Gaura Purnima | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | Sri Sri Radha Gopinath Mandir, ISKCON Sydney | Fri, 14.03.25
[Part of the class is not recorded]
So, that’s another reason why he comes as Caitanya Mahaprabhu. And what is that type of happiness? What is the joy she experiences from seeing Krishna and serving him? That experience of ananda. What type of experience is it? We look in the Ujjvala Nilamani of Rupa Goswami, and there Radha’s love is considered to be the highest love of all because of the ananda, the bliss. And as a result of the bliss, she has all sorts of symptoms, which nobody else has. What is that experience of joy? So, he takes the role of Radha to experience that joy. So, this is the esoteric reason, why Caitanya Mahaprabhu appears as Krishna experiencing the mood of Radha. So, of course, there is other reasons like spreading nama sankirtan, etc. But the internal reason is this. So, that’s explained in the Caitanya Caritamrta. So, therefore, Krishna decides to take another form. And he takes birth, or he has his appearance in the womb of Sacimata. Like the moon appearing from the ocean. This way, Lord Caitanya makes his appearance in this material world.
Okay So, Caitanya Mahaprabhu appears in the material world, but he is actually Krishna.
He is non-different from Krishna. Krishna is called avatari, the source of all avatars. So, Caitanya Mahaprabhu is also called avatari. He is non-different. So, he is Krishna. At the same time, he has the mood of Radha. And therefore, he takes on the color of Radha. But actually, he is Krishna. So, internally, he is Krishna. Externally, he has got the complexion of Radha. So, it’s like a combination of Radha and Krishna. So, Gauranga is said to be a combination of Radha and Krishna, that’s a rather unique combination [Laughs]. We know that Krishna, of course, is the most merciful.
But how do we approach Krishna? Through Radha. We get the mercy of Radha, we can approach Krishna. So, we say ‘Hare’ to get Krishna, Hare Krishna [Laughs]. So, we call out Radha first to get Krishna. But, in the form of Gauranga, he is that combination so he is both. We have the mercy of Krishna and we have the mercy of Radha in Gauranga, a very, very special form. Okay so, they kind of merge we say the Tattva of Krishna and Radha merge into Caitanya Mahaprabhu. A very, very special form. And, he takes on the complexion of Radha as well as the sentiments of Radha.
Okay. Another thing about Caitanya Mahaprabhu is, he is covered avatar [Laughs]. So, this is in respect to scriptures. Because scriptures say that the Lord cannot appear in Kali Yuga. He is Tri Yuga. This is the name of the Supreme Lord. So, he doesn’t appear in Kali Yuga. But then we will protest and say, well, we have a Kali Yuga avatar to propagate Nama sankirtana one thousand times in a day of Brahma. What about that? [Laughs] So, then it’s explained that the Kali Yuga avatar is a Shaktiavesha avatar. So, it’s not really Vishnu form or whatever. So, it’s still Tri Yuga [Laughs]. So, the full avatars appear in Tri Yugas and Shaktiavesha avatar in Kali Yuga. So, that’s the normal case. But, Lord Caitanya is not a Shaktiavesha avatar. He is not even an avatar. He is avatari. He is like Krishna. So, very, very special.
Still, he has to obey this idea of being Tri Yuga. So, what does he do? He also covers up himself and he doesn’t act like God at all. He acts like a devotee of God. So, we call him Bhakta avatar. He is avatar of the Lord or avatari actually. But, avatar also. Then, he covers that up and says, I am a devotee of the Lord rather than proclaiming himself as the Lord. So, that is to fulfill the idea that in Kali Yuga, the Lord comes in a ‘Channa’ form. So, that’s mentioned actually here, ‘Channa Kalau’. In Kali Yuga, he comes in a covered form. And therefore, he is called Tri Yuga.
So, Lord Caitanya acts as a devotee. And, we see that in many of his pastimes. Of course, we know that Lord Caitanya sometimes does reveal himself as universal form or whatever like Krishna, Narasimhadev, Sadbhuj, whatever. But, this is all very private. He doesn’t do anything public like that. So, it’s rather secret. It’s always very secret. Normally, he is just acting as a devotee of the Lord.
So, in the 10th Canto of Bhagavatam, when Garga Acharya comes and he gives names to Krishna and Balarama. Very interestingly, he begins to describe the nature of Krishna, but in a rather indirect way, because he doesn’t want to reveal that Krishna is actually the Supreme Lord and that actually Krishna was taken from the prison house and he was the son of Vasudeva and Devaki and taken to the house of Nanda Maharaj [Laughs] because Nanda Maharaj thinks that Krishna is my son. So, he doesn’t kind of really say Krishna is Bhagavan in one sense. But, at the same time, yes, this child has appeared in other yugas in different colors, white, red, and he will appear in yellow form. But, now he is appearing in the black form, Krishna gata [Laughs]. So, there, we see that Gargamuni is telling that Kali Yuga form will be pita, golden, not black, as the usual form. So, this is an indication also of Caitanya Prabhu, special form for our particular Kali Yuga.
So, and of course we have, in 11th Canto of Bhagavatam, I was talking about ‘Krishna-varnam tvisha akrishna’. ‘Tvisha’ means complexion. ‘Akrishna’ means not black, golden, or white, pale in complexion. But, he is ‘Krishna-Varnam’, which means, of course, it could be Krishna color. Color is black. But, it’s a contradiction, because it’s ‘Akrishna’ [Laughs]. So, therefore, it means he’s in the class of Krishna, ‘Varna’ of Krishna. We have Varnas, Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Sudra, classes. So, we have, he is in the class of Krishna. Non different from Svayam Bhagavan Krishna, Avatari. But, he is ‘Akrishna’. He is different color, different complexion. So, therefore, in this verse as well, we see that, like Garga Muni is saying, Kaliyuga Avatar will be Pitta, or yellow. So, we find here in Bhagavatam, again, 11th Canto, he is ‘Akrishna’. He is golden in color, not black.
So, I’ve explained, and of course, Caitanya Caritamrta explains that, Caitanya Mahaprabhu is Krishna, but has the mood of Radha, and he has this golden complexion. Because that is also the color of Radha, and it takes up the mood of Radha. At the same time, he does fulfill the role of the Avatar. And, he propagates Nama Sankirtan.
But, the other forms 999 forms, they also propagate Nama Sankirtan. What is the difference? One difference, of course, is that, Caitanya Mahaprabhu propagates the name of Krishna. So, it’s not this Nama Sankirtan, it’s Krishna Nama Sankirtan [Laughs]. Very special. Why? Because, he is appearing after Krishna has appeared. Krishna appears at the end of Dwapara Yuga. Caitanya Mahaprabhu appears at the beginning of Kaliyuga. So, therefore, he is inspired by the appearance of Krishna, and he propagates Krishna’s name. So, Krishna only appears once in the day of Brahma. In all the other Dwapara Yugas, it’s a different form. It’s not Krishna [Laughs]. It’s not Svayam Bhagavan Krishna. So, this is a special form, and then, of course, Krishna appears as Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and propagates, as a human devotee, Krishna’s name, Krishna Nama Sankirtan.
But, we have another speciality, because, of course, Lord Caitanya comes to the material world, he has the mood of Radharani, but he also, and he wants to experience the mood of Radha, etc. But also, he is considered to be the most merciful, or Audarya. And, what is his mercy? He wants to give love of Radha-Krishna to the fallen people of Kaliyuga [Laughs]. So, that’s his special mission. Not just Krishna, he wants to give Radha-Krishna, which is natural, because he has the mood of Radha himself, as Caitanya Mahaprabhu. And, of course, because Gauranga is in one sense, more merciful, because he is combination of Radha and Krishna, therefore, he wants to give this to the people of Kaliyuga, who are very unqualified. So, he does this through the Yuga Dharma. How to give love of Radha-Krishna to the people of Kaliyuga? Through the Yuga Dharma. So, therefore, he gives the name of Krishna, but he also gives the name of Radha. So, therefore, we have ‘Hare’, ‘Radhe’ [Laughs]. So, we are calling out to Radha and Krishna. So, in this way, Lord Caitanya gives mercy to the people of Kaliyuga. He connects them with Radha and Krishna, not just Krishna. So, very, very special.
So, every day, we chant the Pancha-Tattva Mantra [Laughs]. And, in Caitanya-caritamrta, this Pancha-Tattva is also explained in the first part of the work. So, we have Caitanya Mahaprabhu, but He is not alone. Of course, that’s natural, because when the Lord comes, the Lord never comes alone. When Krishna comes, He comes with all of His associates, Mother, father, gopis, gopas, etc. So, Caitanya Mahaprabhu is non-different from Krishna. So, naturally, He also appears with all of His devotees. So, we have special devotees. There are thousands and thousands of devotees of Caitanya Mahaprabhu when He appeared, but we have special devotees. So, around Lord Caitanya, we have these other four, to make a total of five personalities.
And, of course, we have our Mantra,
pañca-tattvātmakaṁ kṛṣṇaṁ
bhakta-rūpa-svarūpakam
bhaktāvatāraṁ bhaktākhyaṁ
namāmi bhakta-śaktikam.
So, this describes the nature of these five persons. Who are they? But, we will see, they are all Bhaktas. Bhakta-Rupa, Bhakta-Svarupa, Bhakta-avatara, Bhakta [Laughs], Bhakta-Shakti. They are all forms of devotees, because Caitanya Mahaprabhu is Krishna as a devotee, so all the other forms take the form of devotees also. They are all Bhaktas. So, we have Caitanya Mahaprabhu, non-different from Krishna, Svayam Bhagavan, He is Avatari, but He takes the form of a devotee. And, we have, of course, we have His Shakti. Radharani is the Shakti of Krishna. So, in another form, this Shakti-Tatva becomes Gadadhar Pandit. Krishna expands Himself in different ways. One expansion, of course, are expansions of what we call Sva amsa, forms who are non-different from Him, because they are also Supreme Lord, like Balarama and we have Vishnu forms in the spiritual world.
So, the first form, the first expansion from Krishna is Balarama. And then, Balarama expands into Sankarsana and other forms. So, the first expansion is Balarama in the spiritual world.
And, we have Nithyananda, who is non-different from Balarama. So, that is, we call the Swarupa. Non-different from Krishna is the Swarupa, Balarama. So, the same we have Bhakta Swarupa, that is Nithyananda Prabhu. And, then we get other expansions. .
So, in the spiritual world, we have Krishna, Balarama, and we have Vishnu forms, like Sankarsana, etc. And, one form of Sankarsana called Maha Sankarsana, or Maha Vishnu, He is the one who manifests all the material worlds and injects all the demons into the material world. So, this is the Purusha Avatar, first Purusha Avatar. And, that Purusha Avatar becomes Advaitacharya. So, He is non-different from Maha Vishnu. So, He is the Avatar. So, He is called Bhakta Avatar. So, in this way, we have four entities. Fifth entity is the devotee of the Lord. We have many devotees of the Lord.
But, among the devotees, we have, of course, regular Jivas. We also have special Jivas, they are called Saktiavesha avatars. So, they are eternally endowed with the Lord’s power of some sort. So, Narada Muni is very special because he has the power of Bhakti. But, he is a Jiva. But, he is eternally, he has got the special power to propagate Bhakti in all the different universes, expand himself in all the universes at all times and propagate Bhakti and Kirtan.
So, a special Jiva. So, this becomes Srivasa Pandit. He is a special Jiva, a devotee of the Lord, propagating Bhakti and Nama-kirtan. So, these are the members of the Pancha-tattva.
So, the Supreme Lord comes into the material world, comes with his associates. Why does he need associates? Because the Lord’s essence is Rasa. And, Rasa gives rise to bliss. So, the Lord always has to express his bliss. The Lord does this through his associates. So, Krishna comes with his associates. And, he has various pastimes and manifests bliss and gives bliss. So, that bliss is expressed through the different Rasas, different relationships.
So, of course, Krishna has a relationship with Balaram. It’s a friendly relationship, Sakhya. So, that relationship is also there with Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Nithyananda Prabhu. So, they have Sakhya Rasa. And, if you read Caitanya-caritamrta, you will see that Nithyananda and Lord Caitanya have many different pastimes in which they act in a very friendly manner, a very joking manner. Just like in Vraja and the spiritual world, Krishna jokes with the cowherd boys and they eat together in the forest. And, they’re exchanging food and joking all the time. So, this was the mood of Caitanya and Nityananda. Often, they joke together in a Sakhya Rasa mood.
If you read the story of Panihati there, you’ll see, of course, Lord Caitanya was not personally present. But, Lord Nithyananda called him in the mind. And then, he was talking to him and feeding him and joking with him [Laughs] during the Panihati festival and feeding him various types of food. So, this is an example of the relationship of Lord Caitanya with Nithyananda Prabhu. One of Sakhya Rasa. Just as cowherd boys in Vrindavan have picnics. So, Nithyananda had picnic with Lord Caitanya in Panihati [Laughs].
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So, Advaita Acarya has a very special role to play. Actually, he was present when Lord Caitanya was born. He and Haridas Thakur understood the appearance of Lord Caitanya during the lunar eclipse. They were very, very eager and they celebrated because they understood that the Lord had appeared. So, Advaita Acarya is said to be the cause of the appearance of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. So, it’s described that he took Tulsi leaves [Laughs] and Ganga water and he worshipped Saligram Sila and he was praying for the Lord to appear to deliver the people of Kali Yuga like this. So, therefore, he is the direct cause of the appearance of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He called him, you must come to the material world now [Laughs]. So, he was the direct cause. Of course, we have other causes, but this was the direct cause. So, he is the cause of calling Caitanya Mahaprabhu to the material world. He is identified with Mahavishnu.
And who is Mahavishnu? He is the one who manifests and creates all the universes. He injects all the Jivas into the universes. And through him we get expansion of the avatars into the universe. So, he is the cause of mercy to the Jivas by spreading the avatars within the universe. So, just as Mahavishnu is the cause of the avatars, so, Advaita Acarya is the cause of Krishna coming by calling him out, telling him to come into the material world.
So, Gadadhar Pandit is Shakti of the Lord. That is Hladini Shakti, non-different from Radha. So, Hladini Shakti is the best part of the internal energy and very closely related to Supreme Lord Himself because Ananda is the main quality of the Supreme Lord. So, therefore, Hladini Shakti is always with Supreme Lord. So, Lord Caitanya is there and Gadadhar Pandit is the Shakti Tattva.
However, Lord Caitanya is hidden. He doesn’t show himself as Krishna with a peacock feather and flute [Laughs], doesn’t pretend to be Krishna. He acts as a devotee. And Gadadhar Pandit does not act like Radharani. Also acts as a devotee. So, though we say there is Madhurya Rasa between Gadadhar and Caitanya Mahaprabhu, it’s not explicit.
So, we don’t see a relationship like that. But we have great affection between them. Such that Gadadhar Pandit went to Puri and stayed with Lord Caitanya for the rest of his life there. He never left Puri. So, very, very close connection. We do have a few deities at that time made of Gaura-Gadadhar, which are still present. And in the yoga pita also we see there is Gaura-Gadadhar deity. So, that represents Radha and Krishna, but in a different form. Both of them are devotees.
And, as I said, Srivasa Pandit is Narada Muni, Shaktiavesha Avatar, who propagates bhakti. So, he is the devotee. Of course, we say that Radharani is also a devotee, but Narada Muni is a jiva, who is a devotee of the Lord. So, his special power, his Shaktiavesha is bhakti, spreading bhakti. So, this is what Srivasa Pandit does. He spreads bhakti to all the people.
How does he do that? If we see in Caitanya Caritamrita, when Caitanya Mahaprabhu began the Sankirtana movement, after he went to Gaya and got Diksha, and he came back, he was suddenly chanting the name of the Lord in Sankirtana. He did that in Srivasa Pandit’s house. So, every night, all the devotees would gather in Srivasa Pandit’s house. They would lock the doors outside, so no one could come in. And all night, they would be doing kirtan. So, in this way, Srivasa Pandit was encouraging the Sankirtana movement from its very beginning stages. So, his house was the origin of the Sankirtana movement. If you go to Srivasa Pandit’s place now, you can see the deities are there, the dancing forms of the Lord Srivasa Pandit and all the other devotees there.
At one time, in Srivasa Pandit’s place, the Lord sat on the throne of Vishnu, and then all the devotees began to worship him. And then they understood, ah, Supreme Lord. But this was all closed, people could not see. So, he did reveal himself as the Lord, and they all worshipped Caitanya Mahaprabhu as Supreme Lord, but nobody could see that.
So, that’s also there. If you go to the yoga pit around that area, you’ll see this, at Srivasa Angana, you’ll see the forms there of Caitanya Mahaprabhu sitting on the throne and being worshipped. And that’s also represented in our Aarti song [Laughs]. So, in our Aarti song, we’re saying, on the one side, the right side is Nithyananda, the left side is Gadadhara, and nearby is Advaitacharya, and Srivasa is holding the umbrella. So, that’s what you see there. That’s Srivasa Angana.
So, besides, we have the Lord Caitanya and the four other members who were very, very important. They became, of course, leaders of preaching groups in Bengal, and they spread out from there. So, Nithyananda was a great preacher, Advaitacharya, Srivasa Pandit were all preaching. But there were other associates also. We have associates in Navadvipa, we have associates in Puri, we have associates in Vrindavan. So, Lord Caitanya had a whole group of devotees doing different things.
And they also are identified with persons, or devotees in Krishna’s lila, because Lord Caitanya is nondifferent from Krishna, Nithyananda is nondifferent from Balarama. So, then we have other persons also. So, we have Nanda and Yasoda, etc., parents, etc., and we have Krishna as the child. So, similarly, we’ll have Jagannath Misra and Sacimata as the parents. And, of course, the grandparents are also there, Upendra Misra and Kamalavati. And then Caitanya Mahaprabhu is the child. So, they’re in Vatsalya Rasa, Jagannath Misra and Sacimata, just like Nanda and Yasoda.
So, Vasudeva and Rohini gave birth to Balarama. So, Nithyananda and his parents, Hadai Pandita and Padmavati, who were identified in the same way as the parents of like parents of Balarama [Laughs]. We have Radha and her parents, Vrsabhanu and Kirtida. So, we’ve got Gadadhar Pandita, and it’s not parent in this case, but the guru, Pundarika Vidyanidhi, is considered to be like the parent [Laughs], and his wife, Ratnavati. So, they’re like Vrishabhanu and Kirtida to Gadadhar.
So, Krishna didn’t stay in Vrindavan. He went to Mathura, then he went to the Gurukul, and he was taught by Sandipani Muni [Laughs]. So, Sandipani Muni is identified with Kesava Bharati, who gave sannyasa mantra to Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Garga Muni gave the name to Krishna and Balarama. So, Nilambar Chakravarti is considered to be like Garga Muni, and his place is still there in Belpakur, which is near Mayapur.
So, in Vaikuntha, Vishnu has Lakshmi as the wife, but also Bhudevi. So, two wives are there. So, you’ll see at the yoga pit, there’s a form of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and there’s Vishnupriya and Lakshmipriya [Laughs]. So, they’re like Shri and Bhu Lakshmi. So, this is at the yoga pita. You’ll see this. And, of course, they call this form as Gaura Narayan, because it’s more like Vaikuntha form [Laughs].
So, Balarama married Revati and Varuni. Nithyananda married Jahnava and Vasudha. So, Vasudha and Jahnava are equated with Revati and Varuni, the wives of Balarama. So, Narada Muni is there, and he has a friend Parvata Muni. So, Srivas pandita is there, and his brother was Sri Ram Pandit, who is like Parvata Muni, assisting him.
Of course, we have other persons who are actually not in Krishna Lila, that is Hanuman [Laughs]. He is in Ram Lila. But in Lord Caitanya ‘s movement, we have Murari Gupta, who was a great devotee of Ramachandra. As such that, Lord Caitanya told him that I can’t do that. I have to worship Rama. So, staunch devotee of Rama. So, somehow, Hanuman ends up in Lord Caitanya ‘s Lila [Laughs], so.
Hari Das Thakur is identified with Prahlada, because similarly, just as Prahlada was harassed by all the demons, etc. So, Hari Das Thakur was attacked by the Muslims and harassed by many people, etc. And also with a personality called Mahata Brahma.
Okay So, we have in Vrindavan, we have some famous cowherd boys who are all in Sakhya Rasa. So, in Lord Caitanya ‘s pastimes, we have 12 devotees who were in Sakhya Rasa, particularly with Nithyananda Prabhu, because Nithyananda has a Sakhya Rasa with Lord Caitanya, and then he gathered some followers. So, they are like the cowherd boys of Vrindavan, 12 cowherd boys. So, in this way, Nithyananda had all these different devotees in Sakhya Rasa. That mood of Sakhya, of course, is not so much present in Gaudiya Sampradaya now. We have more the Madhurya Rasa and Manjari Bhava, etc. But for a while, the descendants from these Gopals, 12 Gopals, associate of Nityananda, they did have some Raghanuga Sakhya rasa also [Laughs].
So, we have Vedavyasa. At Krishna’s time, we have Vrindavan Das Thakur who wrote Caitanya Bhagavata. So, he is considered to be like Vedavyasa. We have Brihaspati, the priest of the Devatas, and he became Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya and lived in Puri. We have Ramananda Roy. He is a complex character, and he is a combination of Arjuna, Arjuna Gopa, who is a cowherd boy in Vrindavan, also Lalita, and a Gopi called Arjuniya Gopi [Laughs]. So, he is a combination of four personalities. We have the Astasakhis in Krishna’s pastimes, and we have the Manjaris in Vrindavan, the Goswamis. So, of course, the Gopis are largely persons from Puri, and Manjaris are those in Vrindavan who stayed at some distance from Caitanya. So, in this way, we have all sorts of associates of Caitanya Mahaprabhu who are actually identical with the associates of Krishna in Vrindavan. OK.
So, we have many different forms to worship. Many people worship Devatas, and people worship Vishnu, but at the top we have Narasimha, Rama, and then finally Krishna. He is considered to be Svayam bhagavan. He manifests all the qualities of all the Rasas in full. So, by worshiping Krishna, we get the topmost Rasa. We have all sorts of Rasas with Krishna. We have Dasya, Sakhya, Vatsalya, and we have Madhurya. But at the top of Madhurya, we get Radha and Krishna, the ultimate combination that produces Madhurya Rasa. So, they are the topmost.
And they combine in Caitanya Mahaprabhu. So, Caitanya Mahaprabhu is the essence of bliss in the spiritual world. And how does he communicate it through? Nama Sankirtan.
So, this is the simple process for people of Kali Yuga to get the highest Rasa in the spiritual world. So, Lord Caitanya has spread Hare Krishna maha mantra. Hare represents calling out to Radha. We call out to Krishna. We call out to Rama. It’s not Ramachandra. It’s also Krishna, one who gives enjoyment to Radha. And what do we call for? Not for material things. Not for liberation. Engagement in Krishna’s service. That’s the pure bhakti that is presented.
Okay, Hare Krishna.
No Q & A