Question: When I talk to someone about God, I usually talk about Krishna. But when I say Mahaprabhu is also Krishna Himself, they get confused and then I tell them that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is Krishna Himself. But the thing is I don’t know how to answer them properly and I think I make them more confused.
Could you please tell me how I could present Mahaprabhu as Krishna, and the importance of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu? I am really sorry that I can’t answer some one about it. I know very little about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s pastimes and His importance. Honestly I see my relation with the Supreme Personality of Godhead more with Radha Krishna than Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
I know that Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is Patita Pavana but I need to know some more about Him which would strengthen my faith in Krishna Consciousness.
Answer by Romapada Swami: Srila Prabhupada introduces us to Lord Chaitanya through the following simple analogy:
“Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu should therefore not be considered one of us. He is Krishna Himself, the supreme living entity… Lord Caitanya came to earth simply to preach krishna-bhakti, love of Krishna. In other words, He is Lord Krishna Himself teaching the living entities the proper way to approach Krishna. He is like a teacher who, seeing a student doing poorly, takes up a pencil and writes, saying, “Do it like this: A, B, C.” From this one should not foolishly think that the teacher is learning his ABC’s. Similarly, although Lord Caitanya appears in the guise of a devotee, we should not foolishly think He is an ordinary human being; we should always remember that Lord Caitanya is Krishna (God) Himself teaching us how to become Krishna conscious, and we must study Him in that light.” (Cf. Cc Adi Introduction)
Lord Krishna personally appeared in the material world and spoke the Bhagavad-gita. For the benefit of conditioned souls Krishna said, “Just surrender unto Me.” But the conditioned souls misunderstood Him and were not prepared to surrender. The material disease is that we do not want to surrender, and so there were people who resented why the Supreme Lord should demand our surrender, and thus did not accept His teachings. Therefore the Lord appeared again, this time taking the role of His own devotee and with great compassion and humility, teaching us by His own example how to render devotional service and surrender to Krishna. Upon studying the life of Lord Chaitanya, we can appreciate how in every stage and aspect of life He exemplified both by precept and personal conduct how a devotee should ideally behave and cultivate the highest degree of love of God.
Not only did He teach by personal example, but in this manifestation He did not even demand initial surrender or any other prior qualification. Lord Chaitanya freely distributed pure love for Krishna to everyone with no consideration of their qualification or disqualification. Lord Krishna is certainly supremely merciful — He makes no distinctions; no matter how disqualified or sinful one may have been, He is eager to give them full shelter provided one surrenders to Him. But in His manifestation as Gauranga, He is even more merciful, for He is freely and without any condition distributing the rarest, most precious gift of Krsna-prema, which was not done by any other incarnation of the Lord. Devotional service is so pure and rare that one can hardly attain to it after many, many births – “bahunam janmanam ante”, and thus this is most unprecedented in the history of the universe. Therefore Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is celebrated as “maha-vadanya”, most liberal.
Another simple way that you could present or introduce Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in your discussions with others is His position as the yuga-avatar. As Krishna assures in Bhagavad-gita, “Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion – at that time I descend Myself. To deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I Myself appear millennium after millennium.”
In each of the four yugas, there is a particular recommended process for self-realization — known as the yuga-dharma –according to the particular need of the age. And the Supreme Lord personally incarnates in every yuga to reestablish the particular yuga-dharma for that age. In the Satya yuga, the process was meditation on Vishnu, in Treta yuga it was performance of elaborate sacrifices, in Dvapara it was opulent temple worship. In the present age of quarrel and degradation, Kali yuga, all these processes are very difficult to execute, to say the least. Therefore the recommended process for this age is hari-nama-sankirtana, congregational chanting of the Holy Names of Lord Hari. And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the yuga-avatar, Who came to inaugurate and preach this yuga-dharma of sankirtana-yajna.
Chaitanya Caritamrita describes these as some of the external reasons for the appearance of Lord Caitanya – viz. to inaugurate congregational chanting of Hare Krishna Mahamantra, to freely distribute pure love of Godhead to everyone and to teach the process of loving devotional service through personal example.
The internal reason is also revealed that Krishna Himself desired to personally experience and relish the happiness of loving devotion unto Himself, particularly the unparalleled devotional sentiments of Srimati Radharani. Krishna wanted to understand what is it in Him that attracts the devotees to Him and what is the bliss that they are experiencing through loving devotional service unto Him. In order to taste this mood of devotion He manifested Himself as Lord Chaitanya — who is none other than Krishna in the mood of Radharani, relishing the bhava of Radharani.
The worship of Lord Chaitanya as being non-different from Krishna should not be confused with the improper worship of some ordinary human beings as self-proclaimed incarnations, as it is becoming fashionable these days. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s position as a direct incarnation of Krishna is indicated in many places in scripture. Particularly in the 11th canto where the incarnations for different yugas are described, the following oft-quoted and very important verse appears:
krsna-varnam tvishakrsnam
sangopangastra-parshadam
yajnaih sankirtana-prayair
yajanti hi su-medhasah
“In the age of Kali, intelligent persons perform congregational chanting to worship the incarnation of Godhead who constantly sings the names of Krishna. Although His complexion is not blackish, He is Krishna Himself. He is accompanied by His associates, servants, weapons and confidential companions.” (SB 11.5.32)
Approaching Krishna and appreciating His supremacy, His qualities and pastimes are very difficult subject matters even for elevated paramahamsas. Generally we find that many people are sentimentally attracted to Krishna and many even completely misunderstand His position, His pastimes etc. So, how is it that we, who are most unqualified in every way, are able to so easily understand and approach Radha and Krishna? It is only through the unprecedented mercy of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and His representatives that we are able to do so. You have written that you see your relationship with the Supreme Lord in the form of Radha and Krishna, and this is quite proper and glorious, but now you can increasingly appreciate that this has been made possible only through the grace of Their manifestation in the form of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Except through the brilliant, crystal-clear, heart-rending teachings of Lord Chaitanya, and His magnanimity in overlooking all our disqualifications, faults and offenses, we would not even have clear understanding of who God is and who Krishna is, what to speak of living a pure Krishna-conscious life and practicing pure devotion in this age of utter confusion and darkness! By taking shelter of Lord Chaitanya, His teachings, His devotees – and indeed only by doing so, we can expect to safely and easily traverse the path of God-realization and attain success.
You can find some further discussions on Lord Caitanya and elaborate references from scriptures about the appearance of Lord Chaitanya in Digests 145, 206.
In addition, there is a website which has gathered abundant quotes supporting Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu as the Supreme Personality of Godhead: http://www.veda.harekrsna.cz/encyclopedia/caitanya.htm
