Sri Caitanya-caritamrita Madhya 7.97-102. Use the Viral Effect to Organically Spread Sankirtana
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · 2022
Chapters
Verses from Caitanya-caritamrta on South India
Thank you, Pancharatna Prabhu. Thank you for inviting me to give this talk in this series of lectures before Gaur Purnima. So I'll read a few verses from Caitanya-caritāmṛta to start this talk which explain the method
of spreading Krishna consciousness adopted by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu in his South India travels and
then try to explain the uh the philosophy behind it and uh if you can call it technique, although there is nothing technical about what I'm going to speak about. So it's not a trick, it's not a technique.
But anyway, let's read a few verses. That's the verses from the beginning of the seventh chapter of Madhya-līlā Caitanya-caritāmṛta, the Lord's Tour of South India, starting with the verse 97. Very important verses.
Ninety seven, ninety eight, ninety nine, and maybe few more.
Nitāi-gaura-narottama, jaya gaura-bhakta-vṛnda, jaya śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu nityānanda, jayādvaita-candra jaya gaura-bhakta-vṛnda, jaya śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu nityānanda, jayādvaita-candra jaya gaura-bhakta-vṛndam.
So Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī says, ei-śloka paḍi' paṭhe calilā gorāhari, loka dekhi' paṭhe kahe, 'bola' 'hari' 'hari'. Bolh Chanting this verse, the famous verse
kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa he, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, known as Gorāhari, went on his way. As soon as he saw someone, he would request him to chant
'hari' 'hari' bola' 'hari' 'hari'. ei-śloka premāveśa ha-iyā haya bali'- 'hari' 'kṛṣṇa' prabhura pāche saṅgī yāya ḍāri. Whoever Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu chanted Hari Hari also chanted the holy name of Lord Hari and Krishna. In this way they followed the Lord, very eager to see Him.
kṣaṇa-kṣaṇe rahi' prabhu tāṅre āliṅgi' vidāya karilā, tāṅte śakti sañcāriyā. After some time the Lord would embrace these people and bid them return home, having invested each of them with spiritual potency.
Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda.
In his Amṛta-pravāha-bhāṣya, Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains that this spiritual potency is the essence of the pleasure potency and the knowledge potency. By these two potencies, one is empowered with devotional service.
Lord Krishna Himself or His representative, the unalloyed devotee, can mercifully bestow these combined potencies upon any man. Being thus endowed with such potencies one can become an unalloyed devotee of the Lord.
Anyone favored by Lord Shri Caitanya Mahaprabhu was empowered with this Krishna Shakti. Thus the Lord's followers were able to preach Krishna consciousness by divine grace. And couple more verses.
Yāya nija-grāme, kori' āgamana, kṛṣṇa bhāi' hāse, kānde, nācےyānu-kṣaṇa — each of these empowered persons would return to his own village, always chanting the holy name of Krishna, and sometimes laughing, crying and dancing.
Yāre dekhe, tāre kahe,—kaha kṛṣṇa-nāma, ei-mata vaiṣṇava kalā sabhā nija-grāma. Such an empowered person would request everyone and anyone, whomever he saw, to chant the holy name of Krishna. In this way all the villagers would also become devotees of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
In order to become an empowered preacher, one must be favored by Lord Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu or his devotee, the spiritual master.
One must also request everyone to chant the Mahā-mantra. In this way, such a person can convert others to Vaishnavism, showing them how to become pure devotees of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Then one more verse.
Grāmāntare haite dekite āilā yata jana darśana-kṛpāyā haya tāṅhāra sama — people from different villages who came to see such an empowered individual would become like him simply by seeing him and receiving the mercy of his glance.
Namaḥ oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale, śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine. Namaste sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe, nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe. Śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhup Nityānanda, Śrī-advaita Gadādhara Śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda, Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.
So I uh I'm very honored to be with all of you and to speak on this topic because we all followers of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and we want to follow His example and His ideal.
And Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī explains in this initial chapter introducing Lord's travel in South India, how Lord Chaitanya converted everyone into the pure devotional service while traveling.
And Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī specifically, before explaining particular episodes and stories of his travel, he says that this event which we just read, which he will continue a little more elaborate. This event would happen in every place.
He doesn't repeat himself again and again and again, but in the very beginning he says that wherever the Lord would travel he would request everyone to chant the holy name.
For some time people attracted by his personality and by his beauty and by his ecstatic moods, would follow him, chanting the holy name.
And then all of a sudden the Lord would turn around, embrace them, empower them, and would send them back home. Not to Godhead but to their village. And in their village, they would do the same trick again and again.
Evidence of Lord Caitanya's influence in South India
And as Kṛṣṇa Dāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī says in this way, everyone in South India has become a devotee. Now, sometimes I myself was wondering: was it really true? Is it not an exaggeration?
Because sometimes you know the biographers can be carried away by their moods and ecstasies and they start exaggerating some powers. But I wanted to explain my personal experience which actually
proved to me that this which is explained by Kṛṣṇa Dāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī in this chapter of Caitanya Caritāmṛta is actually true. I myself was traveling quite often in South Indian states and specifically in Kerala.
And one particular phenomenon I noticed, actually the first time I encountered this phenomenon, was in the birthplace of Śaṅkarācārya.
I came to visit this little village where Śaṅkarācārya, first great ācārya of Kali-yuga, took his birth. And there was a Gurukul, there is a Gurukul there in this village, and there is
uh you know approximately hundred children who study upaniṣads there in this gurukula. And we came with uh Bhaktivinod Maharaj actually at lunchtime and for nothing
else we sat down to take prasāda in this gurukula in this māyāvāda place. And before eating prasāda uh they started chanting prayers.
As you may imagine they didn't chant śarīrāvidyā-jāla jaḍendriya-kāla. Instead of that, they started reciting Upaniṣads. It went enormously long time. They went on and on and on reciting some unending Upaniṣads.
But at the end, when they stopped reciting Upaniṣads, all of a sudden they started chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare and chanted it three times and then started taking prasāda.
Everyone was relieved and under the auspicious sound of Hari-nāma we also took prasāda. So I was wondering, you know, why do they chant Hare Krishna?
They are they're supposed to be māyāvādīs, they are core māyāvādīs in the birthplace of māyāvāda philosophy in Kali-yuga.
Then I was traveling in different temples and most of the temples in Kerala especially they run by either non-Sampradaic people, people who don't belong to any Sampradaya, or they are under very strong influence of Mayavad Sampradaya, even though it's Krishna's temple.
Like for example, the famous temple in Guruvayur. You know, every day there is an elephant procession for the Lord Guruvayur.
And again, even though all the priests and everyone there, they're all Mayavadis. They worship Lord Krishna, but they are Mayavadis, they worship in their own way.
But again, with great surprise, I noticed that during the procession,
the only thing which they chant is Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. And then in other temples I saw the same phenomenon.
And then in other temples I, uh, I saw the same phenomenon. Then I came to Udupi, which is, uh, the place, the headquarters of Dvaita-vāda of Madhvācārya. And there in Udupi during Car-utsava procession again, everyone
was chanting. Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma, Rāma, Hare Hare. Okay. Fair enough. I thought maybe it's a local custom, this and that.
Maybe this is some established tradition in them.
At one point I asked my friend who is a very great Madhva scholar who knows all the scriptures, everything which Madhvācārya wrote, and a very erudite scholar who knows so many different scriptures.
At one point, conversing with him, I asked him why, please tell me, why, on which authority do you people chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare?
Where is it coming from? What is the root of this tradition? To my great surprise, he became puzzled, and he said, actually, I don't know.
And at this moment in time everything came into place and the whole puzzle became clear to me. And I realized that they're still remembering Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu traveling in all the states. This is the memory.
This is not established in their scriptures.
This is the very strong saṁskāra which was actually imprinted in the consciousness of all these people, inhabitants of South India by just one lonely sannyāsī 500 years ago, once passing through their village.
And that was enough for these people 500 years after that to remember this and in honor of this sannyasi to
to chant in every religious ceremony which is there, still to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Hare, Hare, Hare Rāma, Rāma, Hare, Rāma, Rāma, Rāma, Hare, Hare.
Including, you know, these Māyāvādīs from this Guruvayur, which I explained, and everyone else. So we still can see uh this effect. People don't remember Lord Chaitanya.
I mean now they are started uh coming to their senses because of Hare Krishna movement, because of ISKCON, because of preaching of uh ISKCON devotees in all the states.
But before that, they I mean they probably didn't even know the name of this sannyasi.
The sannyāsī just passed by there, but the impression which he left was so strong that this established tradition is still going on there.
Actually, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura told me that in a few villages of Kerala where he preaches and travels, he saw in the temples two on the altar are two male figures with their hands raised.
And when he would ask who this is they didn't know. They still worship this Gaura-Nitai deities. But you know they don't really know who it is. So this is the effect of Lord Chaitanya's preaching.
Principles of Lord Caitanya's preaching method
And of course, now it's coming to another level due to the eagerness of the followers of Śrīla Prabhupāda. And Śrīla Prabhupāda very clearly speaks in this purport, that the
followers of Caitanya Mahāprabhu, if they are empowered, they can convert others into this Vaishnava cult, into this Vaishnava religion. And the method of this conversion is very clearly explained
here by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī. But before becoming overly enthusiastic about this method, before trying to imitate this method, we should really clearly understand the science behind this method.
Because it's it's easy to say this is just you know viral effect and just let's do this pandemic of Hare Krishna chanting, you know, let's imitate Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
Let's carefully examine what Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was doing. After leaving all his devotees from Jagannātha Purī brokenhearted, crying on the sand of the shore of the ocean, Caitanya Mahāprabhu turned away.
And immediately the first thing which he did, he raised his hands up in the air and started chanting this sloka this
verse: "Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, oh Krishna please protect me please take care of me. So this is the first very important element which we should remember.
Caitanya Mahāprabhu, while traveling in this South Indian tour, he wanted to show what is the way to preach Krishna consciousness.
And the first very important condition to be able to preach Krishna consciousness, to spread Krishna consciousness, his complete surrender to the Lord, surrender to his will.
Very clear understanding that I am not doing it myself. It's the Lord who is sending me on this mission and I'm surrendered to Him and you please protect me. I'm not going to protect myself. There's raised hands.
Hands raised in the air means that I am not protecting myself. I am not trying to do this and this or this or whatever. You know.
My hands are completely free and my hands are given to you. I am doing your service. You please make me your instrument.
And we can see also the example of Srila Prabhupada, the first thing which he does while arriving at America, he writes this
very amazing and deep poem, Mārkiṇī Bhāgavata-dharma, the spreading of Bhagavata Dharma in uh in America or in the Western world. And there he says, you know, I'm yours. It's a complete prayer of surrender.
If Saranagati is expressed in any of the Vaishnava bhajans, you know this is the place where Saranagati is expressed with utmost force and utmost sincerity.
So that's the first point which we should very clearly understand to be able to succeed in this in this process.
And then Krishna Daskriviraj Goswami says that the Lord, while chanting this sloka, would also ask others to do the same. He was again very clearly showing another important principle of preaching.
The principle of preaching is that don't ask people something which you don't do yourself. You know, sometimes we may justify ourselves, and you know, at least I'm preaching the right thing.
Yeah, that may be, but uh if you're not doing it yourself, then your preaching has no potency, actually has no effect, it's hypocritical.
So uh Lord Chaitanya is again showing uh by his own example, what the preacher should do. The preacher should first and foremost himself chant the holy name all the time.
He should put the holy name deep in his heart and not leave the Holy Name. Kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ, this understanding that the Lord is Kīrtanīya. Kirtaniya basically literally means worthy praise.
This understanding that the only one who is worthy of being praised is the Lord should be very deeply established within our heart.
Otherwise, the next thing which we will do if if this is not established in our heart, then we will try to glorify ourselves by the means of preaching.
We will use or rather misuse the preaching as the means to get prestige, to get honor, to be glorified ourselves. Why? Because Kirtanya Sadahari is not there.
We are not really sure that it's only the Lord who should be glorified, not us, not anyone else, but the Lord and His holy name.
So the Lord is showing by His example, Śrīla Caitanya Mahāprabhu is showing by his example what we should do. We should chant ourselves first and foremost.
And then we have the right to ask anyone else whom we see to do the same. And hopefully they will be attracted by our example.
That's another very important uh element of this whole uh structure very structured way of preaching.
So it is uh uh clearly said here by uh written here by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī that people became completely enamored or enchanted by the way Lord was doing it.
The feelings of the Lord, the emotions of the Lord were so deep, then the people they were immediately attracted by this emotional force.
Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was not forcing everyone to do it, was not really even preaching to them.
Even though later Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī will say that to some worthy people, the Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu will explain the philosophy.
But his initial impetus, to give this impetus to people, he would just say, just chant Hare Krishna.
As much as Śrīla Prabhupāda was saying this, this his slogan, Prabhupāda's slogan, chant and be happy, is not a very cheap thing because Prabhupāda actually invested into this slogan his realizations, his experience.
When Prabhupāda says chant and be happy, he means it because he himself experiences the happiness, and because he himself experiences the happiness, this happiness is being transmitted through the media of the Holy Name.
What I want to say is that if we want to be efficient as a preacher, and we want to be efficient as a preacher because this is our service to the Supreme Lord, we have to be we not only have to chant the Holy Name, we have to be happy by chanting the Holy Name. And genuinely happy, not artificially happy, not externally happy.
Because the holy name will only be effective if it is invested with our realization. So you know sometimes people are not happy uh being devotees.
You know, when uh when sometimes those who consider themselves my disciples, they ask me what is my most important instruction to them.
I say that my most important instruction to them is to be happy in Krishna consciousness. Because everything else will be useless if this basic realization of happiness of Krishna consciousness is not there.
We will not be able to influence anyone or even if we be will be able to influence anyone, it will be cheating. Because we are not happy ourselves.
And we are converting others to make them unhappy as much as we are ourselves. You know, misery loves company. We want to convert everyone and to make everyone similarly miserable as ourselves.
You know, there is no point in doing this unless we experience the happiness.
Transmission of spiritual potency through devotional connection
And it basically means that we have to have certain realization.
So next, Kṛṣṇa Dāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī explains that for some time the person Partially that for some time the person, partially converted into the Vaiṣṇava phase, would follow Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu doing the same thing.
He would go behind him chanting Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare, Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare or chanting Hare Gopāla Govinda, chanting bhajan or you know following Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
And again, this is very important.
And only after some time, while the person would follow him, being attracted by his example, by his beauty, by his emotions, and everything else, only after some time, Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu all of a sudden would turn around and embrace such a person.
And this is the final step in the conversion. Without that, you know, the person is half converted.
The main point is that this spiritual power, which is, as Śrīla Prabhupāda explains, following Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, which is the combination of Saṁvit-śakti and Hlādinī-śakti. The two, or Cit-śakti, yeah, Saṁvit-śakti and Hlādinī-śakti, two most powerful energies of the Supreme Lord, spiritual energies of the Supreme Lord.
This bhāva or prema is nothing but combination of these two energies. It's very clearly explained by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī in his Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, where he explains the nature of Bhava. He says that this is Vishesha,
this is the spiritual energy, Vishesha spiritual energy, the special portion
of the spiritual energy, not just general chit shakti, but the uh special portion of spiritual energy uh which is the combination or the union of uh chladini shakti and samvit shakti, the energy of bliss uh of the supreme lord and the energy of cognizance, the energy of consciousness or knowledge,
as Prabhupāda would exp would translate. So it's very important again to take into consideration this little detail. Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu would not embrace each and every one immediately.
Like now there is one famous lady preacher, she is living in Kerala. And she is embracing everyone at the first meeting. Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu was not like this.
He would embrace somebody, but only after a certain period of strict following behind him. When the person would chant and would prove his sincerity.
And not only prove his sincerity but also preliminarily purify his heart to be able to hold this spiritual potency.
Because this spiritual potency is amazing and potent, and our heart has to be trained to hold this spiritual potency. Sometimes devotees prematurely they dream about
prema and they say why prema is not coming to me, why Lord is so stingy, why I'm you know I'm following and following. It's just it's very simple. Our heart is not capable of holding it.
There is no power to hold this spiritual energy because first our heart should be preliminarily cleansed. You cannot really pour the new wine into the old, how you call it in the old bag, because it will not be able to
hold this newness. So this newness, the divine vibe of Krishna prema, of love of God, we have to have certain preliminary period of purification.
And of course, in case of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, this purification was was very short and very quick. In the case of other people, you know it may take some time, but still, nevertheless, the principle is there.
You know, if we want to give, to spread Krishna consciousness, not just an external form, simile of Krishna consciousness, not just external appearance of Krishna consciousness.
If we really want to spread Krishna consciousness, we have to be Krishna conscious ourselves. It means that we have to be in touch with this spiritual energy.
We have to become the transmitters of this spiritual energy, to transmit it further. You know, we can be the you know uh we have to really imbibe this spiritual energy deeply within ourselves.
Then only the viral effect uh will be real. Otherwise it will be just you know another fad, another fashion of Kali Yuga.
You know, sometimes we are trying to adopt this means, but we really have to understand the deep science behind the preaching techniques or preaching methods of Śrīla Prabhupāda. You know, we can only give bhakti.
Bhakti is only coming from heart to heart. It's a very intimate process. And Caitanya Mahāprabhu is showing this. When he's saying embrace. We should understand that it was a literal event when he would embrace somebody.
But we should also understand that this embrace of Lord Caitanya means very intimate and close relationship between the spiritual master or between the preacher and somebody whom he preaches.
You know, this transmission of the spiritual energy will not take place if there is no close relationship between the preacher and the one whom he preaches.
Śrīla Prabhupāda used to say that the preacher has to shed the gallons of blood to turn anyone into the into Krishna consciousness. If it's real Krishna consciousness. It's not a cheap process, what I want to say.
Embrace means that you have to invest your heart into his heart. There has to be a heart-to-heart relationship.
If there is no heart-to-heart relationship, if it's just a superficial imitation of the same process, again the success will not really be there.
And then, of course, when the person is invested with this spiritual energy and his heart is bubbling with this spiritual energy, it's overflowing his heart, he cannot really do anything else. He will just preach to others. Because he's so happy. He cannot stop it.
And as Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī says that whoever will see him will be infected by this virus of Krishna consciousness. We're all living in this very strange time when everyone is afraid of viruses.
But at the same time, we also want to spread this pandemic of Krishna consciousness. And that's definitely a viral disease and you know to be able to effectively infect others we should not have mask over our mouth
should really very loudly chant the holy name, but with full energy and conviction, not just the shadow of the holy name, not just Namabas, but the real holy name.
And that for that of course we have to struggle in our solitary bhajan and in our you know in our desire to preach uh the uh Krishna consciousness. You know we have to shed the tears uh of uh sincere desire to give Krishna consciousness to somebody else.
And then we will be empowered. The empowerment is an easy process, but we have to be prepared to be empowered. That's a difficult part of the process.
Otherwise, the empowerment is an easy process as Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami explains. But we really have to have this sincere desire within ourselves.
Purity of heart required for true Krishna consciousness
And you know the uh my time is uh over. I I can go a little more few more minutes because we started a little late uh to explain this topic.
But again, what I want to say, the main thing which I want to say is that to be able to spread Krishna consciousness, you have to be Krishna conscious yourself. And Krishna consciousness is not cheap.
It's the matter of purity of heart, it's the matter of pure desire to please the Lord. Basically, we oftentimes forget the basic definition of Krishna consciousness in our eagerness to spread Krishna consciousness.
That's a natural human phenomenon, you know sometimes we are so eager to spread something that we forget what we're spreading. What exactly it is.
But Krishna consciousness uh which is defined by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī in this famous verse anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam, jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam, ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānuśīlanaṁ bhaktir uttamā. Jnana Karma Yanavritama Nukulyena Krishna Nusilanam Bhakti Ruttamam
So Krishna consciousness means constant desire, permanent desire within the heart to do something which is pleasing to Krishna.
Up to the point of completely forgetting what is pleasing to me and what is not pleasing to me. Until this moment of time when we forget what is pleasing to me, we cannot consider ourselves Krishna conscious.
And I I mean it's an unfortunate reality. I, you know, I uh I'm sitting here, I'm not claiming that I'm on this level. I'm just reminding myself how uh how it is not so cheap.
Basically, and this is the example which Śrīla Prabhupāda showed to us because he sincerely showed this example that for him, it doesn't matter whether it is pleasing for him or not, whether there is convenience for him or not.
He was ready to take any inconveniences, to do something which is pleasing to him. How does he know what is pleasing to him? He knows what is to the Lord? How do we know what is pleasing to the Supreme Lord?
Because it's pleasing to my spiritual master. This is how the parampara works. We don't know whether it's pleasing to the Supreme Lord or not. We may not be sure, we may imagine or speculate something.
But if our spiritual master says that this is what will please the Supreme Lord, and we do this with this desire, I'm going to do something which is pleasing to the Supreme Lord, and it doesn't matter for me whether it is pleasing to myself or not, then only at this moment of time we are Krishna conscious.
Actually, Srila Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains that Krishna consciousness does not even start with the level of Nishta.
It really starts with the level of ruci because only when we have this strong taste for the processes of for the yeah for the processes of Krishna consciousness, for the Holy name, we are in touch with the real Holy Name and we will be able to forget our own conveniences or inconveniences, comforts or discomforts, and we will be able to spread this.
Having said this, I'm not trying to discourage anyone else who is not on the level of ruci. I'm trying to encourage everyone to as quickly as possible to reach this stage. Because this is the real stage.
The Krishna consciousness starts at this stage. Before that, it's a shadow of Krishna consciousness, which is important. We have to start somewhere.
But to reach this stage, we very clearly have to remember ourselves what does it mean to be Krishna conscious. It means that at least when I sit and start speaking, at least when I take my beats and start chanting,
when I sit behind harmonium and start chanting the holy name in kīrtana. I first have to say to myself, I'm doing it to please the Lord, and I should say this before I start before I started doing some devotional activity.
That is very important thing because there are two different processes of bhakti.
One process of bhakti I'm doing something and then in the end I say, Krishna Arpanamastu. Hidam Krishna, Idam Namama, Krishna, this is for you. I'm offering this to you.
But Krishna consciousness, if it's in its pure variety, means that before doing any devotional activity, before, before,
the first thing which we should do, why am I doing this, what is my motivation, why do I chant the holy name? Why do I chant it on beats? Why do I preach? Why do I speak in front of you? Why do I read Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam? Why?
Why? What is the reason? What is the motivation? The motivation is I want to please the Lord.
Because the Lord will be pleased if I am reading Shrimad Bhagavatam, if I am chanting the holy name, if I'm doing kirtan, or if I am preaching. So if this is the motivation,
and in the beginning, when this motivation is not yet completely overhelm... Well, not overwhelmed by this motivation. If if it's not if we are not overtaken by this motivation,
If this motivation is not really firmly established within our heart, it basically means that before this stage of Ruchi, we have to remind ourselves it again and again and again: I am doing it to please the Supreme Lord.
I'm doing it to please my spiritual master. I am doing it because I want their pleasure. I want to see how they are pleased.
And if this is established very clearly, then there is a hope that something which we do will have the real tangible effect on other people.
And having this tangible effect in other people, it will change their lives and in this way we will really serve the mission of our spiritual master.
And the Lord will be pleased with us and will give us the contact with these two most important and glorious spiritual energies of the Lord, Saṃvit Śakti and Hlādinī Śakti. Otherwise, he will not trust us.
This bhakti sakti or krishna prema is the most cherished treasure of the Supreme Lord. And he will not throw the pearls in front of swine. He will not do this. He will not entrust to us these energies,
most important, most pure energies of His, unless we become completely trustworthy. And trustworthiness means sincerity of each of our endeavors in this Krishna consciousness movement.
So we have to remind ourselves again and again and again and then this viral effect will take place.
And everything else which is described here will repeat itself and we will become the real followers of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Before that time we're trying and that's glorious itself, but we also have to be realistic about what we can do.
But definitely we should try. And in this way the prediction of Caitanya Mahāprabhu will be fulfilled. Pratīṭeḥ ca-jātanagara-di-grāma sarvatra pracāra hoibe mora nāma.
So I guess now I should stop according to the schedule of our event. I wanted to tell a story, but uh anyway it's maybe some other time. So Pancharatna Prabhu, I what shall we do now? I don't hear you.
You're probably muted. I am. Yeah, now I can, yes, yes. I had to do so, so that uh no extraneous sound would enter into your wonderful talk.
Um so much to think about, so much to reflect on that you gave us today about how we can deeply serve the mission of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, what is needed, what uh empowerment we have to aspire for.
Um we do have some more time for for questions. If if anyone has a question, they can post it. Um on our comments in regards to your to to what you talked about.
Story of the washerman transformed by the holy name
Um let me just see. Uh o. So well yes, please can you can we hear the story? Okay, so I guess uh I guess you have to answer. You have to tell us the story. Okay. That's a very interesting story.
It's not so commonly it's a story about Lord Chaitanya which is taken from Govinda-kaḍācārya. This source of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's biographies is somewhat questionable, but the story is so good and that even though the source may be a little questionable, the story is very typical and probably the the story is is good itself.
And you will hear this story. You m might have heard it.
This the story which actually took place uh while Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was traveling with four of his companions from Navadvīpa to Orissa and they already left Bengal which was uh ruled by Mohammedans and Orissa was much more peaceful state under the able
uh rulership of Maharaja Prataparudra and it was a Hindu state, peaceful Hindu state. And they felt much more free, you know, in uh while traveling in other places.
Sometimes uh of course Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was completely fearless, but all the people which were around him were quite fearful by his enthusiasm to spread Hindu religion, quote unquote, or chanting the holy name of the Lord.
But in Orissa they were more relaxed, and Caitanya Mahāprabhu was uh going little ahead because he was so eager to uh reach Jagannātha Purī and uh he reached one uh place where uh in a village pond, the dhobī, the washerman was washing the clothes. And Caitanya Mahāprabhu saw this dhobī who was completely absorbed in this stupid process of washing clothes you know by beating it on the on the stone and immediately the compassion overwhelmed his heart.
He was thinking most probably that here is the human being who is endowed with this rare opportunity to serve the Supreme Lord, and instead he is just wasting his whole life by beating this, you know, dirty clothes on the stone.
And Caitanya Mahāprabhu approached this dhobī washerman and he said, please chant Hare Krishna, say Haribol, say Haribol.
And this dhobī was very suspicious because he saw he didn't even look at Caitanya Mahāprabhu. He didn't want to look. He only saw the orange clothes and he thought, oh, some beggar has come.
You know, so he said, I don't have time, and started beating and beating and beating. And Caitanya Mahāprabhu was relentless. He was begging and again and again and again, please chant Haribo, please chant Haribo.
And ultimately dhobī said, okay, you know, no, uh first dhobī said, you know, I I cannot do this because uh you know uh I have to earn money for my living. You know, I have to do my job.
And sometimes we have similar experience. We ask somebody to chant Hare Krishna and they say I have no time. I have to earn money.
So Caitanya Mahāprabhu, what he did, it's also very important and glorious. He said, it's no problem, you please chant Haribol and I will wash the clothes instead of you.
So I will free you, I'll give you some free time, I will do it.
So at this point uh it was too much for dhobī. He thought it's not good, you know. Some sannyasi is asking me to do this. I cannot allow the sannyasi to wash the clothes because it's a dirty job.
And he said, okay, what should I do? Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, just say Haribol. He said, Haribal. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said, say it once more, he said, Haribal.
Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, say it once more, he said, Haribol. And then when he said Haribol third time, he started dancing and laughing and saying Haribo, Haribo, Haribo, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna. And he became completely mad.
And you know, and he was dancing in a mad way, and the followers of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, associates of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu approached, and they saw this amusing scene, you know.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is sitting and watching. He's very happy. The dhobi's chanting and dancing.
And then the wife of this washerman comes with the plate of rice and she looks at her husband and she's wondering what's going on and she said, I never, I never thought that you're such a good dancer. Where did you learn dancing?
But he doesn't hear his wife, which is itself a sign of spiritual ecstasy because otherwise, you know, the voice of the wife is very, you know, easily penetrating your heart. So he he couldn't hear the wife.
And, you know, the wife is coming closer and she looks at his eyes, and his eyes are completely blank, you know.
And she runs back to the village and says, My husband is possessed by a ghost. There is some ghost possessing my husband. He is just dancing like a madman. And the whole village is running there, and they all see this scene, and they're wondering what's going on.
And then somebody who is very bold, the boldest one wants to kind of bring him back to the senses and he runs to this person, to
this dhobi washerman, and takes his hand and, you know, just pulls him down, Sit down, just be quiet. And as soon as he touches his hand, the surge of spiritual energy
comes to his body and he starts chanting, Haribol, Haribol, Haribol. But he is not completely absent-minded.
So instead of chanting and dancing himself, he runs to his villagers and starting touching every one of his villagers, starting with the wife of this dhobi, and everyone starts dancing and laughing and chanting.
That's the Sri Caitanya Mahāprabhu's preaching technique. We cannot really imitate it, but that's the story which was told. So Caitanya Mahāprabhu knew what he wanted to do. He wanted the whole world to dance.
And actually, this is what Nityānanda Prabhu said. While in the last kirtan before going to this South India tour,
Caitanya Prabhu was doing kirtan with all the villagers from Alalanath and all his devotees and everyone is dancing and Nityananda Prabhu is looking at this
and said, you know, very soon the whole world will be dancing, will be dancing like this and chanting the holy name.
Concluding reflections and closing remarks
Anyway, that's the story. I don't know if Krishna. Hare Krishna, thank you so much. That was so wonderful. And that's really viral. I mean that's the uh the ultimate viral effect. Well we can aspire, right?
To have that kind of to be that kind of medium, to be that kind of uh uh how how Śrīla Prabhupāda put it, you know, that the iron rod, when the iron rod gets put in the fire, it becomes like the iron rod.
So we can get ourselves really in the fire and we can transmit in the same way. This should be our aspiration. This is the beginning of our series. Thank you, Maharaj.
You've really set the tone, I think, for us to to aspire to see how by understanding, you know, like you I think you you brought out in the beginning, it's not it's not technique, it's principle.
It's what are the the underlying principles that we have to understand in order to uh actually spread Krishna consciousness, see the holy names in every town and village.
So we invite everybody to uh share this with uh with everyone, uh what you've watched. Um come back tomorrow.
We're we're we're going to be here every evening, evening in India, morning in the US, and uh in between and other places.
Um and we'll be doing this every day from now until uh until Gaura-pūrṇimā. Uh and trying to really explore and try in in one sense we're also creating a a repository of this that uh can be shared for our society going forward.
So I look forward to tomorrow and the next day. And I thank you again, Maharaj, for Okay. There is you said Shilpakarini, some some question from Shilpakarini or is this already uh let's see. Yeah just
want to know what is pleasing to Lord Caitanya if there's no harinama on? There's no chanting, no preaching? I think you made that pretty clear. Yeah. Yeah, I made it very clear.
She Srila Prabhupāda made it very clear what is pleasing to this. And of course we have to serve the vision. Guru-sevā. Guru-sevā. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Look forward to seeing you also and by the way, just a quick note for everyone who missed it. Yesterday we had an extraordinary event today, Maharaj. I hope that you may have also been able to tune in.
If not, please, please do. Uh we're organizing all the material on our ten hour long video uh on the uh inauguration of number one Utsadunga Road, Otsadunga Junction Road.
This uh promises to be a real milestone for our society and our movement and the whole Vodha Vaishnava movement. Uh here it is, yes, the birthplace of a revolution.
Uh I we all felt uh I I was very privileged to be there and we we really felt that there's that the work that has been done has called into that place and called into our movement some energy That uh Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and Śrīla Prabhupāda uh have that kind of energy that you spoke of we hope that we can catch it.
Catch the virus. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very much.