Lord Caitanya is the ideal teacher of life's prime necessities. He is the most munificent bestower of love of Kṛṣṇa. He is the complete reservoir of all mercies and good fortune. As confirmed in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the Bhagavad-gītā, the Mahābhārata and the Upaniṣads, He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa Himself, and He is worshipable by everyone in this age of disagreement. Everyone can join in His saṅkīrtana movement. No previous qualification is necessary. Just by following His teachings, anyone can become a perfect human being. Anyone who is fortunate enough to be attracted by Lord Caitanya is sure to be successful in his life's mission. In other words, those who are interested in attaining spiritual existence can easily be released from the clutches of māyā by the grace of Lord Caitanya. The teachings presented in this book are nondifferent from the Lord.
Worshipable (CC Adi-lila)
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta
CC Preface and Introduction
CC Adi-lila
Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu explained this mode of devotional service in three stages, and therefore these worshipable Deities were installed in Vṛndāvana by different Gosvāmīs. They are very dear to the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas there, who visit the temples at least once a day. Besides the temples of these three Deities, many other temples have been established in Vṛndāvana, such as the temple of Rādhā-Dāmodara of Jīva Gosvāmī, the temple of Śyāmasundara of Śyāmānanda Gosvāmī, the temple of Gokulānanda of Lokanātha Gosvāmī, and the temple of Rādhā-ramaṇa of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī. There are seven principal temples over four hundred years old that are the most important of the five thousand temples now existing in Vṛndāvana.
Gauḍīya indicates the part of India between the southern side of the Himalayan Mountains and the northern part of the Vindhyā Hills, which is called Āryāvarta, or the Land of the Āryans. This portion of India is divided into five parts or provinces (Pañca-gauḍadeśa): Sārasvata (Kashmir and Punjab), Kānyakubja (Uttar Pradesh, including the modern city of Lucknow), Madhya-gauḍa (Madhya Pradesh), Maithila (Bihar and part of Bengal) and Utkala (part of Bengal and the whole of Orissa). Bengal is sometimes called Gauḍadeśa, partly because it forms a portion of Maithila and partly because the capital of the Hindu king Rāja Lakṣmaṇa Sena was known as Gauḍa. This old capital later came to be known as Gauḍapura and gradually Māyāpur.
Īśa-bhaktān refers to the devotees of the Lord like Śrī Śrīvāsa and all other such followers, who are the energy of the Lord and are qualitatively nondifferent from Him. Īśāvatārakān refers to ācāryas like Advaita Prabhu, who is an avatāra of the Lord. Tat-prakāśān indicates the direct manifestation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Nityānanda Prabhu, and the initiating spiritual master. Tac-chaktīḥ refers to the spiritual energies (śaktis) of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Gadādhara, Dāmodara and Jagadānanda belong to this category of internal energy.
The six principles are differently manifested but all equally worshipable. Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja begins by offering his obeisances unto them to teach us the method of worshiping Lord Caitanya. The external potency of Godhead, called māyā, can never associate with the Lord, just as darkness cannot remain in the presence of light; yet darkness, being but an illusory and temporary covering of light, has no existence independent of light.
"O Supreme Lord, You are the Supreme Maheśvara, the worshipable Deity of all the demigods and the Supreme Lord of all lords. You are the controller of all controllers, the Personality of Godhead, the Lord of everything worshipable."
- mahān prabhur vai puruṣaḥ
- sattvasyaiṣa pravartakaḥ
- su-nirmalām imāṁ prāptim
- īśāno jyotir avyayaḥ
"The Supreme Personality of Godhead is Mahāprabhu, who disseminates transcendental enlightenment. Just to be in touch with Him is to be in contact with the indestructible brahma-jyoti."
"We offer our respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of Him, the Lord, upon whom one should always meditate. He destroys insults to His devotees. He removes the distresses of His devotees and satisfies their desires. He, the abode of all holy places and the shelter of all sages, is worshipable by Lord Śiva and Lord Brahmā. He is the boat of the demigods for crossing the ocean of birth and death."
- tyaktvā sudustyaja-surepsita-rājya-lakṣmīṁ
- dharmiṣṭha ārya-vacasā yad agād araṇyam
- māyā-mṛgaṁ dayitayepsitam anvadhāvad
- vande mahā-puruṣa te caraṇāravindam
- (SB 11.5.34)
"We offer our respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of the Lord, upon whom one should always meditate. He left His householder life, leaving aside His eternal consort, whom even the denizens of heaven adore. He went into the forest to deliver the fallen souls, who are put into illusion by material energy."
"By performing the sacrifice of congregational chanting of the holy name, learned scholars in the Age of Kali worship Lord Kṛṣṇa, who is now nonblackish because of the great upsurge of the feelings of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. He is the only worshipable Deity for the paramahaṁsas, who have attained the highest stage of the fourth order (sannyāsa). May that Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Caitanya, show us His great causeless mercy."
"Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu is always the most worshipable Deity of the demigods, including Lord Śiva and Lord Brahmā, who came in the garb of ordinary men, bearing love for Him. He instructs His own pure devotional service to His own devotees. Will He again be the object of my vision?"
This verse is Prathama Śrī Caitanyāṣṭaka 1, from the Stava-mālā of Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī.
Therefore Rādhā is parama-devatā, the supreme goddess, and She is worshipable for everyone. She is the protectress of all, and She is the mother of the entire universe.
From the authoritative evidence cited by Jīva Gosvāmī we may conclude that Kṛṣṇaloka is the supreme planet in the spiritual sky, which is far beyond the material cosmos. For the enjoyment of transcendental variety, the pastimes of Kṛṣṇa there have three divisions, and these pastimes are performed in the three abodes Dvārakā, Mathurā and Gokula. When Kṛṣṇa descends to this universe, He enjoys the pastimes in places of the same name. These places on earth are nondifferent from those original abodes, for they are facsimiles of those original holy places in the transcendental world. They are as good as Śrī Kṛṣṇa Himself and are equally worshipable. Lord Caitanya declared that Lord Kṛṣṇa, who presents Himself as the son of the King of Vraja, is worshipable, and that Vṛndāvana-dhāma is equally worshipable.
Saṅkarṣaṇa, the second expansion, is Vāsudeva's personal expansion for pastimes, and since He is the reservoir of all living entities, He is sometimes called jīva. The beauty of Saṅkarṣaṇa is greater than that of innumerable full moons radiating light beams. He is worshipable as the principle of ego. He has invested Anantadeva with all the potencies of sustenance. For the dissolution of the creation, He also exhibits Himself as the Supersoul in Rudra, in Adharma (the personality of irreligion), in sarpa (snakes), in Antaka (Yamarāja, the lord of death) and in the demons.
Pradyumna, the third manifestation, appears from Saṅkarṣaṇa. Those who are especially intelligent worship this Pradyumna expansion of Saṅkarṣaṇa as the principle of the intelligence. The goddess of fortune always chants the glories of Pradyumna in the place known as Ilāvṛta-varṣa, and she always serves Him with great devotion. His complexion appears sometimes golden and sometimes bluish like new monsoon clouds in the sky. He is the origin of the creation of the material world, and He has invested His creative principle in Cupid. It is by His direction only that all men and demigods and other living entities function with energy for regeneration.
Śrī Advaita Ācārya is the prime spiritual master of the Vaiṣṇavas, and He is worshipable by all Vaiṣṇavas. Vaiṣṇavas must follow in the footsteps of Advaita Ācārya, for by so doing one can actually engage in the devotional service of the Lord.
Although Lord Baladeva appeared before the birth of Lord Kṛṣṇa and is therefore Kṛṣṇa's worshipable elder brother, He used to act as Kṛṣṇa's eternal servitor. In the spiritual sky all the Vaikuṇṭha planets are predominated by the quadruple expansions of Kṛṣṇa known as the catur-vyūha. They are direct expansions from Baladeva. It is the singularity of the Supreme Lord that everyone in the spiritual sky thinks himself a servitor of the Lord. According to social convention one may be superior to Kṛṣṇa, but factually everyone engages in His service. Therefore in the spiritual sky or the material sky, in all the different planets, no one is able to supersede Lord Kṛṣṇa or demand service from Him. On the contrary, everyone engages in the service of Lord Kṛṣṇa. As such, the more a person engages in the service of the Lord, the more he is important; and, conversely, the more one is bereft of the transcendental service of Kṛṣṇa, the more he invites the bad fortune of material contamination. In the material world, although materialists want to become one with God or compete with God, everyone directly or indirectly engages in the service of the Lord. The more one is forgetful of the service of Kṛṣṇa, the more he is considered to be dying. Therefore, when one develops pure Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he immediately develops his eternal servitorship to Kṛṣṇa.
Thus there are spiritual distinctions between them. The bhakta-rūpa (Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu), the bhakta-svarūpa (Śrī Nityānanda Prabhu) and the bhakta-avatāra (Śrī Advaita Prabhu) are described as the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself, His immediate manifestation and His plenary expansion, and They all belong to the Viṣṇu category. Although the spiritual and marginal energies of the Supreme Personality of Godhead are nondifferent from the Supreme Personality of Godhead Viṣṇu, they are predominated subjects, whereas Lord Viṣṇu is the predominator. As such, although they are on the same platform, they have appeared differently in order to facilitate tasting of transcendental mellows. Actually, however, there is no possibility of one being different from the other, for the worshiper and the worshipable cannot be separated at any stage. On the absolute platform, one cannot be understood without the other.
The three predominators (Caitanya Mahāprabhu, Nityānanda Prabhu and Advaita Prabhu) are worshipable by all living entities, and the fourth principle (Śrī Gadādhara Prabhu) is to be understood as Their worshiper.
In his Anubhāṣya, Śrī Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, describing the truth about the Pañca-tattva, explains that we should understand that Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu is the supreme predominator and that Nityānanda Prabhu and Advaita Prabhu are His subordinates but are also predominators. Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu is the Supreme Lord, and Nityānanda Prabhu and Advaita Prabhu are manifestations of the Supreme Lord. All of Them are viṣṇu-tattva, the Supreme, and are therefore worshipable by the living entities. Although the other two tattvas within the category of Pañca-tattva—namely, śakti-tattva and jīva-tattva, represented by Gadādhara and Śrīvāsa—are worshipers of the Supreme Lord, they are in the same category because they eternally engage in the transcendental loving service of the Lord.
One who thinks that there is a difference between Lord Viṣṇu's body and His soul dwells in the darkest region of ignorance. There is no difference between Lord Viṣṇu's body and Viṣṇu's soul, for they are advaya-jñāna, one knowledge. In this world there is a difference between the material body and the spiritual soul, but in the spiritual world everything is spiritual and there are no such differences. The greatest offense of the Māyāvādī philosophers is to consider Lord Viṣṇu and the living entities to be one and the same. In this connection the Padma Purāṇa states, arcye viṣṇau śilā-dhīr guruṣu nara-matir vaiṣṇave jāti-buddhiḥ … yasya vā nārakī saḥ: "One who considers the arcā-mūrti, the worshipable Deity of Lord Viṣṇu, to be stone, the spiritual master to be an ordinary human being, and a Vaiṣṇava to belong to a particular caste or creed is possessed of hellish intelligence." One who follows such conclusions is doomed.
The name of Lord Nityānanda is very famous in Bengal. Of course, anyone who knows Lord Nityānanda knows Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu also, but there are some misguided devotees who stress the importance of Lord Nityānanda more than that of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. This is not good. Nor should Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu be stressed more than Lord Nityānanda. The author of the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī, left his home because of his brother's stressing the importance of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu over that of Nityānanda Prabhu. Actually, one should offer respect to the Pañca-tattva without such foolish discrimination, not considering Nityānanda Prabhu to be greater, Caitanya Mahāprabhu to be greater or Advaita Prabhu to be greater. The respect should be offered equally: śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda. All devotees of Lord Caitanya or Nityānanda are worshipable persons.
Logicians say, "Unless one gains understanding through logic and argument, how can one decide upon a worshipable Deity?"
One day shortly after Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu was born, Advaita Ācārya's wife, Sītādevī, who is worshipable by the whole world, took her husband's permission and went to see that topmost child with all kinds of gifts and presentations
Replying to Keśava Kāśmīrī sarcastically, Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu indirectly minimized the value of his poetry by saying, "Yes, your compositions are so nice that no one but you and your worshipable mother, the goddess of learning, can understand them." Keśava Kāśmīrī was a favorite devotee of mother Sarasvatī, the goddess of learning, but Caitanya Mahāprabhu, as the master of the goddess of learning, has the right to speak sarcastically of her devotees. In other words, although Keśava Kāśmīrī was proud of being favored by the goddess of learning, he did not know that she is controlled by Caitanya Mahāprabhu Himself because He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
“You have achieved poetic imagination and ingenuity by the grace of your worshipable demigod. But poetry not well reviewed is certainly subject to criticism.
As Caitanya Mahāprabhu, Kṛṣṇa Himself assumed the position of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī to taste Her ecstatic situation. No one else could do this.
When Śrī Kṛṣṇa assumed the form of the four-armed Nārāyaṇa, the gopīs showed their respect, but they were not very interested in Him. In the ecstatic love of the gopīs, all worshipable forms but Kṛṣṇa are rejected. Among all the gopīs, Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī has the highest ecstatic love. When Kṛṣṇa in His form of Nārāyaṇa saw Rādhārāṇī, He could not keep His position as Nārāyaṇa, and again He assumed the form of Kṛṣṇa.
The King of Vrajabhūmi is Nanda Mahārāja, and the same person in Navadvīpa is Jagannātha Miśra, the father of Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Similarly, Mother Yaśodā is the Queen of Vrajabhūmi, and in the pastimes of Lord Caitanya she is Śacīmātā. Therefore the son of Śacī is the son of Yaśodā. Śrī Nityānanda occupies an ecstatic position of parental love in servitude and fraternal attraction. Śrī Advaita Prabhu exhibits the ecstasy of both fraternity and servitude. All the Lord's other associates, situated in their original love, engage in the service of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
| Page Title: | Worshipable (CC Adi-lila) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, RupaManjari |
| Created: | 16 of Nov, 2012 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=22, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=0, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 22 |