. I started reading; I could not put it down. Unbelievable. This is one of the best books I have ever read really. You said compiled by but as far as I know there is one voice through the whole book and I understand that you actually wrote that book and it is too much good book. Keep writing. Start writing now more and more. Now you have introduced yourself.”
Like in the Mahabharat people could understand who was speaking by what was said. Like once Sridhar Maharaj told this story – there was a freedom fighter for Indian freedom and the government wanted to catch him and kill him and he would write the articles and put the articles in the newspaper but there was no signature. When the articles would appear, people would read them and become fired up and go against the British government. So the British government wanted to catch him. And they would always know when they would read the tone of the article, “O that’s him!” Then they would go to the editor of the newspaper and say, “Who wrote this article? He would say, “I don’t know.” “No, who wrote it!” The Government, FBI whatever. Because they could understand that this tone of this article was written by this freedom fighter. Only he can write like this.
So by reading this book I could understand that this is not this five people’s memoir, this is one person has spent like lacs of hours making this into a continuous novel of incredible teachings and buff. It’s too much good book. Really good. The book is divine also.
Just now start, you know, no compile, just buy. I actually know you wrote the book. Its very clear. Did you read this book called death divine? Story of Mula prakrti’s departure and Hladini and Mahima and Savitri and other different ladies who left their bodies, five ladies…Fantastic. Unbelievable. I was crying and laughing and crying, it was too much. Really. It is a novel but it is true stories. Its too much. I got really serious about chanting Hare Krsna after that. No more fooling around right? Hare Krsna. Thank you.
So lets see what’s back to the ganges. The point is that these books that are written by Krsnadasa Kaviraja and all, they are inviting us. He is standing here. Do you want to come with me? Do you want to leave this world and come to the real world? Do you want to enter Navadvipa? Do you want to enter Vrndavana? Or you want to stay in New York or California or America or whatever.” So we say, “No causally I read your Caitanya Caritamrta. It is not bad, but it is not really an important thing for me. It’s not that I have to really enter deep into this. But Prabhupada, he took so much time to give the meaning of each word and then taking those words and giving his own realizations and then translation which may be not complete but some much different than the actual word-for-word meaning, and inviting us to come.
So this brāhmaṇa is very angry, why? Because he had the desire to see the kirtana or enter the Kirtana was frustrated. And why was he not let in? Because he did not have the adhikar. If we don’t have the qualification then we can’t go to higher things. There are so many lessons being told here. The brāhmaṇa, he had desire but no qualification. So first deserve then desire. Prabhupada said this, “First deserve and then desire.”
The brāhmaṇa wanted to enter the prema lila, wanted to enter the rasa lila, he wanted to enter the prema sankirtana at Srivas Angam with the antaranga bhaktas. That was his want or his desire, but he didn’t have the qualification then Lord Caitanya said “Stop. No entry. Do not proceed, go back. Halt. Halt.” Why? Because of adhikara, qualification. No qualification, no admission. So this is one point we can think from this.
But those who were qualified, they came to the door and Lord Caitanya saw, “O you are qualified.” So when you are qualified, Lord Caitanya Himself opens the door and says “Come in”. Lord Caitanya or His representative, siksa guru or bhajan siksa guru, diksa guru. Come in.
It is not that we come with a big log like in those medieval movies storming the bastille. We get a big tree. THOOOM THOOM THOOOM…Trying to break down the door of the medieval castle with our might and our power. As they say, “You cant storm the gates of heaven.” You enter the gates of heaven on your hands and knees with a straw between your teeth, dante chidayate. That verse is there. With utmost humility, trnad api sunicena and then coming in the line, the dhara, the current of parampara – dasa dasa dasa dasa dasanudas. Rupanuga dhara, the line of Rupanuga and the line of Vaisnava dhara. That’s how we come.
So he is very angry, “O I could not get what I wanted, then forget this thing.” You see, that also happens with our devotees. They are very unqualified. Many devotees are very unqualified but they hear about something. Something is really happening in the other side of town.
You can imagine, this brāhmaṇa is living in Navadvipa and someone said, “Hey did you hear about the kirtana happening at Srivas Angam?
“O really?”
“O it is really happening over there. I heard it from outside the wall, they are screaming, yelling, crying and rolling, I climbed up onto the tree and looked over, I saw they are rolling over the ground and they are sweating. All ecstatic symptoms”
“O did you get in?”
“No, No it is not easy to get in. You have to have a special card. Special invitation only. RSVP”
“Accha. Let me go for that. That sounds interesting. Let me go. I want to take part. I don’t want to miss out on that.”
So then you go. So its like you come in the temple. You are in the temple for few months then you hear something about Raganuga bhakti, manjari bhava, manjari svarupa, sadhana or whatever.
“Hey wait a minute, I don’t want to miss out. What about me?”
“Knock Knock.”
“What! Do you even know one sloka from gita? Do you have any idea about you are not the body? Do you have any raga?”
“Raga? Whats raga?”
“Do you have any knowledge, any understanding? Do you have actual attraction to Krsna?”
“No. Ya! Krsna! Hare Krsna!”
“Is there anything genuine? Do you have any greed?”
“Ya I have a lot of greed. Can I come in?”
“No, No I know what kind of greed you have.”
“That means do you have the greed to follow in the footsteps of the residents of Vrndavana?”
“Ha, What did you say? Residents of what?”
“Vrndavana.”
“What residents? Who are the residents?”
“O, Well ok. Come back later…”
So some qualifications.
But we get a little impetuous and a little impatient and we become angry. “O, I cant have this thing? You are not giving this thing? Then to hell with you, to hell with your institution. Your Iskcon, Gaudiya Math, I don’t need you. Watch me now. Watch what I do now.” And you go here and there and you get whatever you get and you go wherever you go. So sometimes you go high and sometimes you go nowhere.
So this brāhmaṇa, he could not get what he wanted, he became angry. Then he said… Because when you are angry you lose your intelligence, budhi nasyat. It means your intelligence becomes destroyed, Krsna is telling in that same verse that anger leads to destruction. So in this case the brāhmaṇa is supposed to be buddhimana, vidvana. Smart guy possessing knowledge. Now he is lost it. It supposed to be brahmani gavi hastani. It says that pandita samah darsina. He is supposed to be pandita.
He is a Navadvipa Bengali pandita. He is a brāhmaṇa. But he lost it. Where is this vidya vinaya sampane? Where is this samah darshan? He is seeing friends and enemies. “O, you are my friend. O, now you are my enemy. I can’t get my desire fulfilled, you are not my friend. Lord Caitanya You are my enemy. Now I am going to curse You.” Pracanda durmukha. Fiercely. Very fiercely angry. Burning with anger.
“So I shall now curse You, for Your behavior has greatly aggrieved me.”
Text 63
saṁsāra-sukha tomāra ha-uka vināśa
śāpa śuni’ prabhura citte ha-ila ullāsa
SP: The brāhmaṇa cursed the Lord, “You shall be bereft of all material happiness!” When the Lord heard this, He felt great jubilation within Himself.
MS: The brāhmaṇa was saying vinasa. We say vinasa. Nrsimha bhagavan vigna vinasana, which means destroy the vigna. Destroy the obstacles, the difficulties, the impediments to bhakti. Bhakti vigna vinasa. That is Nrsimhadeva’s blessings. kama, krodha, lobha, He helps us remove those from our heart.
So he is saying saṁsāra-sukha tomāra… “you made me dukha so I am going to curse You that You don’t get any sukha. You made my mind, mana dukha. Because You frustrated my desire so I became dukha, so I am going to curse You so You become dukha too. So I am going to curse You so that You don’t get any samsara sukha, the happiness of samsara which he thinks that that’s happiness. And then when Lord Caitanya heard that, He was ullāsa. ullāsa means as I heard one person described, if you are in a kirtana party and then they are chanting Hare Krsna Hare Krsna but you are just warming up. Not really too much involved in hearing and chanting. Then the kirtana increases in its pitch and enthusiasm and excitement and hopefully may be in purity and absorption or whatever, then you become excited and pretty soon you are jumping! Hari Bol! Hari Bol! So that moment when you are jumping, your hands are up in the air, you are reaching up and you are feeling O now I am really into it. Now I am really into this kirtana, feeling very excited, very thrilled. My heart is thrilled. My mind is thrilled. My soul is thrilled. My soul is making me dance. The kirtana is just taking me. Hari Bol! Hari Bol! That’s called ullāsa. That’s the meaning of ullāsa. That kind of uncontrolled thing that happens in a kirtana.
So it says śāpa śuni’ prabhura citte ha-ila ullāsa, His citta. His mind. His heart. He became full of thrill and happiness when He heard that. śāpa śuni’ when he heard that curse, “O wonderful, O that’s so good news you are giving Me on this auspicious morning on the bank of Ganga. This is the dinak samacar, the daily news, dinak samacar. Here is the daily news on the banks of the Ganga. “O what good news you gave Me. And how did the brāhmaṇa curse the Lord? “Prabhu You shall be bereft of all material happiness.” When Mahaprabhu heard this, He felt great jubilation within Himself. He was saying, “May all Your material happiness become vanquished.
This is the word-for-word meaning Srila Prabhupada is giving. Brāhmaṇa is saying, “listen panditji may all Your material happiness become vanquished, destroyed, vinasa.” There is nasa, nasa means destroyed. And when we say vinasa, vi means visesa – especially, completely, absolutely. Vinasa. Everything, not one drop of happiness be left in Your life. Nowhere! Whether you turn right or left. From Your friends, from family, from Your own body, from eating, sleeping, mating, defending, anything – ahar, nidra, maithuna, bhayam, anything. From reading a good book, novel, going to a movie, this that, playing with your cell phone, anything, no vinasa. Vinasa means everything destroyed, completely destroyed. saṁsāra-sukha vinasa. visesa nasa which means very special. That means a qualifying prefix. Which means on every side, every level, vinasa, You will be vanquished.
“O I cant have any happiness of family life. Ok, then I will be a sadhu and I will get happiness just traveling.”
“But no, when you travel, you step on thorns. Everywhere you will put your foot you will step on thorns and every village you go to a dog will bite you.”
“This is not good, although there is no wife nagging at me, barking at me, but still I go through the villages and the dogs are barking at me and they are biting and their bite is worse then my wife.”
So this is in all directions. When Lord Chaitanya heard such a curse…Basically the brāhmaṇa was saying, for You my dear friend, the whole material world is finished. I just washed away all the castles on the sand. So many castles that you built on the sand and I just washed away with the waves of my çäpaa. My curse. He was trying to finish Him off. And what did Lord Caitanya say? “O good. Very good. What a blessing you gave Me. Thank you my dear sir! You are so kind.”
It sounds like when Brghu muni kicked Visnu in the Krsna book, he was testing who is the Lord. He insulted his father by his mind, Brahma. Because Brghu is a manasaputra of Brahma, then he insulted his brother Siva with his words, telling him that he is all dirty and covered with ashes and he should take a bath, use some deodorant or something. All those stinky skulls around his neck. Use some cologne. So then he didn’t like it very much. Then he went to Visnu. Now can imagine you are sitting in the chair and get kicked in the chest, is it not so bad. Imagine you are lying with your wife in bed and such a confidential, private, intimate setting with your wife and he burst in to the bathroom like some narcotics officer. Narcotics officer breaking in some drug addict’s crash pad. He runs into Visnu’s room and then just stops on His chest with his feet like some Hell’s angel. Alright! He comes in and DHOONK!
And then Visnu gets up, gets on His hands and knees out of bed and prays, “O Sadhu svagatam svagatan welcome welcome. O Brahmana, please forgive Me, I know that the Vedic scriptures say that My chest is as hard as a thunderbolt. Please forgive Me because I know that nature of brāhmaṇa’s feet, there are very soft” Because there are different laksana. It is called samudrika sastra which describes the physical laksana of different varnas and asramas. So one thing it says there that the brāhmaṇa has a very soft feet even though he walks here and there. And if anyone has had a chance to massage great people’s feet like may be your Gurudev or a great Vaisnavi or great Vaisnava, you will see, you will have the experience that their feet are very very soft although they may be very hard persons. They may be very hard, hard speaking and hard correcting but their feet are actually soft. That will be one good thing they will be soft about. Because they say, the acarya, the guru, he can be soft as a rose but hard as a thunderbolt. His instructions. His chastisements. But his feet are very soft. We had the experience. This is the fact.
So Lord Caitanya, He is very happily receiving this curse. I remember something, I also had got a çäpa from my parents when I joined the Hare Krsna movement. My father who had a few rupees in his pocket, he told me, “You are going to go to those Krsnas”. They called ‘the Krsnas’ in America, The Krsnas. He could not even chant Radharani’s name. They don’t get much…Usually they say The Krsnas. They cant say the Hare Krsnas. That’s how they usually say, “O you are with the Krsnas.” So Radharani won’t even allow to chant Her name. So if you go with the Krsnas then you are out of the will. You are scratched off and whatever I was going to leave to you, it will go to your bada bhai, big brother. I said Hari Bol! Good for you, do whatever you want. Hare Krsna.
So he cursed me that you will have no samsara sukha. Because usually money means happiness. Most materialists will say, money means happiness. Money is my God. So I got Krsna but not the armies of Krsna. I didn’t get the vibuti. Duryodhana got the vibuti and Arjuna got the heart of Krsna. So of course if you have the heart of Krsna then you win. So Arjuna won the war and not Duryodhana. So my father, he kept the vibuti of Krsna and we were trying to capture the heart of Krsna, but it is very hard to catch. It may take a few hundred more lifetimes.
So now, if you are still with us and you are still in Mayapur standing on the banks of Ganga. And now of course we don’t really want to see anymore the face of that brāhmaṇa because we are just looking at Lord Caitanya’s face and we wondering and we are watching the drama. “Cheese, he is cursing My Lord. He is cursing My prabhu. How is the Lord going to take it. This is pretty heavy. Is He going to react? Is He going to curse him back? I mean…”And we are watching, how will our Lord react? And the Lord is smiling, “O wonderful. So nice.” When the Lord heard this, He felt great jubilation. Citta. Within His mind, citta, there was jubilation, ullāsa. O so happy.
And then, now the author, the seer of the pastime, one who is seeing this pastime is showing it to us, bringing it into the theatre of our hearts. Bringing it into the cinema screen of our hearts and inviting us to enter this lila. He says, “O have you come with me? Have you come to Mayapur? Did you accept my proposal. Did you accept my invitation? Have you come with me to the bank of the Ganga? Have you entered the kirtana at the Srivas Angam with two hundred devotees? Have stood outside the wall of Srivas Angam with this brāhmaṇa desires to entering? Have you watched his angry face, which was pracanda durmukh? With his extremely, fiercely angry face have you heard the curse that he gave to the Lord? Have you seen the Lord’s reaction? Have you seen all this. Have you felt all this?
Seeing is one thing. Seeing it and being there and seeing it. Have you entered the feelings? Have you entered the feelings of the brāhmaṇa? Why does he feel like that? Tshe frustrated brāhmaṇa. Have you entered the feelings of the Lord, the heart of the Lord and how is He responding? And what are your feeling as you are there. What are your feelings? Now you are there in Mayapur on the banks of the Ganga. Do you see it? Do you feel it?
Like our late George Harrison – I really want to see You now my Lord. I really want to feel You. It’s a very wonderful song. My sweet Lord. Right? Madhuram Madhuram madhuradi pater kilam madhuram. That was his version of Vallabhacarya’s Madhurastakam, five hundred years ago. Who is Vallabhacarya? Kavi Karnapura says Vallabhacarya is Sukadeva Gosvami. So he is Sukadev Gosvami. Vallabha Bhatta is Vallabhacarya I believe so. Because this Vallabha Bhatta is Sukadev Gosvami in Gaura Ganadesa Dipika. Remember we did those dandavats this morning.
So now he is writing five hundred years ago Madhurastakam, – madhuradi pater kilam madhuram. But then fifty years ago George Harrison wrote a retake on it – My Sweet Lord. So this is entering the lila as much as we can by the strength of our surrender and our prayer. Our prayer to Krsnadasa Kaviraja. Our prayer to Mahaprabhu. Our prayer to Caitanya Caritamrta. Caitanya Caritamrta is a personality, the sastra is also alive, it is living. It is a separate individual. A separate personality. And it is an expression of the sandhini sakti of the Lord. It is creating the existence of the Lord. The sastra itself is a lila bhumi, lila dhama. So we also pray to the sastra, let me enter you, let me walk within your soil. The Bhagavatam, it’s a lila, it is the sandhini sakti.
Like Balarama becomes Braja mandala. Balarama expands His sandhini sakti to create the existence, the foundation for the lila. And the Lord moves around, this sandhini sakti. So this sastras created by the svarupa sakti individuals, Krsnadasa Kaviraja, Kastura manjari. She is a kayavyuha sakhi, she is expanded directly from the svarupa sakti of Radharani. Krsna is svarupa sakti, Radharani is svarupa sakti. She is the svarupa sakti.
So he is creating this lila bhumi here in this Caitanya Caritamrta. So we pray to the sastra. In this case we pray to the Caitanya Caritamrta, please let me understand something of your lilas, of your teachings, of your tattva, tattva vicar, tattva siddhanta and your lila, lila vicar. And we go to the lila bhumi of Bhagavat. Bhagavat bhumi, Caitanya Bhagavat or Srimad Bhagavat and we enter there. So this is part of our approach. We approach the lila sastra, the author, the actors because the sastras are full of dramas. There are different acts in a drama. We call lila or drama and there are different players, nayaka and nayak, the hero and the heroine and the relationships. So we want to be very much there. In the mood of observing, in the mood of hearing and becoming absorbed and in the mood of service. On the higher end we become so attracted and interested to take part and to join there. We want to join there with folded hands, kim karomi. We will approach the lila and we will approach the Lord. We approach the Lord’s lila and His associates with folded hands saying, “kim karomi. Kim karomi means how may I serve You? How may I assist You? And how am I please You in these pastimes ayi nanda tanuja kinkaram. Kinkaram means kim karomi. Kinkara bhava means seva bhava. Kinkara, kinkari. Kinkari means maidservant, hand maiden female. Kinkara means male servant. Cowherd boy or house servant. Raktak. Patrak. Servants of the Lord in Nandagaon, serving His dressing, cooking, bathing, sleeping etc and then His personal servants and friends – Sridama, Subala. So this is kinkara. Kinkara bhava, kinkari bhava. This word kinkara or kinkari comes from kim karomi, “How may I serve you?
So that is the higher end of entering into the sastra, entering into the lila. It comes at the level of raganuga sadhana and bhava bhakti, asakti, bhava and prema. We are entering to do seva there and we have the proper body to do the seva which means siddha deha. But first we have to cultivate the bhava. Behind the body is the bhava, the mood, the bhava.
So this benediction, this blessing that’s being given by Krsnadasa Kaviraja at the conclusion of the story “The brāhmaṇa curses Nimai pandita”
Text 64
prabhura çäpa-värtä yei çune çraddhävän
brahma-çäpa haite tära haya pariträëa …
SP: Any faithful person who hears of this brähmaëa’s cursing Lord Caitanya is delivered from all brahminical curses.
MS: Any faithful person, çraddhävän. That famous Bhajan of BhaktivinodaThakura right – nadiya godrume nityananda mahajan. So that great mahajan, that great teacher and well wisher of everyone, Nitai. He is saying, “O shraddhavan. O man of faith. O you have faith, take this, take this nama, I am giving this nama in the market place.
So Krsnadasa Kaviraja is saying, “If you have faith. If any faithful person hears this story of the brāhmaṇa cursing Nimai pandita – samsara sukh vinasa. He said I curse You samsara tomara sukh vinasa. I curse You that absolutely, on all levels and all attempts You try to get any happiness from the samsara, from this material world. Samsara means this material world. If you try to get any happiness from the society, friendship, love, your body, senses, anything, its vinasa. It will be totally, absolutely vanquished and destroyed. You won’t get anything. And then when Lord Caitanya heard about that sukha vinasa, He responded by citta ulhasa. His mind became full of ulhasa, jubilation, happiness.
So anyone who has heard this story of the brāhmaṇa cursing Lord Caitanya is delivered from all brahminical curses. So this is a great benediction. It is called brāhmaṇa çäpa and you must be knowing throughout the Vedas that if a brāhmaṇa curses you like Durvasa Muni or Lomasa Rsi, these different rsis they sometimes curse someone, then you can’t escape it.
Just like Srngi cursed Pariksit. Of course he could have escaped it, but that was another lila of the Lord’s desire to bring about the Bhagavatam. But Srngi was a young boy, twelve years old and he cursed. That was the Kali yuga, it began with a brāhmaṇa’s curse. Little bit before that but basically the same time. Kali yuga began with a brāhmaṇa’s curse. Misuse of the brahminical power, then all knowledge was lost, because he unjustly cursed someone.
So unfortunately Pariksit Maharaj did not hear the story of Lord Caitanya getting cursed by the brāhmaṇa, cause if Pariksit Maharaj had heard the story of Nimai pandita getting cursed by the Brāhmaṇa then he would have been free from all brāhmaṇa çäpa, all brahminical curses. Then we would have been bound, because there would be no bhagavatam. So we would be stuck because bhagavatam has come to deliver us. Bhagavan svarupa.
So Srila Prabhupada gives one purport. One should know with firm conviction, sudrida visvas, that the Lord being transcendental is never subject to any curse or benediction. Only ordinary living entities are subjected to curses and the punishments of Yamaraja. Being the Supreme Personality of Godhead Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is beyond such punishments and benedictions. When one understands this fact with faith and love he personally becomes free from all curses uttered by brāhmaṇas or anyone else.
Like your mother or your father. I curse you. O you joined the Hare Krsna temple. I curse you. So don’t worry about any curses from mom or dad.
This incident is not mentioned in the Caitanya-bhagavata. Probably because it is too harsh. Vrndavana Dasa Thakur was thinking this is not nice, this pracanda durmukha, this fiercely bad mouthed brāhmaṇa is cursing my beloved Lord Caitanya, I can’t bear to write about it. So he didn’t write about it.
Just like our Kavi Karnapura, he writes about Krsna lila in dvapar yuga, he writes about Krsna’s lila in Vrndavana. But for him Krsna never leaves Vrndavana. So he wrote a wonderful book called Anand Vrndavana Campu. Krsna appears in bhauma Vrndavana and He lives and has pastimes, and He never goes…There is no Mathura mentioned in there and there is no Dvraka. Anand Vrndavana Campu.
So these liberated eternal associates of the Lord, they have their bhava, they have their loving mood and feeling towards the Lord. So somehow Vrndavana Dasa Thakur didnt want to put this although he had some very heavy, you can say, pastimes. But this is here and this is the additional mercy given to us by Krsnadasa Kaviraja. This is very apropos to us being in Vrndavana because often we western devotees move hear and there, those that are western or of western origin. And the brāhmaṇas if you give them a donation they don’t like, like anything less then a lac of rupees, if you give them hundred and five hundred rupees. “Hey! What is this? You are spent so much money to come here. You spent fifty thousand rupees for the airplane to come here and you only give me hundred rupees! I curse you.” And if you know a little Bengali or Hindi and you sit sometime at the sangam at Radha Kunda, you hear the most amusing brāhmaṇa çäpas. Most amusing curses. Because they use, these are their sankirtana lines, they use these lines to get their donation. They are very funny.
So when ten Bengalis come and there are newly married young people and they take snana and they don’t give proper donation or maybe no donation, then the brāhmaṇa looks at the young lady, the vadu, the young newly married bride and he says “O you know we a Vrajavasis brāhmaṇas. We are Radhakundavasis, this Radha Kunda is param lila sthana. This is the topmost lila sthana and we are param brāhmaṇas and you are not giving donation. I curse you to have seven daughters.”
She just got married, she doesn’t have any children yet. They are on some spiritual honeymoon or whatever. They are coming to Vrndavana. Their grandmother told them, “Before you get into samsara visit Vrndavana or something.” Very young. And then the lady starts trembling and the brāhmaṇa says very seriously, “I curse you to have seven daughters.” Then they get scared, and then she says something frantically, then the husband pulls out ten rupees and gives to the brāhmaṇa. And then they go away and they are trembling and as soon as they turn and go away the brāhmaṇa turns around and starts laughing. Because it is all drama. It is just a sankirtana line. He is just thinking, “O! I really pulled the wool over their eye” And I have been there sometimes for a few hours and I have heard the goings on, it really is hilarious actually. But the people take it dead serious. They get so intimidated, the yatris, the Hindus, the north Indians, the Bengali yatris, they get so intimidated by the pandas. But the fact is that they are afraid of the brāhmaṇa çäpa. They are afraid of their curse.
So Krsnadasa Kaviraja is saying, “Those Vaisnavas who are fortunate enough to come with him and hear this short pastime, they will be free from any curses. But the fact of the matter is that to have that brāhmaṇa tejas, to have the ability or the power to curse someone… Of course as soon as you curse someone, so much of your punya get washed down the drain. First of all you have to have a lot of punya and then the next question is, how do you get the punya? Or they may have the punya from last life but at the rate these brāhmaṇas give out curses in braja mandala they have spent enough punya for three thousand lifetimes.
Generally they don’t have much of a stock to being with, because if you have a lot of punya then you have a lot of auspicious and beautiful body and you have fantastic knowledge – janma, aisvarya, sutra, sibir. These are all the results of… I mean there are some kinds of brāhmaṇas and we have regard for them, respect for them and we give them donations. But factually speaking if you analyze according to the sastric dictates, they are not very wealthy in sukriti category. Whereas you can see, at least here, you can go to places in India and see very opulent brāhmaṇas, beautiful bodies and fantastic knowledge and wealthy and property and knowledge and so much…Because this is the janma phal of their sukriti and piety from last life. Very high birth, exalted brāhmaṇa families, Caturvedis and very big families.
First of all if you want to have any power to curse anyone, you have to have told the truth for twelve years in a row. If you have spoken one lie in your life within a twelve year old period then you can’t curse anybody. Then there are other things, like pure sattvic ahar and many many things to actually have that brāhmaṇa tejas. To be able to give some type of curse, but most people do not know about all that so, “O he is a brāhmaṇa”…. Because this concept is right there, the word is right there, it says brāhma çäpa. When brāhmaṇas, they curse it is called brāhma çäpa. It is considered to have all the powers of Brahman. It is like someone throwing a sudarsan disk on your head. It is very powerful. So people, they know, they see in Mahabharat movies and stuff. Some brāhmaṇa pulls up “I curse you”. They watch the movie on the TV. “O this brāhmaṇa cursed this guy in the Mahabharat and he turned into a frog or whatever or turned into a lizard.” Right?
Was that a lizard in the Krsna book? King Mrga became a lizard. Because of what? He got cursed by a brāhmaṇa, brāhmaṇa çäpa. Because he also did hear Gaur lila. He is unfortunate. He is born at a wrong time. If you heard the Gaur lila then the brāhmaṇa couldn’t curse him for having his cow go wonder here and there or whatever that mistake was. It wasn’t even a mistake, it was a very innocent thing.
So people read these things, brāhmaṇa çäpa, O watch out! And so the brāhmaṇas take advantage of the innocence of the people.
So this is the story.