A summary of the Twelfth Chapter is given by Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura in his Amṛta-pravāha-bhāṣya as follows. This chapter discusses the transformations of ecstatic love that Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu exhibited day and night. The devotees from Bengal again journeyed to Jagannātha Purī to see Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. As usual, the leader was Śivānanda Sena, who traveled with his wife and children. Because arrangements were delayed en route and Lord Nityānanda did not have a suitable place to reside, He became somewhat disturbed. Thus He became very angry with Śivānanda Sena, who was in charge of the affairs of the party, and kicked him in loving anger. Śivānanda Sena felt highly favored to have been kicked by Nityānanda Prabhu, but his nephew Śrīkānta Sena became upset and therefore left their company. He met Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu at Jagannātha Purī before the rest of the party arrived.
Ecstatic (CC Antya-lila 11 - 20)
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta
CC Antya-lila
There was a tumultuous noise as they all chanted the holy names "Hari" and "Kṛṣṇa." Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu became overwhelmed with ecstatic love.
The Lord raised the body of Haridāsa Ṭhākura and placed it on His lap. Then He began to dance in the courtyard in great ecstatic love.
Because of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu's ecstatic love, all the devotees were helpless, and in ecstatic love they also began to dance and chant congregationally.
Anyone who hears about the loving exchanges between Jagadānanda Paṇḍita and Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, or who reads Jagadānanda's book Prema-vivarta, can understand what love is. Moreover, he achieves ecstatic love of Kṛṣṇa.
Once, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu became ecstatic upon hearing the songs of a deva-dāsī. Unaware of who was singing, He ran toward her through thorny bushes, but when Govinda informed the Lord that it was a woman singing, He immediately stopped. By this incident, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu instructed everyone that sannyāsīs and Vaiṣṇavas should not hear women singing.
Let me take shelter at the lotus feet of Lord Gauracandra. His mind became exhausted and His body very thin from the pain of separation from Kṛṣṇa, but when He felt ecstatic love for the Lord, He again became fully developed.
The unhappiness of separation from Kṛṣṇa exhausted the Lord's mind and reduced the structure of His body, but when He felt emotions of ecstatic love, He again became developed and healthy.
Assuming the reddish cloth to be a gift from Caitanya Mahāprabhu, Jagadānanda Paṇḍita was overwhelmed with ecstatic love. Thus he questioned Sanātana Gosvāmī.
Hearing the song from a distance, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu immediately became ecstatic. He did not know whether it was a man or a woman singing.
Then the Lord embraced him and bade him farewell. Overwhelmed with ecstatic love, Raghunātha Bhaṭṭa began to cry due to imminent separation from Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
After saying this, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu embraced Raghunātha Bhaṭṭa, and by the Lord's mercy Raghunātha was enlivened with ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa.
When reciting Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in the company of Rūpa and Sanātana, Raghunātha Bhaṭṭa would be overwhelmed with ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa.
By the mercy of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, he experienced the symptoms of ecstatic love—tears, trembling and faltering of the voice. His eyes filled with tears and his throat became choked, and thus he could not recite Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
When he recited or heard about the beauty and sweetness of Kṛṣṇa, he would be overwhelmed with ecstatic love and become oblivious to everything.
Thus I have described the powerful mercy of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, by which Raghunātha Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī remained constantly overwhelmed with ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa.
In this chapter I have spoken about three topics: Jagadānanda Paṇḍita's visit to Vṛndāvana, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu's listening to the song of the deva-dāsī at the temple of Jagannātha, and how Raghunātha Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī achieved ecstatic love of Kṛṣṇa by the mercy of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu (Gaurahari) bestows ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa upon anyone who hears all these topics with faith and love.
Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura gives the following summary of the Fourteenth Chapter. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu's feelings of separation from Kṛṣṇa resulted in highly elevated transcendental madness. When He was standing near the Garuḍa-stambha and praying to Lord Jagannātha, a woman from Orissa put her foot on the Lord's shoulder in her great eagerness to see Lord Jagannātha. Govinda chastised her for this, but Caitanya Mahāprabhu praised her eagerness. When Caitanya Mahāprabhu went to the temple of Lord Jagannātha, He was absorbed in ecstatic love and saw only Kṛṣṇa. As soon as He perceived this woman, however, His external consciousness immediately returned, and He saw Jagannātha, Baladeva and Subhadrā. Caitanya Mahāprabhu also saw Kṛṣṇa in a dream, and He was overwhelmed with ecstatic love. When He could no longer see Kṛṣṇa, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu compared Himself to a yogī and described how that yogī was seeing Vṛndāvana. Sometimes all the transcendental ecstatic symptoms were manifest in Him. One night, Govinda and Svarūpa Dāmodara noticed that although the three doors to the Lord's room were closed and locked, the Lord was not present inside. Seeing this, Svarūpa Dāmodara and the other devotees went outside and saw the Lord lying unconscious by the gate known as Siṁha-dvāra. His body had become unusually long, and the joints of His bones were loose. The devotees gradually brought Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu back to His senses by chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, and then they took Him back to His residence. Once Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu mistook a sand dune known as Caṭaka-parvata for Govardhana Hill. As He ran toward it, He became stunned, and then the eight ecstatic transformations appeared in His body due to great love for Kṛṣṇa. At that time all the devotees chanted the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra to pacify Him.
Please hear faithfully this description of Caitanya Mahāprabhu's ecstatic emotions. Thus you will come to know of His ecstatic love, and ultimately you will achieve love of Godhead.
"When the ecstatic emotion of enchantment gradually progresses, it becomes similar to bewilderment. Then one reaches the stage of astonishment (vaicitrī), which awakens transcendental madness. Udghūrṇā and citra-jalpa are two among the many divisions of transcendental madness."
At night, Lord Caitanya would reveal to Svarūpa Dāmodara and Rāmānanda Rāya the ecstatic feelings of His mind.
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was overwhelmed night and day by these ten ecstatic conditions. Whenever such symptoms arose, His mind became unsteady.
No one has witnessed such bodily changes elsewhere, nor has anyone read of them in the revealed scriptures. Yet Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, the supreme sannyāsī, exhibited these ecstatic symptoms.
The eight ecstatic symptoms are the state of being stunned, perspiration, standing of the bodily hairs on end, faltering of the voice, trembling, fading of the body's color, tears and devastation.
Thus I have described the transcendental ecstatic emotions of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Even Lord Brahmā cannot describe their influence.
The following is a summary of the Fifteenth Chapter. After seeing the upala-bhoga ceremony of Lord Jagannātha, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu once more began to feel ecstatic emotions. When He saw the garden on the beach by the sea, He again thought that He was in Vṛndāvana, and when He began to think of Kṛṣṇa engaging in His different pastimes, transcendental emotions excited Him again. On the night of the rāsa dance, the gopīs, bereaved by Kṛṣṇa's absence, searched for Kṛṣṇa from one forest to another. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu adopted the same transcendental thoughts as those of the gopīs and was filled with ecstatic emotion. Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī recited a verse from the Gīta-govinda just suitable to the Lord's emotions. Caitanya Mahāprabhu then exhibited the ecstatic transformations known as bhāvodaya, bhāva-sandhi, bhāva-śābalya and so on. The Lord experienced all eight kinds of ecstatic transformations, and He relished them very much.
The ocean of ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa is very difficult to understand, even for such demigods as Lord Brahmā. By enacting His pastimes, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu submerged Himself in that ocean, and His heart was absorbed in that love. Thus He exhibited in various ways the exalted position of transcendental love for Kṛṣṇa.
Thus Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu forgot Himself throughout the entire day and night, being merged in an ocean of ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa.
The Lord would maintain Himself in three states of consciousness: sometimes He merged totally in ecstatic emotion, sometimes He was in partial external consciousness, and sometimes He was in full external consciousness.
Actually, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was always merged in ecstatic emotion, but just as a potter's wheel turns without the potter's touching it, the Lord's bodily activities, like bathing, going to the temple to see Lord Jagannātha, and taking lunch, went on automatically.
To enhance the ecstatic mood of the Lord, Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī would sing appropriate songs and Rāmānanda Rāya would recite suitable verses. In this way they were able to pacify Him.
Lord Caitanya mistook that garden for Vṛndāvana and very quickly entered it. Absorbed in ecstatic love of Kṛṣṇa, He wandered throughout the garden, searching for Him.
Absorbed in the ecstatic mood of the gopīs, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu wandered here and there. He began to inquire after Kṛṣṇa by quoting verses to all the trees and creepers.
Just as before, they saw all the symptoms of transcendental ecstatic love manifested in the body of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Although externally He appeared bewildered, He was tasting transcendental bliss within.
Lamenting in ecstatic love, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu then recited the following verse, which was spoken by Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī while exposing the lamentation of Her heart to Her friend Śrīmatī Viśākhā.
When Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī sang this special song, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu immediately got up and began to dance in ecstatic love.
All the ecstatic symptoms, such as bhāvodaya, bhāva-sandhi and bhāva-śābalya, awakened in the body of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. A great fight arose between one emotion and another, and each of them became prominent.
There He exhibited transcendental madness and ecstatic ravings, which Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī has described very nicely in his Stava-mālā as follows.
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu is the topmost of all devotees. Sometimes, while walking on the beach, He would see a beautiful garden nearby and mistake it for the forest of Vṛndāvana. Thus He would be completely overwhelmed by ecstatic love of Kṛṣṇa and begin to chant the holy name and dance. His tongue worked incessantly as He chanted, "Kṛṣṇa! Kṛṣṇa!" Will He again become visible before the path of my eyes?
Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, who personally tasted the nectar of ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa and then instructed His devotees how to taste it. Thus He enlightened them about ecstatic love of Kṛṣṇa to initiate them into transcendental knowledge.
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu thus stayed at Jagannātha Purī in the association of His devotees, always merged in ecstatic devotional love.
Kālidāsa licked the banana bark and the mango seeds and skins, and while licking them he was overwhelmed with jubilation in ecstatic love.
By rendering service to these three, one attains the supreme goal of ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa. In all the revealed scriptures this is loudly declared again and again.
As long as the devotees were in Nīlācala, Jagannātha Purī, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu maintained His external consciousness, but after their departure His chief engagement was again the madness of ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa.
Understanding this, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu felt an emotion of ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa, but upon seeing the servants of Lord Jagannātha, He restrained Himself.
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu performed His external activities, but His mind was filled with ecstatic love. With great difficulty He tried to restrain His mind, but it would always be overwhelmed by very deep ecstasy.
In ecstatic love, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu ordered Rāmānanda Rāya to recite some verses. Thus Rāmānanda Rāya spoke as follows.
After saying this, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was overwhelmed by ecstatic loving emotions. Talking like a madman, He began to explain the meaning of the two verses.
Upon hearing the recitation of this verse, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu became absorbed in ecstatic love, and with a greatly agitated mind He began to explain its meaning like a madman.
While thus speaking like a madman, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu became full of ecstatic emotion. In the company of His two friends, Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī and Rāmānanda Rāya, He sometimes danced, sometimes sang and sometimes became unconscious in ecstatic love. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu passed His days and nights in this way.
Understanding the ecstatic emotions of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, Svarūpa Dāmodara, in a sweet voice, recited the following verse from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu spoke these words in a mood of anger as He floated on waves of ecstatic love. Merged in an ocean of anxiety, He recited a verse spoken by Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī expressing the same emotion. Then He personally explained the verse and thus tasted the sweetness of Kṛṣṇa.
The aggregate of all these ecstasies once awoke a statement by Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī in the mind of Bilvamaṅgala Ṭhākura (Līlā-śuka). In the same ecstatic mood, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu now recited that verse, and on the strength of madness He described its meaning, which is unknown to people in general.
Piṅgalā was a prostitute who said, "To hope against hope produces only misery. Utter hopelessness is the greatest happiness." Remembering this statement, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu became ecstatic. The story of Piṅgalā is found in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Eleventh Canto, Eighth Chapter, verses 22–44, as well as in the Mahābhārata, Śānti-parva, Chapter 174.
Even Anantadeva, who possesses thousands of mouths, cannot fully describe the ecstatic transformations that Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu experienced in a single day.
This description, however, will satisfy the mind and ears of anyone who hears it, and he will be able to understand these uncommon activities of deep ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa.
O people of the world, worship the lotus feet of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu in all respects. Only in this way will you achieve the nectarean treasure of ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa.
Thus I have described Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu's ecstatic transformation of becoming like a tortoise. In that ecstasy, He talked and acted like a madman.
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was unconscious, and His body had become unusually transformed. As soon as the fisherman touched the Lord's body, he became mad in ecstatic love of Kṛṣṇa. His own madness frightened him, however, because he thought that he was being haunted by a ghost. As he was about to seek a ghost charmer, he met Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī and the other devotees on the beach, who had been looking everywhere for the Lord. After some inquiries, Svarūpa Dāmodara could understand that the fisherman had caught Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu in his net. Since the fisherman was afraid of being haunted by a ghost, Svarūpa Dāmodara gave him a slap and chanted Hare Kṛṣṇa, which immediately pacified him. Thereafter, when the devotees chanted the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra loudly, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu came to His external consciousness. Then they brought Him back to His own residence.
He sang and danced in ecstatic love and sometimes imitated the rāsa dance in emotional ecstasy.
Kṛṣṇa Himself cannot fully understand the conditions, the mode of progress, the happiness and unhappiness, and the moods of ecstatic love of His devotees. He therefore accepts the role of a devotee to taste these emotions fully.
Ecstatic love of Kṛṣṇa makes Kṛṣṇa and His devotees dance, and it also dances personally. In this way, all three dance together in one place.
One who wants to describe the transformations of ecstatic love of Kṛṣṇa is like a dwarf trying to catch the moon in the sky.
Everyone was overwhelmed with moroseness and almost unconscious, but out of ecstatic love they continued to wander here and there, searching for the Lord.
The fisherman was affected by ecstatic love, but he was also fearful. He had thus become doubly agitated. Now that his fear had subsided, however, he had become somewhat normal.
“Because of ecstatic love, the Lord fell into the sea, and you have caught Him in your net and rescued Him.
“Blue and red lotus flowers are unconscious objects, whereas cakravākas are conscious and alive. Nevertheless, in ecstatic love, the blue lotuses began to taste the cakravākas. This is a reversal of their natural behavior, but in Lord Kṛṣṇa's kingdom such reversals are a principle of His pastimes.
“This fisherman caught You in his net and rescued You from the water. Because of Your touch, he is now mad with ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa.
This chapter further describes how Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu entered the Jagannātha-vallabha garden during the full-moon night of Vaiśākha (April-May) and experienced various transcendental ecstasies. Overwhelmed with ecstatic love at suddenly seeing Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa beneath an aśoka tree, He exhibited various symptoms of spiritual madness.
Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, the most exalted of all devotees of mothers, spoke like a madman and rubbed His face against the walls. Overwhelmed by emotions of ecstatic love, He would sometimes enter the Jagannātha-vallabha garden to perform His pastimes. I offer my respectful obeisances unto Him.
"Further tell Him that those now mad in ecstatic love are no longer interested in the material world. Also tell Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu that one who has also become a madman in ecstatic love (Advaita Prabhu) has spoken these words."
Suddenly there awoke within Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu the scene of Lord Kṛṣṇa's departure to Mathurā, and He began exhibiting the symptom of ecstatic madness known as udghūrṇā.
In this way, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu lamented in the mood of separation, "Alas, alas! O Kṛṣṇa, where have You gone?" Feeling in His heart the ecstatic emotions of the gopīs, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu agonized in their words, saying, "O Govinda! O Dāmodara! O Mādhava!"
Blood oozed from the many injuries on His mouth, nose and cheeks, but due to His ecstatic emotions, the Lord did not know it.
In this way Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu stayed immersed day and night in an ocean of ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa. Sometimes He was submerged, and sometimes He floated.
The evidence of the truth of these talks is found in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. There, in the section of the Tenth Canto known as the Bhramara-gīta, "The Song to the Bumblebee," Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī speaks insanely in ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa.
The following summary of the Twentieth Chapter is given by Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura in his Amṛta-pravāha-bhāṣya. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu passed His nights tasting the meaning of the Śikṣāṣṭaka prayers in the company of Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī and Rāmānanda Rāya. Sometimes He recited verses from Jayadeva Gosvāmī’s Gīta-govinda, from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, from Śrī Rāmānanda Rāya's Jagannātha-vallabha-nāṭaka or from Śrī Bilvamaṅgala Ṭhākura's Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta. In this way, He became absorbed in ecstatic emotions. For the twelve years Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu lived at Jagannātha Purī, He relished the taste of reciting such transcendental verses. Altogether the Lord was present in this mortal world for forty-eight years. After hinting about the Lord's disappearance, the author of the Caitanya-caritāmṛta gives a short description of the entire Antya-līlā and then ends his book.
Only the most fortunate will relish the mad words of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, which were mixed with jubilation, envy, agitation, submissiveness and grief, all produced by ecstatic loving emotions.
They are pretending, however, because these devotional features are only external. The prākṛta-sahajiyās exhibit these symptoms to advertise their so-called advancement in love of Kṛṣṇa, but instead of praising the prākṛta-sahajiyās for their symptoms of transcendental ecstasy, pure devotees do not like to associate with them. It is not advisable to equate the prākṛta-sahajiyās with pure devotees. When one is actually advanced in ecstatic love of Kṛṣṇa, he does not try to advertise himself. Instead, he endeavors more and more to render service to the Lord.
Natural humility and eagerness then awoke in Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. He prayed to Kṛṣṇa to be able to chant the mahā-mantra in ecstatic love.
"Without love of Godhead, My life is useless. Therefore I pray that You accept Me as Your servant and give Me the salary of ecstatic love of God."
The ecstatic symptoms of envy, great eagerness, humility, zeal and supplication all became manifest at once.
These statements by Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī show the symptoms of pure love for Kṛṣṇa tasted by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. In that ecstatic love, His mind was unsteady. Transformations of transcendental love spread throughout His entire body, and He could not sustain His body and mind.
Thus overwhelmed by ecstatic love, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu spoke like a madman and recited suitable verses.
If anyone recites or hears these eight verses of instruction by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, his ecstatic love and devotion for Kṛṣṇa increase day by day.
When Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu read the verses of Jayadeva's Gīta-govinda, of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, of Rāmānanda Rāya's drama Jagannātha-vallabha-nāṭaka, and of Bilvamaṅgala Ṭhākura's Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta, He was overwhelmed by the various ecstatic emotions of those verses. Thus He tasted their purports.
The Seventeenth Chapter recounts how Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu fell among the cows and assumed the form of a tortoise as His ecstatic emotions awakened.
The Seventeenth Chapter also tells how Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, due to the conjunction of various ecstatic emotions, again began speaking like a madman and described in detail the meaning of a verse from the Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta.
The Twentieth Chapter tells how Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu recited His own eight stanzas of instruction and tasted their meaning in ecstatic love.
| Page Title: | Ecstatic (CC Antya-lila 11 - 20) |
| Compiler: | SunitaS, Mayapur |
| Created: | 25 of Aug, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=90, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=0, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 90 |