TLC 17 (1968)
PART II
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Lord Chaitanya, The Original Personality of Godhead
Following in the footsteps of Kaviraj Krishnadas Goswami, we may offer our respectful obeisances unto the Lotus Feet of Lord Chaitanya.
He is described as follows: Lord Chaitanya is the only shelter for the forlorn, or the most fallen, and He is the only hope for persons who are completely devoid of spiritual knowledge. Let us try to discuss His great contribution of devotional service.
The Supremely Powerful Lord Krishna becomes manifest in five different potentialities. Although He is One without any second, still, for serving five different specific spiritual purposes, He is manifested in five. Such diversity is eternal and blissful, as opposed to the conception of montonous oneness. From the version of Vedic literature, we can understand that the Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, eternally exists with His diverse energies. Lord Chaitanya appeared with full diverse energies, and they are five in number; and, therefore, He is said to be Krishna with diverse energies, presented as Lord Chaitanya.
As there is no difference between the energy and the energetic, so it is in the Lord's appearance as Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and His four Associates, Nityananda Prabhu, Adwaita Prabhu, Gadadhara, and Srivas. Among these five diverse manifestations of the Supreme Lord as incarnation, expansion and energies there is no spiritual difference. They are five in One Absolute Truth. For relishing transcendental flavors in the Absolute Truth they are five diverse manifestations, and they are called the Form of a devotee, the identity of a devotee, and pure devotional service personified.
Out of these five diversities of the Absolute Truth, the Form of Lord Chaitanya is the Original Personality of Godhead, Krishna. The identity of Krishna as Lord Nityananda is as the manifestation of the first expansion of the Supreme Lord. And, similarly, Adwaita Prabhu is an incarnation of the Supreme Lord. All these three belong to the category of Vishnu Tattwa, or the Supreme Absolute Truth. Srivas is the representation of a pure devotee, and Gadadhara is the representation of the internal energy of the Lord for advancement in the cause of pure devotion. Therefore Gadadhara and Srivas, although within the category of Vishnu, are diverse energies of the Supreme Lord. In other words, they are not different from the energetic, but, still, for relishing transcendental relationships, they are manifested diversely. The whole process of devotional service is transcendental reciprocation of the flavors of relationship between the worshipped and the worshipper. Without such a diverse exchange of transcendental flavors, devotional service has no meaning.
In the Vedic literature (Katho Upanishad) there is a verse which says that the Supreme Lord is the Supreme Living Entity amongst all living entities. There are innumerable living entities, but there is One Living Entity Who is the Supreme Absolute Godhead. The difference between that Singular Living Entity and the plural number of living entities is that the Singular Living Entity is the Lord of all. Lord Chaitanya is that Supreme Living Entity, Who descended Himself for claiming the fallen innumerable living entities. In other words, the specific purpose of Lord Chaitanya's advent in recent ages was to establish the Vedic fact that there is One Supreme Personality of Godhead predominating over, or maintaining, the numerous personalities of living entities. The Mayavadi, impersonalist, philosophers cannot understand this, and therefore Lord Chaitanya advented Himself, to convince the people in general about the real nature of the relationship between the Supreme and the many entities.
In the Bhagavad Gita, the last instruction of Lord Krishna is that everyone should give up all other engagements and should engage in the devotional service of the Lord. But after His disappearance, persons with less intelligence misunderstood Him. They became contaminated with the Mayavadi philosophy, which produced so many mental speculators that people became misled about the actual position of the Absolute Truth and the living entity. Lord Chaitanya, therefore, although the Supreme Lord Krishna Himself, again appeared to teach the fallen souls of this material world how to approach Lord Krishna. The philosophy of Bhagavad Gita is that one should give up everything and be done with this world of material attachment. A pure devotee of Lord Krishna and one who follows the philosophy of Lord Chaitanya are the same. Chaitanya's philosophy is: one should give up everything and worship God, Krishna. The difference is that Krishna, as the Supreme Lord, the personality of Godhead, spoke the same words indicating Himself, and the Mayavadi philosophers misunderstood Him. Therefore, Lord Chaitanya indicated the same thing: one should not declare himself to be as good as Krishna, but should worship Krishna as the Supreme Lord.
It is a great mistake if we accept Lord Chaitanya as one of the conditioned souls; He is to be understood as the Supreme Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead, Sri Krishna Himself, In the Chaitanya Charitamrita, therefore, it is said of Lord Chaitanya: "Krishna is now present in His five diverse manifestations," as is being explained here. Unless one is in uncontaminated goodness, it is very difficult to understand Lord Chaitanya as the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself. Therefore, to understand Lord Chaitanya one has to follow the direct disciples of Lord Chaitanya, the six Goswamis, and especially the path chalked out by Srila Jiva Goswami.
The most astonishing factor is that Lord Chaitanya, although the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, never exhibited Himself as Krishna. Rather, whenever He was detected by intelligent devotees as Lord Krishna, and addressed as Lord Krishna, He denied it, and sometimes He closed His ears, protesting that one should not be addressed as the Supreme Lord. This was His indirect teaching to the Mayavadi philosophers: that one should never pose oneself as the Supreme Lord falsely, and thereby misdirect the followers. The followers also should not be foolish enough to accept anyone and everyone as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, without testing with the Scriptures and by activities. One should not, however, mistake Lord Chaitanya with His five diverse manifestations as ordinary human beings. He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna Himself. The beauty of Lord Chaitanya is that, although He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself, He Himself as a great devotee is teaching all the conditioned souls how devotional service should be conducted. The conditioned souls who are interested in devotional service should follow, therefore in the exemplary footsteps of Lord Chaitanya, to learn how Krishna can be achieved by devotional service. In other words, the Supreme Lord Himself teaches the conditioned soul how He should be approached by devotional service.
By analytical study of the five diverse manifestations of the Supreme Lord we can know that Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the Supreme Absolute, and that Lord Nityananda is an immediate expansion of the Supreme Absolute Truth. We can understand that Adwaita Prabhu is also in the category of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but he is the subordinate to Lord Chaitanya and Nityananda Prabhu. The Supreme Personality of Godhead and His immediate subordinate expansions are all worshippable by the other two, namely, the internal potential representation, and the marginal potential representation.
The internal potential representation, Gadadhara, represents the pure devotee, and the marginal potential representation is a confidential devotee. Both these categories are worshippers of the other three categories, but all of them—the two worshippable categories and the two in the worshipper category—are engaged in the transcendental loving service of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
There is a specific difference between the pure devotee and the confidential devotee. Different potencies of the Lord are engaged in serving the Supreme Lord in different transcendental relationships. They are situated in conjugal love, in parental affection, in friendly affinity and in obedient servitude. By impartial judgement, it is found that the internal potencies of the Supreme Lord, engaged in conjugal love with Him, are the best of all devotees. As such, both internal devotees and confidential devotees are attracted by the conjugal love of the Supreme Absolute Truth, and are the most confidential devotees of Lord Chaitanya. Other pure devotees, who are more or less attached to Sri Nityananda Prabhu and to Adwaita Prabhu, are attracted by other transcendental relationships, such as parental affection, friendly affinity and obedient servitude. When such devotees are very much attached to the activities of Lord Chaitanya, at once they become confidential devotees in conjugal love with the Supreme Lord.
There is a very nice song sung by a great devotee and Acharya in the disciplic succession from Lord Chaitanya. His name is Sri Thakur Narottamdas. Sri Thakur says as follows: "When will there be a transcendental vibration all over my body simply by attending to the Name of Gauranga? When will there be incessant flowing of my tears simply by uttering Harer Nama of the Lord? When will Lord Nityananda be merciful upon me, and all my desires for material enjoyment become insignificant? When shall I be purified by giving up all contaminations of material enjoyment; and when shall I be able to see the transcendental Abode, Vrindaban? When shall I be eager to accept the six Goswamis as my prime guidance? And when shall I be able to understand the conjugal love of Krishna?" In other words, nobody should be eager to understand the conjugal love of Krishna without undergoing disciplinary training under the six Goswamis of Vrindaban.
The Samkirtan movement inaugurated by Lord Chaitanya is a transcendental Pastime of the Lord: "So that I may live simultaneously to preach and popularize this movement in the material world." And in that Samkirtan movement of Lord Chaitanya, Nityananda and Adwaita are His expansions, and Gadadhara and Srivas are His internal and marginal potencies.
The living entities are called marginal potency because they have, potentially, both attitudes, namely the tendency to surrender unto Krishna, and the tendency for becoming independent of the Supreme Lord, and being contaminated by the material world through the propensity for material enjoyment. When a living entity is predominated over by the desire for material enjoyment and becomes entangled in material contamination, at that time he is subjected to the three-fold miseries of material existence. There is a very nice example in this connection. It is just like a seed sewn in the earth. If it is overpowered by too much water, there is no possibility of the seed being fructified. Similarly, even if a man is captivated by material enjoyment, and even if the seed of such enjoyment is within the heart of the conditioned soul but he is overwhelmed, over powered by a flood of transcendental activities in love of God, then his potential seed cannot fructify into a conditional life of material existence. The conditional living entities in the material world, especially at the present age of Kali, are being overpowered by the flood of love of God inaugurated by Lord Chaitanya and His Associates.
There is a nice verse in this connection, written by His Holiness Prabodhananda Saraswati in his book Sri Chaitanya Chandramrita. In that verse it is stated that materialistic persons are very enthusiastic in the matter of maintaining their family members, wife and children; and there are many mystic speculators who are engaged in speculating on being liberated from the miseries of material life, and therefore they undergo various kinds of austerities and penances. But persons who have discovered the greatest transcendental flavor, in the movement of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, no longer have any taste for all those activities.
Persons who are under the impression that, in the Form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and in the matter of His devotional service, there is material contamination, are called Mayavadi. According to their imperfect speculation, the impersonal Brahman is considered the only existence of the cosmic manifestation. As soon as there is a conception of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, they consider that it is in contact with Maya, or the external material energy. Similarly, such persons consider all incarnations of the Supreme Lord to be contaminated by this material Nature. According to them, this material body of the living entity, and the action of matter on all the different kinds of identifications of the living entity, are called material manifestation. According to them, liberation means that there is no longer any individual identification, or pure living entity. In other words, a living entity, when he is liberated, becomes One with the Supreme Impersonal Brahman.
According to Mayavadi philosophy it is understood that, in the Personality of Godhead, in the Abode of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and in the matter of devotional service, the emotional devotees are all under the spell of Maya, and are therefore subjected to the material condition. Persons who forget the transcendental nature of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, His transcendental Abode and devotional service, as well as the devotee, consider that these are different examples of material activity. Such persons are called Karmis, or actors in fruitive activities. When one thinks that there is a possibility of arguing about transcendence, he is called agnostic. And when one thinks that there is the possibility to criticize transcendence, he is called atheist. Lord Chaitanya wanted to accept all these different kinds of agnostics, atheists, skeptics, and unfaithfuls, and swallow them in the flood of love of God. Therefore, He accepted the four orders of life—and He accepted the renounced order of life, in order to attract all these forces.
Lord Chaitanya remained a householder until twenty-four only, and in the twenty-fifth year of His life, He accepted the renounced order. After accepting the renounced order, He attracted many other renounced order Sannyasis. During the time that He had been executing the Samkirtan movement in His family, many Mayavadi Sannyasis did not take His movement very seriously. Similarly, the speculative students, atheists, and those who are attached to fruitive activities and unnecessary criticism were also delivered by the Lord after He accepted the Sannyasi order of life. The Lord was so kind that He accepted all of them, and delivered to them the most important factor of life: love of God.
To fulfill the mission of the Lord, bestowing love of God upon the conditioned souls, He devised many methods to accept all those disinterested in the matter of love of God. After He accepted the renounced order, all agnostics and critics, atheists and mental speculators became the students and followers of Lord Chaitanya. Even many of those who were not Hindus or the followers of the Vedic principles of life also accepted Lord Chaitanya as the Supreme Teacher.
Those Sannyasis who were known as the Mayavadi philosophers of Benares were the only persons who avoided the mercy of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. The plight of the Mayavadi philosophers is described as follows by Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami: "The Mayavadi philosophers of Benares are less intelligent because they want to measure everything by direct perception. But everything they have is a calculation of material perception. The Absolute Truth is transcendence, but according to them there is no variegatedness in transcendence, because they say that anything which is full of variegatedness is Maya."
During Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's time there were other philosophers, known as the Mayavadi philosophers of Sarnatha. Sarnatha is a place near Benares where Buddhist philosophers were residing, and even today there are many Stupas of the Buddhist Mayavadi. The Mayavadi philosophers of Sarnatha are different from the impersonalists who believe in the impersonal manifestation of Brahman. According to the Sarnatha philosophers there is no spiritual existence. Spiritually, both the Mayavadi philosophers of Benares and the philosophers of Sarnatha are entrapped by the material Nature. None of them actually knows the nature of the Absolute Transcendence. The philosophers of Benares, although accepting the Vedic principles superficially and accepting themselves as transcendentalists, do not agree to accept spiritual variegatedness. They have no information about devotional service, and therefore they are called "non-devotees," or against the devotional service of Lord Krishna.
The impersonalists speculate on the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His devotees, subjected to the direct perception of knowledge. The Lord and His devotee and His devotional service, however, are not subject to direct perception. In other words, spiritual variegatedness is unknown to the Mayavadi philosophy, and therefore all the Mayavadi philosophers and Sannyasis began to criticize Him because He was conducting the Samkirtan movement. They were surprised to see Lord Chaitanya, because He belonged to the Mayavadi sect of Sannyasis, having accepted His Sannyasa order from Keshav Bharati, who belonged to the Mayavadi school. They were surprised to see Him engaged in chanting and dancing, and not engaged in the matter of hearing or reading Vedanta, as is the custom. The Mayavadi philosophers are very fond of Vedanta, and misinterpret it in their own way. The Mayavadi Sannyasis, instead of understanding their own position, began to critize Lord Chaitanya as an unauthorized Sannyasi. They criticized that He was sentimental and not actually a bona fide Sannyasi. All these criticisms were carried to Lord Chaitanya when He was at Benares, and He was not at all surprised. He smiled when the news was carried to Him. He, however, did not associate with the Mayavadi Sannyasis, but used to remain alone and execute His own mission. And after staying for some days in Benares, He started for Mathura.