On Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.24.28: Kardama Muni beholds the Lord, who has appeared as his own son, Kapiladeva. The class contrasts the reverential love of Vaikuṇṭha with the intimate vraja-prema that conquers Kṛṣṇa, glorifies Lord Caitanya as the most munificent giver of that love, and notes that even great yogīs reach only "the tip of the toe" of the Lord's lotus feet.
So, this is a verse spoken by Kardama Muni. And Lord Kapiladeva has just appeared as his son. So he is astonished that actually he sees himself, of course, as a fallen gṛhastha. Kardama Muni is a very humble devotee. And he feels himself unqualified to see the Supreme Lord.
But Kṛṣṇa has appeared to him, and this is amazing, as his son. And actually, this is the second time he has darśana with the Supreme Lord, because maybe you remember, before he got married, he performed severe yoga practice for many, many years. And at the end of those, his austerities, actually Viṣṇu appeared to Kardama Muni on Garuḍa. And Kardama offered beautiful prayers. And at that time actually, Viṣṇu predicted that He would appear as his son. He told him that "I will appear as your son." So this has now happened.
So he was a very advanced personality, Kardama Muni. If you have darśana with the Supreme Lord, this is amazing. And then again the Lord chooses him as His father, and appears as his son. So this is something very wonderful, that Kṛṣṇa can appear as your son.
So he was very advanced, but not as elevated as Nanda and Yaśodā. Because Kardama Muni, he was aware that Kapiladeva was the Supreme Lord. So he had this reverential mood towards Kapiladeva. But Nanda and Yaśodā, as we know, they were not aware that Kṛṣṇa was the Supreme Lord. They simply loved Kṛṣṇa as their son, and they thought nothing more of Him than their beloved son.
So this is the pure, very intimate love that the vraja-bāsīs had for Kṛṣṇa. Vraja-prema. It is called kevala, pure love. And it's this kind of pure love that actually can control Kṛṣṇa. He becomes completely captured and submissive if you have this kind of pure kevala love.
So it's different from the prema that the Vaikuṇṭha residents have. They have this awe and reverence. And they are worshipping Kṛṣṇa in opulence. And this kind of awe and opulence is described that it kind of stifles the love. It's still very pure love, but it's not as intimate as what the residents of Vṛndāvana have. So in Vaikuṇṭha, there is a name for that kind of love also, but it's very difficult, I forgot it now. I learned it now in Bhakti-śāstrī. But it's a different kind of love.
And in Vaikuṇṭha, most of the devotees, they are in dāsya-rasa. They are worshipping as servants to the Master, and naturally you have awe and reverence. Whereas in Vṛndāvana, they worship Kṛṣṇa as their child, as their lover, as their friend, and like that, sakhya-rasa, vātsalya-rasa, and mādhurya-rasa. And Kṛṣṇa becomes so pleased with this kind of love, He is much more happy when He is scolded by Mother Yaśodā than when someone offers Him very reverential hymns like Vedic hymns. It's actually described very nicely in Caitanya-caritāmṛta.
Do you hear me still? I try to speak a little louder, or maybe you can come closer.
So Kavirāja Gosvāmī, he describes this love that the vraja-bāsīs have: "If one cherishes pure loving devotion to Me, thinking of Me as his son, friend or beloved, regarding himself as great and considering Me his equal or inferior, I become subordinate to him." This is Kṛṣṇa speaking, or Lord Caitanya. "Devotional service rendered to Me by the living beings revives their..." no, sorry, next verse. "Mother sometimes binds Me as her son. She nourishes and protects Me, thinking Me utterly helpless. My friends climb on My shoulder in pure friendship, saying, 'What kind of big man are you? You and I are equal.'"
"If My beloved consort reproaches Me in a sulky mood, that steals My mind from the reverent hymns of the Vedas." These are very wonderful verses where Kṛṣṇa is expressing how He is just completely captured and completely subservient to this kind of love.
So this is what we want to achieve, vraja-prema. And the amazing thing is that Lord Caitanya, He came to this world 500 years ago, to distribute this kind of prema that the vraja-bāsīs have for Kṛṣṇa. So He comes in Kali-yuga, where people are extremely fallen, sinful, and not interested at all in spirituality, and then He gives this most elevated kind of love, which is only there in Goloka Vṛndāvana. He wants to spread it all over the world, to everyone.
So therefore, when Rūpa Gosvāmī met Lord Caitanya first time in Prayāga, he offered this prayer: namo mahā-vadānyāya kṛṣṇa-prema-pradāyate kṛṣṇāya kṛṣṇa-caitanya-nāmne gaura-tviṣe namaḥ. "You are the most munificent..." vadānyāya means munificent incarnation. So Lord Caitanya is called Mahā-vadānya Avatāra, the most munificent, most merciful incarnation of Kṛṣṇa, because kṛṣṇa-prema-pradāyate, He gives this kṛṣṇa-prema to anyone and everyone. He wants to just inundate the whole world with this vraja-prema.
So this is completely amazing actually, if you think about it. It's just mind-blowing. And Kavirāja Gosvāmī also writes this one wonderful verse: śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya-dayā karaha vicāra, vicāra karile citte pābe camatāra. "If you are indeed interested in logic and argument, kindly apply it to the mercy of Lord Caitanya. If you do so, you will find it to be strikingly wonderful."
So if you are interested in logic and like that, if you try to understand the mercy of Lord Caitanya with your logic, you will just be completely blown away, it's just amazing. Camatkāra is the word here, it's just completely amazing, you can't comprehend anything like this.
Yes, so this is astonishing, and Kardama Muni, he is also astonished here: "After many births, mature yogīs, by complete trance in yoga, endeavor in a secluded place to see the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead." So yogīs, they have to endeavor so hard, as Prabhupāda points out here in the purport, many, many births, they have to practice difficult austerities, not only one life, but for many, many lives, they are practicing and doing so many difficult things.
So this also made me think of one verse from Brahma-saṁhitā: panthāstu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi manaso muni-puṅgavānām, so 'py asti yat-prapada-sīmny avicintya-tattve govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi. "I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, only the tip of the toe of whose lotus feet is approached by the yogīs who aspire after the transcendental, and betake themselves to prāṇāyāma by drilling the respiration, or by the jñānīs who try to find out the non-differentiated Brahman by the process of elimination of the mundane, extending over thousands of millions of years."
So this is a nice expression, "only the tip of the toes." So the yogīs, they don't really, unless they surrender, as Prabhupāda points out, complete yoga practice means you come to bhakti-yoga, then it's different. But the yogīs who do aṣṭāṅga-yoga and meditate on Paramātmā in the heart, actually their goal is not pure devotional service, their goal is to become one with Kṛṣṇa, kaivalya. So they never really approach the lotus feet, and here it's like "only the tip of the toe," which means they don't really enter into the lotus feet of the Lord. So just interesting way of how to express it, that they can only approach the tip of the toe of the lotus feet of the Lord.
And in the purport, Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī says: "The attainment of the lotus feet of Govinda consists in the realization of unalloyed devotion. The kaivalya, which is attained by the aṣṭāṅga-yogīs by practicing of trance for thousands of millions of years," here also it said thousands of millions of years is needed, "are simply the outskirts of the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa and not the lotus feet themselves."
So also interesting way of putting it, it's the outskirts, like we speak of the outskirts of Stockholm, like the suburbs. So the outskirts of the lotus feet of the Lord, that is the Brahman realization, and that's what the yogīs achieve after so many years, so much trouble, so much time. Still they just reach the outskirts, which is not the stable position, as we know, one can fall down, or one will fall down, Prabhupāda says, from Brahman if one doesn't go further and take shelter of Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet, that's the only secure position.
So this is what we want, we want the lotus feet of the Lord, and the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, they are compared to a very beautiful flower. And the devotees are like the bees who hum around this flower, and enter into this flower and taste the sweet nectar which is there. So this is a very beautiful picture we can... that we want to become like these bee-like devotees who taste the nectar of Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet.
Rūpa Gosvāmī, he actually, I'll read something here: "The pure devotees are always hankering after the lotus feet of the Lord." This is from a purport in the First Canto, Eleventh Chapter. "The lotus has a kind of honey which is transcendentally relished by the devotees. They are like the bees who are always after the honey. Rūpa Gosvāmī, the great devotee, has sung a song about the lotus honey, comparing himself to the bee: 'O my Lord Kṛṣṇa, I beg to offer my prayers unto You. My mind is like the bee, and it is after some honey. Kindly, therefore, give my bee-mind a place at Your lotus feet, which are the resources for all transcendental honey.'"
So this honey is this taste of pure devotional service. The lotus feet of the Lord, they represent pure devotional service, and to taste that honey is to taste the nectar that the devotee is relishing when he is performing pure devotion, and there is nothing higher than this. When one reaches this, there will be nothing more to hanker for in this material world, nothing can compare to this kind of taste. yam labdhvā cāparaṁ lābhaṁ manyate nādhikaṁ tataḥ, Kṛṣṇa says in Bhagavad-gītā that when one attains this state of enlightenment and pure devotional service, one thinks there is no greater gain, there is nothing more to aspire for.
And Prabhupāda especially liked one verse from Mukunda-mālā-stotra by King Kulaśekhara, about the lotus feet of the Lord: kṛṣṇa tvadīya-pada-paṅkaja-pañjarāntam adyaiva me viśatu mānasa-rāja-haṁsaḥ, prāṇa-prayāṇa-samaye kapha-vāta-pittaiḥ kaṇṭhāvarodhana-vidhau smaraṇaṁ kutas te. "O Lord Kṛṣṇa, at this moment let the royal swan of my mind enter the tangled stems of Your lotus feet. How will it be possible for me to remember You at the time of death, when my throat will be choked up with mucus, bile, and air?"
So this is a verse where the devotee is praying like, "O Kṛṣṇa, please just take me immediately to Your lotus feet, because now I am remembering You. But when I die, then there will be severe tests, there will be so much pain and so much mucus, bile, everything will be so confused, and it will be very difficult to fix the mind on Kṛṣṇa in that condition. So let me die immediately when I am now thinking of You."
And there is this nice likeness, the royal swan of my mind, rāja-haṁsa, enter the tangled stems of Your lotus feet. So the swan has this propensity for digging into the lotus flowers and becoming completely absorbed in the lotuses. So similarly, he prays that the swan of his mind will become completely entangled in thinking of Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet, so to say. So Prabhupāda liked this verse very much. He quoted it in Bhagavad-gītā and in many other places, and he also sang it. There are some recordings where Prabhupāda sings this as a bhajan. He loved this verse.
So, the lotus feet of the Lord is our goal, our only aspiration. And Bhāgavatam says that a pure devotee of the Lord whose heart has once been cleansed by the process of devotional service never relinquishes the lotus feet of Lord Kṛṣṇa, for they fully satisfy him, as a traveler is satisfied at home after a troubled journey. A very beautiful verse from the Second Canto, Chapter Eight, verse number, I think, six or seven.
So, when we become absorbed in pure devotional service, then we are at home. This is our real home, Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet. Nothing else in this world is where we belong, only at Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet, that's where the spirit soul belongs. And he will never give it up. Once he has returned home, then he will never return to this material world. Kṛṣṇa also promises in Bhagavad-gītā, now I've forgotten the verse. Anyone remember where He promises that one will never return? Chapter Eight, I think. Yes, please, recite.
mām upetya punar janma duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam nāpnuvanti mahātmānaḥ saṁsiddhiṁ paramāṅ gatāḥ. Yes, jaya. mām upetya punar janma duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam nāpnuvanti mahātmānaḥ saṁsiddhiṁ paramāṅ gatāḥ. You will never return after attaining this complete perfection.
So, if one is traveling around the world, there will be so many troubles and so many hardships, and at one point one becomes totally exhausted of all this traveling. But then, as soon as one comes home and is in one's home, then one is completely relieved and one forgets all the troubles and one is just completely at peace. So this is how it is to come back to Kṛṣṇa, to the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, there we are completely happy and peaceful and in our original constitutional position.
So this is our goal, and this is what we are striving for, and doing all this practicing what we are practicing. And it's actually so easy, the process we have been given by Lord Caitanya is like extremely... su-sukhaṁ kartum, just chanting holy name, eating prasādam, doing some service, trying to spread this message to the fallen conditioned souls. That's what Lord Caitanya wants us to do, practice it ourselves and become happy, and then just try to give it to others. And if we somehow do this, then we can please Lord Caitanya very easily, and we can please Śrīla Prabhupāda, and we can very easily actually obtain the lotus feet of the Lord. Something which was so difficult, as we hear here, the yogīs had to struggle and strive for millions of years to do it.
Actually, this yoga process is not for this age. It's for the age of Satya-yuga, where people lived... anyone knows how long? Ask the new people, do you know how long people lived in Satya-yuga?
100,000. 100,000 years. So in Kali-yuga we live maximum 100 years, in next age, 1,000, in Tretā-yuga, 10,000, and in Satya-yuga, 100,000 years. And if you had a lifespan like that, then you could actually perfect this practice of mystic yoga, like Kardama Muni, he was a perfected mystic yogī. He had all these siddhis, he could just like this, create a aerial mansion for Devahūti and travel all around space with her and give her all the opulences and everything which she wanted as a gṛhastha and so on. So in Satya-yuga, this was actually possible to achieve perfection through meditation.
So there is this verse: kṛte yad dhyāyato viṣṇuṁ. Kṛte means Kṛta-yuga, it's another name for Satya-yuga. kṛte yad dhyāyato viṣṇuṁ, this meditation was for that age. tretāyāṁ yajato makhaiḥ, in Tretā-yuga they performed very elaborate sacrifices, makhaiḥ, and achieved perfection by that process. dvāpare paricaryāyāṁ, in Dvāpara-yuga they serve, service to the deities, serving the Lord in the temple by doing deity worship... Śrī Śrī Pañca-tattva kī jaya! ...like we do here for Śrī Śrī Pañca-tattva. This was the perfection, you could reach perfection. kalau tad dhari-kīrtanāt.
So in Kali-yuga, everything that was obtained by these difficult processes in previous ages is easily obtained simply by doing harināma-saṅkīrtana. kṛte yad dhyāyato viṣṇuṁ tretāyāṁ yajato makhaiḥ, dvāpare paricaryāyāṁ kalau tad dhari-kīrtanāt.
So this is a special concession. One can say that it's like a sale, devotional service is completely on sale, like super low price, not only half price, just a fraction of the price which you ordinarily have to pay for obtaining this most transcendental sublime goal of pure love. It's now so easily available, Lord Caitanya just gives it freely, and even if they don't want it, He wants to give it to even the most unqualified people.
So we are extremely fortunate to be born somehow in this time and age where Lord Caitanya's mercy is available like this, and all He wants is that we try to help Him to distribute these fruits. He compares Himself to a gardener. He has come with this tree of love of God, and it has so many fruits, and He is one single gardener, "How many fruits can I alone distribute? Please help Me," He says. And Prabhupāda also says, there is this nice video, "Kindly help me," and he starts to cry, "distribute these books."
So this is what we are asked to do. And if we just somehow or other try, in our little humble way, to give some service to this saṅkīrtana movement, it doesn't even have to be going on the street and distributing books, but just supporting this movement in any way and shape or form we can, by sweeping the floor or doing the accounting, or cooking something, or doing pūjā or whatever, then we are actually serving Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu's saṅkīrtana mission, which is just beyond logic how merciful this movement is.
So, yeah, this is something very wonderful and we should all run to the temple of Pañca-tattva. Here we are, and we have hardly any pūjārīs, somehow or other, it's a little strange. If we start to think about who is Lord Caitanya and what He has come to give, then we should all just run here, of course, some of us are older, we cannot run and do pūjā anymore. But, yeah, we should really cherish this fortune to be able to do some service to Lord Caitanya, because He has come in this age of Kali to give what no other incarnation has ever given before, the most sublime and radiant mellow of devotional service, the mellow of conjugal love.
anarpita-carīṁ cirāt karuṇayāvatīrṇaḥ kalau samarpayitum unnatojjvala-rasāṁ sva-bhakti-śriyam, hariḥ puraṭa-sundara-dyuti-kadamba-sandīpitaḥ sadā hṛdaya-kandare sphuratu vaḥ śacī-nandanaḥ.
May the supreme Lord, who is known as the son of mother Śacī, be transcendentally situated in the innermost core of our heart, resplendent with the hue of molten gold. He has appeared in this age of Kali by His causeless mercy to give what no other incarnation has ever offered before, the most sublime, radiant mellow of devotional service, the mellow of conjugal love. So this is Lord Caitanya. And, yeah.
So this, I think I will stop here. Are there any comments or objections or questions or discussions, etc.?