What is the conception of Kṛṣṇa-nām?

This is becoming more and more illuminating experience. And there is, I found two more lights in my closet. Big ones. They are bigger than these. It’s like suitcases of light. So, any questions from anyone?
Devotee: Maharaj, I have some technical question, if nobody has…
Goswami Maharaj: What kind of technical question?
Question: A pujari, who sent…
Goswami Maharaj: I am not a pujari.
Devotee: We don’t know what is this and…
Goswami Maharaj: Says, Jai Sri.
Devotee: Vijay Raman asks us to put on altar and we don’t know what is this.

Goswami Maharaj: Jai Sri Ram, Jai Sri Ram. No I mean it’s wonderful, but it’s Ram, as Ramachandra, see they both (in the…?). And we could say something about that. What is the conception of nam, of Ram, of Ram-nam? Once Srila Guru Maharaj was asked, a little child like guru-kula boy met with an unfortunate accident and died as the outcome. And reportedly took the name Krsna before he left the world. And so that devotee was asking Srila Guru Maharaj, “What is his fate? This young child.” He said, “Right before he left, ‘Krsna, Krsna.” And Srila Guru Maharaj said, “It depends of what his conception was.” He just sort of told a naked truth. What is his conception? Yam yam bhavam. Tyajante ti tam tam evoite kaunteya sada tad bhava bhavitaha yam yam bhavam smaran bhavam. It’s another word, bhavam. Its’ mentioned in the Bhagavad-gita, at the time of leaving this world, smaran-bhavan, means what you can say, it’s what you’re thinking of that time or it can also mean the remembrance in the heart. And there is two schools of thought about this, one is that literally, what you’re thinking over the time of death and then there is the on the notion that the cumulative effect of life-long thought and remembrance and culture. And we would be more inclined to accept that.

Srila Prabhupad he used to like to quote this verse, I believe it’s from Kinkhula-sekhar, where it says, 

krsna tadiya pada pan pankaja panjarantam adieva vaotumi manasa raja hangsa prana prayama samaye kapabhatta pitai kantha varo dhana vido smaranam kutaste

Says, manasarajahadgsa, which is the interesting concept. “May the swan of my mind dive into the stem of he lotus of your holy lotus feet.” Something like that. Krsna tadiya pada pankaja, pankaja, means the lotus, pankaja, it’s like the taking its birth from the mud. Lotus has many different names, ambuja, sitting on the water, Padma, Kamala, there are many different word to indicate lotus. So, there Krsna tadiya pada pankaja panjarantam adieva vasuti manasa rajam hamsa…, saying it maybe very difficult to remember You upon leaving this world, because very often that’s a condition where the kapha-pitta bhayu of the Ayurveda, it’s all out of balance. The longs are filling with mucus, whatever we’ve seen observe that, it’s very dislocating, inbalancing, so, at that time one is gonna have the presence of mind to remember Krsna in some profound way. King Kulasekhara’s saying, “Maybe not,” or he’s even suggesting, “Most likely not.” So, what he is saying in this sloka, “Now, when I’m relatively healthy, let me, if I can remember your lotus feet now, that will be good, cause at that time I think it’s gonna be very difficult.” There is also a sloka in the Isopanisad, something along the lines were the devotee is praying, “It’s likely that I may forget you, but please don’t forget me.”

From a Paramatma point of view it’s kind of impossible, but to be in a heart and mind of Krsna is then again another thing. And so asraya loye bhaje tare krsna nahi tyaje akara nege, the vaisnava strategy is to remember or take shelter of the devotee of Krsna. Because,

aham bhakta pradhino hyasvantanta iva drija sadhu bhir bhakta hrdoya bhaktau bhakta jana priya,

The devotees are always in the heart of Krsna. If we factor in yeyeta praphadyante tam stathaiva bhajavyaham, cause He’s saying, “I reciprocate devotion.” So, if devotees are incessantly, and we’re talking here about substantial devotees, they’re incessantly in remembrance of Krsna,

srota vyas kirti tav vyasya smarta vyas chachtathabhayam. They’re always thinking of the lotus feet, that’s why they’re qualified in that way. So, as they never stop thinking of Krsna, Krsna never stops thinking of them. So, Hare Krsna.

And in different slokas, different places Krsna says, “Look, they’ve given up everything for me, everything, and not just family, country, etc. but all the fleeting desires that are pulling the soul in different directions, they’ve also, by remembrance of Me, and being fixed to My service and the service to the lotus feet of My devotees. Given that up too, they’ve given up everything for Me, how could I ever give them up?” 

When we’re told when Srivas Thakur is his died during the kirttan and he didn’t disturb Mahaprabhu, tried to calm his wife and the other ladies there, they’re saying, “Your son died,” he said, “Mahaprabhu is in the next room in divine ecstasy, we don’t want to disturb his mood.” Later Mahaprabhu praised Srivas Thakur, he said, “Where are you going to find someone like that? He is so exalted.” Because the subject came up about how with Srivas Thakur’s absorption in Krsna Consciousness, how his family would be provided for taking care of, and Mahaprabhu gave this guarantee, he said, “If Laksmi Devi has to beg door to door, the goddess of fortune, Laksmi Devi, if she has to go begging door to door to support his family, then we’ll do that.” That’s an indirect way of saying, “They’ll never be in an unfortunate situation with the goddess of fortune appreciating their steadfast devotion to the lotus feet of Mahaprabhu, of Krsna, Guru, Gauranga, Radha, Govinda. 

So, Srila Guru Maharaj will say, “It depends upon your conception.” Oh, yam yam vapi smaranam bhavam, now I remember! Yam yam vapi smaram bhavam tyasantha te kalevaram, so, bhav, can also be translated as heart. And we’ll favour that, what is the condition of the heart? That’s the key to substantial adherence in Krsna Consciousness, hrdoyena bhyanugyato yo dharmas ta ebodata, vidyabdhi sevitashadbi nityam advedsa ragibi, hrdoyena bhyanugyato, the heart recognized its home. So, Guru Maharaj just to make a point saying we speak of Krsna, said, there was a demon named Krsan, a famous demon, named Krsna. We know there is a famous demon named Dr. Radha Krsna. Oh, can we back that? Rewind. We can, or something can come out of my mouth, like [makes a dial tone sound]. Dr. Radha Krsna, we can think, “Oh, how auspicious!” The most inauspicious person you can imagine, there should be a thing on the screen says, “Not for distribution in India.” He was the president of India. 

Why do I say this? Because Prabhupad used to get furious at his perverted interpretation of Bhagavad-gita, where it’d say, “It is not to the person Krsna, when He says, ‘sarva-dharma parityaja mam ekam sharanam braja.’ Or man mana bhava mad-bhakto madhyaji mam namaskuru, surrender to Me, become My devotee, think of Me,’ they say this is not to the person Krsna, to whom we’re to surrender ourselves utterly, but to the impersonal unborn, who is speaking through Krsna.” That would make Prabhupad furious. Because it is to deny, people say, “Why?” Because it’s to deny the Personality of Godhead. In the Chaitanya-bhagavat, Mahaprabhu, when he takes Viraha-bhav at the house of Srivas Thakur, at one point he says, “There is some mayavadi in Benares, Prakasananda Saraswati, who is trying to mutilate my divine form, describing the Supreme Absolute Truth as deaf, dumb, blind, senseless.  We know what the opinion of the mass of people is in this world, the people who lack full sensory capacity. So, to think that the Supreme Reality, the supreme original source of everything is like sensually challenged, cannot hear, speak, see, taste, smell, feel. 

I told when I flew from Beijing to New York and sitting next to me was a Chinese professor who teaches computer science at one of leading  Universitites in America to the graduate students. And I said to him, I thought it was a good opportunity to ask a few questions. And he said, as a scientist, computer scientist, fully trained in that system, said, “Can you say with an absolute certainty that the original source of all fragrance has no all-factory capacity? Cannot smell.” The Original source of all the flavor, taste, has no tasting ability, the original source of all sound cannot hear, or cannot make sound, or intelligent sound. He said, “The way you’re putting it, when you say, I cannot say with the absolute certainty, that the original source of all sensuality has no senses. Cannot be said.” So, we feel insulted when someone treats us as less than human to come in objection about someone being cold, clinical, insensitive, treating someone in an inhuman way, dehumanizing them. 

We see as people advance who was a George Barnar Show, who said, that, “With the advancement of civilization as man give up eating man, man will give up eating animals, saying as just we, if you follow the evolutionary paradigm we realize, “Oh, kanibalism, that’s something beneath us.” Yes, if you evolve further, you’ll realize, eating animals is beneath you as well. How likely that is to happen I don’t know. But that he could think that way. So, we could say similarly, it’s we see it’s somewhat easier for people to embrace an impersonal conception of the Absolute, that the Universe is God, or some sort of scientific sounding mumbo jumbo about the original source of everything. Like on the Big Bang. It says in the Upanisads, saaiksata sa as rijata, talks about He glanced over the material creation and there was creation. 

And Srila Prabhupad gave this one example that I had my own experience in childhood. He said something about when the sun is shining on mud, and we’ll see when there is intense sun on mud sometimes the mud explodes. So, he said, something like that. And I remember when I was a child, living in Southern Maryland, we used to go out the woods, searching for blackberries. Searching for the sweetness. [laughs] But it was not only us, we’d see, you know what blackberries are, this isn’t something unusual, but the blackberries grow, like the raspberries in Lahta, they grow high, blackberries grow low to the ground. So, if you pull back brunches of the bushes sometimes you’d see a turtle, and they like turn their head, [makes a champing sound], and they’d be like their face is covered in blackberry. And they look little surprised. English turtles. But then you could see, we’re searching for sweetness, the turtle is searching for sweetness, I didn’t think like that at the time, but I did think it was interesting, I mean on some subtle primitive tribal level I understood, we’re looking for the same thing. [laughs]. But I had to bend down to get this he had to look up, but so Guru Maharaj will say, “Everyone is searching for sweetness.” The ants are searching, the turtles are searching for sweetness, we also are searching for sweetness. 

But on the way to those blackberry bushes sometimes you’d see like mud flats and you’d see this hot sun shining on that mud and in certain areas the mud would explode. Therefore saaiksata saasrijata, means He glanced over the material nature and you can say exploded with creation if you wish. But just the idea, that someone can say with the straight face that the way the original source of everything was an explosion, as modern as it may sound from one point of view, I think from another point of view it sounds childish and primitive. But that’s something else. So why did I say that? Oh, so there is a demon named Krsna. There is a Vaikuntha Krsna, Krsna of Vaikuntha, if you look when you see the chart of Vaikuntha, and it’s just so many Vaikuntha lokas, this one’s name, Narayan, govinda, vaman, Trivikram, Madhusudan, all these different, the different hand positions. The lotus, club, conch shell and chakra. You’ll see one Vakuntha form known as Krsna. And there is rsna of Dvaraka, Krsna of Madhura, Krsna of Vrndavan. And what did Saraswati Thakur, Guru Maharaj quoted Saraswati Thakur in the Prapanna-jivanamrtam,

vrndavana hoite srestha govardhana shaila gandarvika giridhari jata krda koila, superior to the Pastimes in Vrndavan are the pastimes of Govardhan, superior to that is Radha-kund and on the banks of Radha-kund. 

And Guru Maharaj said in there he gave a talk and he said, “And superior pastimes take place in the water.” Gradation, gradation, gradation, refinement of conception of the ultimate Reality based upon the most intense magnitude of dedicating tendency. Seva mayo yam loka, the spiritual world in this sense is constructed out of serving tendency. Bargo bai vrsabanu jatma, it’s when Guru Maharaj says, “Faith is the halo of Radharani,” in his Brahma-gayatri explanation also we can understand the spiritual world is a construct Her serving tendency and extensions of that serving tendency. 

Radha padman kitadam vrdavan jaranam, and what was that? Aniera hrdoya man mora man vrndavan, Srimati Radhdarani voiced by Maharaprabhu at the Ratha-yatra say, “For most people their mind and self are more or less identical, my mind or heart and Vrndavan are identical.” So, in that sense we can understand that it’s a construct, ananda chinmaya rasaprati bhavita statbija eva nija rupa taya kalabi goloka eva nivisatma kelatma bhuto govindam adi purusam…, estending expanding for increased serving capacity. Guru Mahraj said, “That is Krsna-prem, das kori betam more deho prema dhan, let me serve and what’s my vetan? Salary? Increased serving tendency. Just like the classic example of the capitalist. Is someone who, when interst is generated from the capital what do they do? They add it to the capital to increase the capital it will mean an increase an interest. Then take that interst and expand the capital. The interest becomes greater in this way. So, he’s saying for an actual devotee that’s their thinking, they are not thinking, “When can I rip the benefits of seva in the from of divine ecstasy? I want to taste those fruits. Bharivinod Thakur says that sort of mentality will preclude one from tasting anything substantial. 

So, when Srila Guru Mahraj came to the lotuss feet of Srila Saraswati Thakur, it cause some pain in the heart of his mother, his detachment from the world. Actually he joined after, but seeing this, that he was so absorbed in kirttan, that her affectionate name for him was Ramu and she once said, “Previously the kirttan was giving me so much pleasure an happiness, but now that it’s taking Ramu away I have mixed feeings.” To be the Guru, of the mother, mother is also Guru, Guru-varga, mata, data, pita, there are also the guru-varga of Krsna, Nanda, Yasoda. But to be in that of Guru Maharaja’s some extraordinary position. But anyway anticipating a difficult pregnancy she prayed to Ramachandra for some protection like Rama radhava rama raghava raksamam. Raksa. Sometimes we can do that. 

So, when he was born, he was given the name Ramendrachndra, surname Bhattacharya, so, Ramendrachandra. When he came to the lotus feet of Saraswati Thakur, when he was initiated Saraswati Thakur told, “Your name will be Ramendrasundar.” So, after the initiation Ananta Vasudev Prabhu asked Srila Guru Maharaj, “What type of hari-katha Prabhupad gave at the time of your initiation?” Guru Maharaj with his extraordinary capacity to accurately substantially reproduce what was heard, he told, that when he mentioned that name Ramendrasundar, Guru Maharaj said, “and this Rama how should we conceive?” Saraswati Thakur said, “Raman Radha, Radha Raman, Raman Radha.” And Guru Maharaj told, when he told this, maybe almost fifty years later he said, “That sound, that divine sound is still ringing in my year.” He could still hear the voice of Srila Saraswati Thakur saying, “Raman Radha, Radha Raman.” Vilasatu hrdi nityam bhakatisiddhanta vani. And the implication with regard to madhurya-rasa, he said, so Ananta Vasudev Prabhu said, “Oh, you’re very fortunate.” 

So, although conceptually people may take it in different ways, under the influence of Srila Guru Maharaja’s thinking, we take Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare, that Rama means Raman Radha Raman Radha, Radha Raman. 

Gandhi took the name of Ram after he was shot in the final moments, but he had no personal conception. Whereas we find Mahaprabhu on account of deep absorption cannot vibrate the name at times, he can’t say ‘Jagannath’, it’s recorded at Charitamrta, he’s saying, “Ja-ga, Ja…” So, in once instance total absorption and inability to express an the other something is being expressed or vibrated that may not have a touch of that divine substance. Vakuntha nama grahanam. Guru Maharaj liked to quote from the Ajamil chapter in the sixth canto of Srimad Bhagavatam. What is important, is it vaikuntha nam? And here Vakuntha means spiritual and its color, characteristic, substance. Vaikuntha nama grahanam. Is that what it is? Sevanmukhe hija varusayamebi vaya spurtyada. Is it infused with the serving tendency? Or nama kar bahi roi bata nama kabu noi, Jagananda Pandit, Prema-vivarta, offend of the Prema-vivarta. [laughs] Says just making the sound Krsna, kabu noi means, he is not saying, “Oh, that may not be.” Not like that, he’s saying, “It’s never the name of Krsna.” Just making this sound, never. So, it means with what heart that Bhaktivinod Thakur song, in Saranagati toward the conclusion, what did it say? Hrdaya bolite, Guru Maharaj said, “Here this bal, bala, means like power, means the holy name, having heard the holy name from the vaisnava, and under the influence of that conception, that current the heart, when saturated with serving tendency and under the influence of the Krsna-nam of the substantial vaisnava, expresses Krsna-nam then the name is dancing on the tongue. And we see the effects are described there by Bhaktivinod Thakur. That is substantial Krsna-nam.

So, Guru Maharaj was incapable of giving another determination for the sake of being polite, but rather told the truth. And in a palatable way.

Even in this world we can tell the difference how someone calls your name. Whether is the affectionately, absent-mindedly, offensively, neutrally, with feeling, with total absence of feeling, with the wrong feeling. We’re capable of this type of observation. So, if go back to my original presence, Krsna would be minus that? 

In the very beginning days when I joined the Krsna Consciousness movement, while we’re doing various activities, they liked to play this recording of Srila Prabhupad, singing a mahamantra, and then he would give an explanation, some devotees had memorized, “As explained in the record album…” They could do the whole talk, cause they’ve heard it so many times. But one of the things he said, that still ringing in my ears, caught my attention was when he explained, “Hara, vocative, it is like the genuine cry of a child for its mother.” Just that simple example. The genuine cry of a child for its mother. We see this all the time dealing especially with the toddlers or the little children. Like one of us will get very, “Oh, your child he’s in trouble, he’s crying!” The mother will go, “No, it’s not the real things.” She knows, we don’t know, we think, “No, but he’s crying, look.” “No.” They know there is some act, it’s not genuine, it’s this, it’s that, the other thing. So, he said, it’s like the genuine cry of the child for its mother.

So, we’re not here to sit in judgment of what is genuine and what is not, we all think ourselves, kandami som bhagya aparam prakasitam. Maharaprabhu responses saying, “You say you don’t have a scent of the fragrance of Krsna-prem, but we see you’re crying uncontrollaabley.” What did Mahaprabhu say? “That is to deceive people into thinking that I have devotion to Krsna, it’s an act, it’s a show.” Why did Mahaprabhu say that? Sri krsna chaitanya radha krsna nahi anya, if devotion is not in fact some rare occurrence. Koki svupi maha mune, one in ten million, and Guru Maharaj said, “Even that is too many.” He thought one in ten million was too many [laughs]. 

So, then we think, “Then what hope is there for people like us?” doinya atma nivedan goptritve varan, if that’s a genuine sentiment, doinya, hopelessness, desperation, if it’s a real genuine sentiment, then that will lead one to take shelter of the lotus feet of the proper vaisnava and offer oneself in service to them. Therein lies our hope. 

When in Soquel once when Srila Gurudev was there, he’s made  this comment. I forget the context, but he said, “When we’re taking Krsna-nam on the tulasi beats and count it, he compared the tulasi beats to holding the lotus feet Tualsi Devi, and he said, “Because maybe Krsna doesn’t like me, maybe I did something wrong and Krsna doesn’t’ like me,” that’s what he said, “But if I hold the lotus feet of Tulasi and I take the name of Krsna, then I have some hope.”

It reminds me of another thing he said once in Vrndavan, “If Krsna doesn’t want to reveal Himself to someone, why should I?” [laughs]. In my mind I thought, “But therefore we think that devotees are more merciful.” But I understood his point also. And this shouldn’t be misunderstood, we value to the extreme the tendency of extending Krsna Consciousness to others, but he was reminding us, Krsna, for it to be real and substantial, Krsna has to be there in the background. Nayamatma pravachanena labhyo namedaya bahuna srutena tame vaisya vrnute teny labhyas tasaisa atma vevrinuten tanu svam, the Upanisads. And He reveals Himself to whom, through whom He choses. That’s Krsna’s prerogative.

Question: Here is the question from Manasa Krsna. Goswami Maharaj: Where is he? Devotee: I don’t know Maharaj, he’s in skype. This verse, nama chintamani krsna chaitanya rasa vigraha, especially this part, krsna chaitanya rasa vigraha.
 

Goswami Maharaj: That is a wonderful, nama chintamani krsna chaitanya rasa vigraha, purnaksudho nitya mukto abhinnatvam nama namino, harinam chintamani. What comes to mind and to keep it on theme with what Krsna wants, is anther sloka from the Padyavali of Rupa Goswami, his own personal sloka collection, it says,

akrsti krta cheta sam samanasam uchtanam chanhasam ach chandavam mukha loka sulabho bhasya chamukti sriya no dikasam nacha sat kryam na puruscharjam mana diksate mantoyam rasa nasprigyeva palate sri krsna namatmaka.

I will take it in this way, that here it says, “If it’s Krsna’s desire, mantroyam rasana sprgyeva palati, sri krsna namatmaka, whatever the PH content of the soil, t here is no prerequisite. There is no precondition, if it’s Krsna’s desire to spring out of that soil then it will happen. So, chaitanya rasa vigraha, I am not going to attempt to explain that. But I’ll say this that Guru Mahraj told that we know from Charitamrta that althought in the Gambhira there are no windows and there is a devotee, that means  the room that Mahaprabhu lived in the last twelve – eitghting years of his life. There is no windows and there is one door, and there is a devotee posted at the door. And that devotee will hear heart rending sounds of Mahaprabhu venting expressing the pains (?) of separation. So, the devotees are always worried, because what they hear is heart rending, it’s scary what’s going on inside of that room, the effects of separation. That’s why Guru Maharaj told when Radharani understood Krsna’s intention to descend into this world with radha-bhava-dyuit, She thought of She knows from Her personal experience the effects of separation, She thought, “I won’t be able to tolerate your divine form will become bruised or damaged in any way, so, I am going to cover you.” As Ramananda saw, “I see not only Saymasundar Krsna, the cowherd boy, but I see that he’s been covered by a golden girl.” So, but still somehow he would escape the room and run towards the sand-dunes as Govardhan, the ocean as Jamuna. There is low class illiusion and high class illusion. Maha-maya and Yoga-maya. And as we, our bram (?), our mistake is to misread the world, Mahaprabhu’s bram, mistake is he sees everything invert, we see even that which is spiritual as being mundane, arche visnusiladye guru sunomati vaisnave jati budhi, that is our misfortune. Mahaprabhu’s position is to see everything as a source of remembrance for Krsna, the abode of Krsna, the Pastimes of Krsna.

So, he’s running into the sand-dune, and like Radharani, we hear in the, if the wind has the fragrance of Krsna, She is running into the wind, gopis embrace tamal trees taking it to be Krsna. Radharani’s love and devotion for Krsna is so great, sometimes She sees Her own reflecrion upon Krsna and thinks it’s another gopi. So, Mahaprabhu in this sort of divine madness running to the sand-dune as Govardhan, into the sea as Jamuna. So, one such night, the devotees can’t find him, Svarup Damodar leads the search party, torchlight search party, they’re looking for Mahaprabhu, and all the devotees’ heart are breaking at the thought that possibly he’s left the world, they are searching. And they meet one fisherman, who’s lost his mind. And he is talking to himself, and he is speaking like a madman. Svarup Damodar said, “What is your difficulty?” He said, “I was fishing,” and in his net he thought he caught one fish, then he saw was this golden glowing form that he took to be a ghost, he touched the body of the ghost and he said, “I am infused with Krsna-nam.” Nama-chintamani krsna chaitanya. 

So, Svarup Damodar told him, “Oh, I am an exorcist and I know how to cure you, you take me to where that ghost is.” Then Svarup Damodar got some hope, as we why did the man unable to perceive him properly? Because the ecstasy is sometimes so intense, it’s causing constriction, intensity of the ecstasy of separation, as in the case of Jagannath. All the limbs are withdrawing in the body, the eyes are becoming huge and at other times there is elongation, we’re told Mahaprabhu’s joints separating by eight inches. So, this is not a pleasant image but it’s showing the type of degree of magnitude of the effects of divine separation. Sometimes all of his limbs entering his body like a tortoise. He is looking like a golden pumpkin. So, we’re told some cows would come and start leaking him. 

Anyway, Svarup Damodar they find Mahaprabhu and he has three states, his expternal, half-external half-internal and internal. He’s in the internal state going towards half-internal half-external, Svarup Damodar and the other devotees start chanting Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare, they’re chanting, they are trying to see are there any signs of life left, they are taking Krsna-nam, and gradually Mahaprabhu is coming, he is half-internal half-external consciousness, and he tells of being in Vrndavan, Radha-kunda, on the banks Krsna, Radharani and Vraja-gopis, they are playing in the water, and he’s hearing the sweet sound of their laughter and their ornaments. And then he says, “And then you all made some noise, kalaho, you made this great noise and you disturbed, you broke my happy dream.” Then Mahaprabhu is crying and wheiling (?). 

So, Srila Guru Maharaj pointed out first of all, that the sound of the ornaments of the Vraja-gopis in that plane was superior to any other sounds, including the Krsna-nam of Svarup Damodar and all these devotees. Just the sound of their ornaments and the sound of their play. And what is he saying was a noise, was the Krsna-nam of Svarup Damodar and all these great vaisnavas who we’re take at our chanting offenceless Krsna-nam. He’s saying, “You made some noise.” What was that noise? Hare Krsna. “And brought me here and it broke my happy dream and now I can no longer hear the sound of their divine ornaments and sweet play. That was one explanation. 

Then in the same breath Srila Guru Maharaj explained, “This shows us the power,” when he say, punaksato nityamukto abinatvvam nama namino, what is the power of Krsna-nam? It’s so great that it was given preference over direct participation of lila. So, he took the explanation in the opposite direction, saying, “The power of Krsna-nam is so great, he is directly participating in lila, in Pastimes, Radha, Krsna and vraja-gopis. And Krsna-nam had the power to pull him from that plane. That’s achintya-bhedabhed.

And Bhaktivinod Thakur in his final days, we hear in the Bhagavatam that a Mahabhavata as sometimes an example given as a drunkerd is unaware whether his clothes is on or off. That’s one of the classic stereotypes of the drunker, their coat is half on half off, or they are even naked. So, it says there in the Bhagavatam from mahabhagavata, pure devotee, they are unaware if their body is on or off. Cause what are saying? Vasabji jonani ata bihaya it’s like a dress. So, they don’t know whether they are imbodied or not. They are so absorbed internally in the upper world, and this is particularly in the case of Bhaktivinod in his final days. So, as sometimes he is walking around his house naked and if some guest would come he was a judge, a highly respectable person, now he’s at home, if a guest would come, his attendant Krsnadas would rap him in some cloth and then sit him on the chair and say, “Some people have come to see you.” So, as he’s leaving the world he is less and less conscious here. 

So, these people from Kolkata, they came to visit Bhaktivinod Thakur, they said, “Could you tell us something about Krsna-nam?” And Bhaktivinod Thakur said, “Krsna-nam, Krsna, Krsna-nam.” He’s just started vibrating the name Krsna, and Guru Maharaj said, “One of the eye witness is said, “Everything is described in that last song of Saranagati we witnessed.” The hair standing upon an end, the trembling, tears pouring profusely, with Bhaktivinod Thakur repeating, Krsna-nam, just hearing the word, beign asked to say something about Krsna, awakened such a deep remembrance in him, that his whole body was attacked with waves of ecstatic symptoms. So, just knowing that there is such a stage and such a personalities exist is enough for us. Oujala-ragapath gaurava bange, therefore Saraswati Thakur said, “Really our position should be from this plane here with things that are practical, to render service to the raga-marg Guru, the raga-marg bhaktas, the raga-bhaktas.” They are that. Their Krsna-nam is like chintamani and have thattransfomative power. That’s why we have to approach such personalities for Krsna-nam to get something substantial that has the power of that sort of transformation, transformative power. 

Devotee: There is (?) from Moscow.
Goswami Maharaj: Who?
Devotee: Continuation from Manasa Krsna. So, he said, we heard once from Srila Gurudev, he expressed that krsna chaitanya rasa vigraha means that Chaitanyadev and Krsnanam are same thing and then he quote the verse from Chaitanyastaka about the divine golden dancing of Sriman Mahaprabhu.

Goswami Maharaj: Very good.

Rasodama kamarbuda maddhura damojvala tanur jatinam uttanksas tarani karani bhata vidyoti vasana hiranyanam laksmi baran abhivalan angika rucha sacchaitanya kame punar abhi drsorya sate badam. 

It’s the eye witness vision of Srila Rupa Goswami. Ananda lila maya vigrahaya, hemavadivyachchavri sundaraya tasmai mahaprama rasapradaya chaitaya chandraya namo Namaste, Prabhodananda Saraswati Thakur. So, Saraswati Thakur named one of his disciples Ananda lilamaya vigraha. Prabhu [laughs]. Hare Krsna.