Nityanada Triyodasi | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | Feb 11 2025 | Chennai, India
Today is the appearance day of Nithyananda Prabhu. In the Caitanya Charitamrita, Nithyananda is very famous. Of course, in India in general, people don’t know so much about Lord Chaitanya and also they don’t know about Nithyananda Prabhu. Some people may know about Caitanya Mahaprabhu, but still they don’t know about Nithyananda, but if we study the biographies of Lord Chaitanya and the works written by Lord Chaitanya’s followers, we see that Nithyananda is very prominent.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is identified as Krishna himself. Krishna is not an avatar, he is avatari – the source of all avatars and similarly, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, being not different from Krishna, he is also not an avatar, he is also avatari. Of course, normally and even in Bhagavatam, Krishna is called avatar and similarly we say, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the avatar for Kali Yuga, that is because avatar also simply means one who appears and descends from the spiritual world.
However, so many forms descend from the spiritual world, and they are in one sense not different, they are all Bhagavan. Nevertheless, the purpose of Bhagavatam is to show that though there are many forms of the Lord that appear in the material world, Krishna is special. So, in the first canto of Bhagavatam, Krishna is among all the avatars-he has said, Bhagavan svayam. So that is one way of distinguishing Krishna from everywhere else, the other way is to say he is avatari. So, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is not a regular avatar, he is not different from Krishna. So, he is avatari, source of all the avatars.
So, though Krishna is avatari and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is avatari, they never appear alone. So, Krishna appears along with all of his associates. So, Krishna has Nanda and Yashoda, cowherd boys and Balarama. Similarly, Lord Chaitanya appears with his associates. So, he also appears with cowherd boys and Balarama, but, like Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, they don’t look like cowherd boys of Vrindavan, they look different.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is Krishna, but he appears as a devotee of Krishna. So, similarly, Balarama and all the cowherd boys appear as devotees of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So, in this way, Nityananda is identified as the brother of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, just as Balarama is the brother of Krishna and Balarama also is another form of the Lord and similarly, Nityananda is another form of the Lord.
So Balarama is another form of the Lord, he plays a huge role in the pastimes of Chaitanya. Balarama is the assistant of Krishna and similarly, Nityananda is the assistant of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So, in Vrindavan, Balarama assists Krishna in doing what? In herding the calves and the cows. But Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is not a cowherd boy, he is acting like a devotee. So, what is his activity? As a devotee, his activity is preaching and Nityananda assists in the preaching.
We see that after Lord Chaitanya took Diksha and Gaya and returned to Navadvip, then He began the Sankirtana movement and for one year, He was doing Kirtan, but it was private Kirtan. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu would gather with the devotees, with Nityananda and they would lock the door of Shiva’s place and they would do Kirtan inside, no one could get in and many people were outside and they were wondering, what are they doing in there [Laughs]? But they couldn’t get in and they would do Kirtan all night until the morning. So, in this way, Lord Chaitanya introduced Nama Sankirtan, but it was not public and of course, all the devotees were very ecstatic.
During the day, they would all be waiting for the next night, but after one year, Lord Chaitanya, he came to the gathering in private and then he said, I’m not getting any bliss. He said, we have to distribute Kirtan to everybody. So, he ordered all the devotees to go out the next day and tell everyone to chant the name of Krishna. So, among those who went out was Nityananda Prabhu and Nityananda Prabhu went with Haridas and they begged every body, you please chant the name of Krishna. Of course, we also know that you shouldn’t preach to the unfaithful.
So, they came across Jagai and Madai, they were also very famous in Navadvip. They were famous for their sinful activities and most of the time, they were drunk. They came from Brahmin families, but they became very degraded. So, Haridas and Nithyananda approached them and they were wondering, should we approach these people? We know that they are very dangerous. But, Lord Chaitanya has said, you give the name of Krishna to everybody. So, they said, we have to follow His instruction. So, then they told Jagai and Madai, “oh, you chant the name of Krishna!”.
However, Jagai and Madai were demons and when they heard the name Krishna, they simply became angry. So, they became angry at Nithyananda and Haridas, so, they actually chased and attacked them and Nithyananda and Haridas had to start running. Not only that, they grabbed a piece of pot and threw it at Nithyananda and it injured his forehead. So, they not only committed aparadh, but great aparadh, and of course, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, when He heard about this, He was very angry. The Supreme Lord does not tolerate aparadh, so, this was aparadh against Nithyananda Prabhu, who is His brother.
So, He came very angrily and it seemed as if He was going to use His chakra and kill Jagai and Madai. But then Nithyananda said, you have come to this world to save everybody you cannot kill them. Of course, we see when Krishna comes, He kills Kamsa and so many demons. But Chaitanya Mahaprabhu does not come as Supreme Lord he comes as a devotee. So, therefore, He does not kill people, but, He actually transforms them. He transforms their demoniac nature in that sense, He kills the demon within them. So, that is the special mercy of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in Kali Yuga, instead of killing demons, He turns them into devotees and it was Nithyananda Prabhu who reminded Him of this great mercy.
So, Nithyananda Prabhu is said to be the way we can approach Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Of course, we say that Lord Chaitanya is our approach to Radha and Krishna. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is non different from Krishna, he also has the mood of Radha. So, we approach Krishna through Radha, we approach Radha Krishna through Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, but, how do we approach Lord Chaitanya? We go through Nithyananda Prabhu.
So, Lord Chaitanya instructed his followers, you should worship Nithyananda before you worship me. So, that is the great importance that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu gave to Nithyananda Prabhu. So, Nithyananda Prabhu became a very vigorous preacher, at one point, every year when Lord Chaitanya took Sannyasa, the devotees from Bengal would all come to Puri during the Ratha Yatra festival and, Nithyananda and Advaita Acharya and all the devotees would come and, this was a great opportunity to associate with Lord Chaitanya and do Kirtan. But, then one year, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu told Nithyananda, do not come anymore. So, the reason was he told them, you should stay in Bengal and you should keep preaching all year round.
So, Nithyananda, even though he was very attached to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, he followed that order and, he preached vigorously for many years throughout Bengal and, therefore, Nama Sankirtana and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu became famous throughout Bengal, even today, everybody in Bengal knows about Lord Chaitanya. So, that was largely due to the preaching of Nithyananda. So, his regard is being very, very merciful. We see that he was very merciful to Jagai and Madai and, similar, he was merciful to so many other people, including many demons. And What did he do? he engaged them all in Nama Sankirtana – chanting Krishna’s name.
Now, Nithyananda is Balaram. So, Balaram, of course, is right next to Krishna. So, he has similar powers. We also see that from Balaram expands Vishnu forms and, eventually, we get Maha Vishnu form. He is creator of all the universes. He is the shelter of all the Jivas when the universe is destroyed. When the universe is created, all the Jivas come out of Maha Vishnu again. So, he is the shelter of all the Jivas and Maha Vishnu is an expansion from his Maha Sankarshan, who is an expansion of Balaram. Thus, Nithyananda also is, we consider, the shelter of all the Jivas and, he is considered to be Adiguru, the first Guru. This Guru gives shelter to all the Jivas of the material world. So, in this way, Nithyananda has very great significance for our movement.
The story of Nithyananda, of course, we say he is the brother, but he was not the historical brother [Laughs]. Chaitanya Prabhu had another brother who went off one day and took Sannyas. And Nithyananda Prabhu was actually born in another place called Ekachakra and, his father was Harai Pandit. Even today, the temple is commemorating that place. When he was young, he was taken away by a Sannyasi and he began wandering everywhere. Eventually, he settled in Vrindavan. And, when he understood that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu began the Sankirtana movement, then he came to Navadvip and he met Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So, from that point, then Nithyananda and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu were inseparable, they were always together in Navadvip.
So, we see on our altar, we have Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Nithyananda, they are together. What are they doing? they are dancing in Kirtan. So, they are preaching Nama Sankirtan. Nithyananda was the principal person for carrying on Lord Chaitanya’s movement. Even after that point, of course, he had a son—Virachandra, Virabhadra, he also became a very great preacher and, his wife, Jhanava, also became a great devotee. So, in this way, his whole family began to spread Nama Sankirtan everywhere.
Devotees: HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj Ki.. Jai !! Nityanada Triyodasi Mahotsav Ki.. Jai !!