Caitanya-caritamrta
Gallery
After graduating from Music and Art High School in 1964, Syamarani dasi became a student at New York City College, majoring in art and history. In 1966, at the age of 19, she met her spiritual master.
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Spiritual Master& Disciple
According to the deliberate opinion of all revealed scriptures, the spiritual master is nondifferent from Kṛṣṇa. Lord Kṛṣṇa in the form of the spiri- tual master delivers His devotees.
Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Ādi-līlā 1.45)
One should know the instructing spiritual master to be the Personality of Kṛṣṇa. Lord Kṛṣṇa manifests Him- self as the Supersoul and as the great- est devotee of the Lord.
Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Ādi-līlā 5.111–112)
“O my Lord! Transcendental poets and experts in spiritual science could not fully express their indebtedness to You, even if they were endowed with the prolonged lifetime of Brahmā, for You appear in two features – external- ly as the ācārya and internally as the Supersoul – to deliver the embodied living being by directing him how to come to You.”
Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Ādi-līlā 1.48)
Laksmi-Narayana in Svetadvipa
Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Ādi-līlā 5.111–112)
East of Sumeru is the ocean of milk, in which there is a white city on a white island where the Lord can be seen sit- ting with His consort, Lakṣmījī, on a throne of Śeṣa. That feature of Viṣṇu also enjoys sleeping during the four months of the rainy season.
The Śvetadvīpa in the milk ocean is situated just south of the ocean of salt water. It is calculated that the area of Śvetadvīpa is 200,000 square miles. This transcendentally beautiful island is decorated with desire trees to please Lord Viṣṇu and His consort. {Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (11.15.18) states:} “… Anyone who places this Lord of Śvetadvīpa within his heart can sur- pass the pangs of the six material tri- bulations: hunger, thirst, birth, death, lamentation and illusion. Thus one can attain his original, transcendental form.
Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Ādi-līlā 5.12, Purport)
Panca-tattva One
śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda
FIVE-IN-ONE ABSOLUTE TRUTH
I offer my respectful obeisances unto the spiritual masters, the devotees of the Lord, the Lord’s incarnations, His plenary portions, His energies and the primeval Lord Himself, Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya.
Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Ādi-līlā 1.1)
Let me offer my obeisances unto Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, who has manifested Himself in ve as a devotee, expansion of a devotee, incarnation of a devotee, pure devotee, and devotional energy.
Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Ādi-līlā 7.6)
Lord Caitanya in Five Features
These ve tattvas incarnate with Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, and thus the Lord executes His saṅkīrtana movement with great pleasure.
Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Ādi-līlā 7.4)
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu is known as mahā-vadānyāvatāra, the most magnanimous incarnation, for He does not consider the offens- es of the fallen souls. Thus to derive the full bene t of the chanting of the mahā-mantra (hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare / hare rāma hare rāma rāma rāma hare hare), we must rst take shelter of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, learn the Pañca-tattva mahā-mantra, and then chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra. Than will be very effective.
Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Ādi-līlā 7.4, Purport)
Out of the ve diversities in the Absolute Truth, the form of Lord Caitanya is that of the original Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa. Lord Nityānanda is the manifestation of the rst expansion of the Supreme Lord. Similarly, Advaita Prabhu is an incarnation of the Supreme Lord. These three – Caitanya, Nityānanda, and Advaita – belong to the category of viṣṇu-tattva, or the Supreme Absolute Truth.
Śrīvāsa represents the pure devotee, and Gadādhara represents the internal energy of the Lord for the advancement of pure devo- tion. Therefore Gadādhara and Śrīvāsa, although on the Viṣṇu platform, are dependent, diverse energies of the Supreme Lord. In other words, they are not different from the energetic, but they are manifest diversely for the sake of relishing transcendental relation- ships.
Teachings of Lord Caitanya (Chapter 17)
Panca-tattva Two
The Infnite Reach of Transcendental Love
The characteristics of Kṛṣṇa are understood to be a storehouse of transcendental love. Although that storehouse of love certainly came with Kṛṣṇa when He was present, it was sealed. But when Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu came with His associates of the Pañca- tattva, they broke the seal and plundered the storehouse to taste transcendental love of Kṛṣṇa. The more they tasted it, the more their thirst for it grew.
Śrī Pañca-tattva themselves danced again and again and thus made it easier to drink nectarean love of Godhead. They danced, cried, laughed, and chanted like madmen, and in this way they distributed love of Godhead.
In distributing love of Godhead, Caitanya Mahāprabhu and His associates did not consider who was a t candidate and who was not, nor where such distribution should or should not take place. They made no conditions. Wherever they got the opportunity, the members of the Pañca-tattva distributed love of Godhead.
Although the members of the Pañca-tattva plundered the store- house of love of Godhead and ate and distributed its contents, there was no scarcity, for this wonderful storehouse is so complete that as the love is distributed, the supply increases hundreds of times.
The ood of love of Godhead swelled in all directions, and thus young men, old men, women, and children were all immersed in that inundation.
The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement will inundate the entire world and drown everyone, whether one be a gentleman, a rogue, or even lame, invalid, or blind.
Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Ādi-līlā 7.20 – 26)
Sankirtan One
Sankirtan Two
The living entity in the material world carries his different con- ceptions of life from one body to another, as the air carries aromas. Thus he takes one kind of body and again quits it to take another.
Bhagavad-gītā (15.8)
At the time of death, the consciousness he has created will carry him on to the next type of body. If he has made his consciousness like that of a cat or dog, he is sure to change to a cat’s or dog’s body. And if he has fixed his consciousness on godly qualities, he will change into the form of a demigod. And if he is in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he will be transferred to Kṛṣṇaloka in the spiritual world and will associate with Kṛṣṇa.
It is a false claim that after the annihilation of this body everything is finished. The individual soul is transmigrating from one body to another, and his present body and present activities are the background of his next body. One gets a different body according to karma, and he has to quit this body in due course.
It is stated here that the subtle body, which carries the conception of the next body, develops another body in the next life. This process of transmigrating from one body to another and struggling while in the body is called karṣati, or struggle for existence.
Bhagavad-gītā (15.8, Purport)
Advent of
the Golden Avatāra
In the year 1407 of the Śaka Era [A.D. 1486], in the month of Phālguna [February–March], in the evening of the full-moon day, the desired auspi- cious moment arrived.
All sorts of respectable brāhmaṇa gentlemen and ladies, carrying plates lled with various gifts, came with their presentations. Seeing the new- born child, whose form resembled natural glaring gold, all of them hap- pily offered their blessings.
Dressing themselves as the wives of brāhmaṇas, all the celestial ladies, including the wives of Lord Brahmā, Lord Śiva, Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, King Indra, and Vasisṭha Ṛṣi … came there with varieties of gifts.
When Sītā Ṭhākurāṇī came to the house of Śacī-devī, bringing with her many kinds of eatables, dresses and other gifts, she was astonished to see the newborn child, for she appreci- ated that except for a difference in color, the child was directly Kṛṣṇa of Gokula Himself.
Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Ādi-līlā 13.89, 104–105, 115)
Clever
Nimai
{Nimāi is the birth name of Lord Caitanya, given to Him by his mother.} When the girls engaged in worshiping the different demigods after bathing in the Ganges, the young Lord would come there and sit down among them. Addressing the girls, the Lord would say, “Worship Me, and I shall give you good husbands or good benedictions. The Ganges and goddess Durgā are My maidservants. What to speak of other demigods, even Lord Śiva is My servant.”
Without the permission of the girls, the Lord would take the sandalwood pulp and smear it on His own body, put the ower garlands on His neck, and snatch and eat all the offerings of sweetmeats, rice and bananas. All the girls became very angry at the Lord for this behavior. “Dear Nimāi,” they told Him, “You are just like our brother in our village relationship. Therefore it does not behoove You to act like this. Don’t take our paraphernalia for wor- ship of the demigods. Don’t create a disturbance in this way.”
Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Ādi-līlā 14.49–53)
Lord Caitanya in
the mood of Baladeva
Chand Kazi’s
change of heart
Gaura-Nitai
Sad-bhuja
Sikhi Mahtti’s Dream
Lord Caitanya
as Baraha-deva
Madhavendra Puri
meets Krsna
Annukut Festival
Sanatana Gosvami
& the Nawab