About Gopal Bhatta Goswami

Goswāmī Mahārāj: So, welcome to all the guests, I don’t know where is everybody from, heard a little bit. So, I assume we’re like sticking in English and Russian, you’re translating what I say in Russian and it accommodates everybody, right?
Audience: “All our guests speak very good English.”
Goswāmī Mahārāj: “Ok. Probably better than I do.”

Someone said that England and America were two countries divided by a common language [laugh]. And once I, once Śrīla Guru Mahārāj said to me in the afternoon, because sometimes we go and see him in the afternoon and have lighter conversation, and not like heavy ontological interrogations, just lighter. And one day he turned to me and said, “You don’t like to learn Sanskrit?” We were also getting to know each other more. And I said, “No, Mahārāj. If anybody, you know, count me in the group, who wants to learn Sanskrit.” I said. “But my responsibility is…” like at the time I’ve been the president of ISKCON Los Angeles temple.

And I said, “Even though there’s so many Sanskrit is there…”, we try to have classes and it just wouldn’t pan out, and many of my friends were ended up becoming Sanskrit paṇḍits of one type or another. So, I said, “No, I would like to, it just has never...” And then Guru Mahārāj, who spoke Sanskrit in the house, when he was a child, like with his aunties and brothers, they spoke conversational Sanskrit. He composed Sanskrit, when he was a teenager, started composing. He was very much ruled by śāstra and by what you find in there, and generally recorded in Sanskrit language, later Bengali. Who composed so many works like the Prema-dhāma-devam-stotram, Chaitanya-charitāṁṛta, condensed in a seventy two verses, compiled the Prapanna-jīvanāmṛtam, which was using the ṣaṭ-vidhi… ṣaṭ-vidha…, śaraṅāgati, six aspects of surrender, as a template for collecting ślokas from all over the Scriptures about the importance of surrender and as expressed by devotees, as expressed by Kṛṣṇa as expressed by Mahāprabhu, Kṛṣṇa as a devotee, so many beautiful things are there, means life-giving nectar for surrendered souls, many devotees would read that daily to get some inspiration, they lives.

Who composed all of these wonderful ślokas and glorifications of Saraswatī Ṭhākur, the Bhaktivinod-viraha Daśakam, Bābājī Mahārāja’s Daśakam or Dvadaśakam, I forget, you know, the five ślokas for the appearance day of Saraswatī Ṭhākur, the separation ślokas for Saraswatī Ṭhākur, the Rūpa Goswāmī ślokas, so many, praise of Gadādhar Paṇḍit, Vyāsadev, all of these. The reason I’m saying is, Guru Mahārāj said, “I know a little Sanskrit”. Who is highly revered for...And he said in a modest way, “I know something, Sanskrit”. He said, “But we are not interested in the language world,” he said. “We’re interested in the thought world Kṛṣṇa Conception, Kṛṣṇa Consciousness.

Like Śrīla Prabhupāda… just that phrase ‘Kṛṣṇa Consciousness’, that was his creation, what an extraordinary contribution to make linguistically. The phrase, the phrase ‘Kṛṣṇa Consciousness’, which is sometimes Guru Mahārāj would talk about it saying, “How wonderful, because we say Kṛṣṇa Chaitanya. Chetana – in Sanskrit also means consciousness. So, Kṛṣṇa Chaitanya you can also translate as Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. As when Mahāprabhu,… we are also approaching the time of Makara-saṅkrānti the... what’s it called? Is it a solstice? The winter solstice or it’s, anyway, we just want, it’s similar to that, it announces the big, the... what was it? Dakṣiṇāyana-uttrāyaṇa, when the Sun’s going South and North, this kind of thing, I’m not an astrologer [laugh]. But that’s as much as we need to know, it’s in the Bhagavad-gītā.

So, this is a particular time in India called Makara-saṅkrānti when a southern course starts to take place, but I could be wrong, it’s one or the other, but that also marks the time, when Mahāprabhu, Nimāi Paṇḍit, went to take sannyās. So, why did I say that... because... (voice from the audience: Kṛṣṇa Chaitanya). Yes, thank you. It makes, it gives me some encouragement to know that you’re paying attention, when you translating” [laugh]. But if you turn to the translator and he’s like, “I don’t know. No idea where this is going”. Then you’re like, you could be in trouble. You are on your own.

So the reason I’m thinking that, we’re going to talk about that more in the coming days actually, it’s coming up, like two or three days from now, and it’s very important and extraordinary. But just alluding to that, when the time comes, we’re not going to tell all of that now, the story in the details, when it comes time for his name...uh... Keśava Bhāratī says to him, you know with the ... around all of the voices singing and Nimāi Paṇḍit shorn his beautiful hairs, he said, “Your name cannot be anything other than Śrī Kṛṣṇa Chaitanya, because you’re giving Kṛṣṇa Consciousness to everyone. So, your name must be Śrī Kṛṣṇa Chaitanya.

And that’s when we hear the father of Śrīnivāsa Āchārja he started like “Chaitanya, Chaitanya”. He went in to the mad ecstasy just vibrating: “Chaitanya, Chaitanya”. And when he went back to his village and everyone would say “What happened in Katwa? We heard that Nimāi Paṇḍit left Navadwīp, and he went and took sannyās, what happened? And he goes, “Chaitanya, Chaitanya”. That’s all he could say and his, then he became known as Chaitanya das. Cause for the rest of his life he goes, “Chaitanya” [laugh].

So, that’s Śrī Kṛṣṇa Chaitanya rendered as Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, so Śrīla Guru Mahārāj said to me, “We’re not interested in the language world, we’re not linguists. That’s not what it means if we study some particular language, we’re not linguists, we’re interested in the thought world and by that he means concept, and by that he means spiritual substance, not abstract thinking. That’s not where… talking about concept or ontology, or siddhānta, some kind of philosophical abstract idea, but spiritual substance couched in particular language. Like Śrīla Guru Mahārāj will say, “The Scriptures they’re passively, when appear as a book, in a book form, he said, “That’s a passive representation, they are actually spiritually conscious substance, they’re alive, they’re more alive than we are”. That means ‘chinmoy’.

“Vaikuṇṭhera pṛthivy-ādi sakala chinmaya…” (CC: Adi 5.53) So, they’re alive, but they’re posing as books with pages and...”Oh, there’s an old book there”. Or now we have like ePub, or digital books, but still it’s, it’s... we can’t be deceived, it will be, to be deceived to focus on the means of delivery, that also means, “āchāryaṁ māṁ vijānīyān nāvamanyeta karhichit…”(CC: Adi 1.46), rather than focusing on the substance, and this is one of the Guru Maharāja’s consistent themes, Form vs. Substance, Substance over Form, the focus on the method of delivery, right, or the apparatus, the mechanics of it, that’s also,

“Nāmākṣara bāhirāya baṭe nāma kabhu naya…”, Jagadānanda Paṇḍit in Prema-vivarta saying, “The Holy Name of Kṛṣṇa is not literally the sound that you’re vibrating with your tongue and lips. Rather what...here...entered through the... from the vaiṣṇava, sādhu, śāstra, guru, vaiṣṇava, this sound “praviṣṭaḥ karṇa-randhreṇa svānāṁ bhāva-saroruham…” (SB 2.8.5) enters the heart and when Kṛṣṇa Conception spreads its influence on the heart, then the heart influences the tongue.” There’s a saying “Kṛṣṇa nām is dancing on the tongue”. It’s from the heart outward, not making some sound going inward to the plane of heart, cause from the plane of heart outward, and heart’s expression that’s one of the substantial. And he further on that topic, Guru Mahārāj is saying about Saraswatī Ṭhākur being in South India, and he was giving a talk, and as we hear sometimes Saraswatī Ṭhākur speaking English, sometimes some Sanskrit, sometimes some Bengali, maybe some Hindi, many things, and some man in the audience he was like, “Swāmīji, if you will just speak (meaning one particular language), if you will just speak that, then everyone will understand. But you’re speaking all these different languages, we’re somewhat confused”. And Guru Mahārāj said, Saraswatī Ṭhākur said, “You don’t understand, I am not speaking English, I’m not speaking Sanskrit, I’m not speaking languages, I’m trying to represent the spiritual substance of the upper world to you, and whichever one of those languages can be employed in the service of that spiritual conception and deliver that concept I’m using it to that effect.

And so Śrīla Guru Mahārāj himself although again Sanskrit master, Bangla etc., he said also he was meant to preach in the English language for all this original concepts keen… of Reality the Beautiful, Subjective Evolution of Consciousness and …

I’m thinking on this day, how to segue way to the Appearance of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Goswāmī and there’s little connection here, because one of the saying, “The books are personalities, the Vedas are personalities, the Upaniṣads are personalities, told in the eighty-seventh chapter of tenth canto of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam personified Vedas, veda-stuti, they are… The Upaniṣads personified, they’re offering prayers of Kṛṣṇa, but according to their adhikār or capacity they express Kṛṣṇa Conception, sometimes it’s a little more like… Brahma, Paramātmā, Bhagavān, it’s a little more under brahmiṇ side, seemingly in personal, ultimately not. Sometimes more toward Paramātmā, hintingIy Bhagavān, but there is some, who is directly dealing with Kṛṣṇa conception.

So it’s mentioned there that while some of the… you can say lesser Upaniṣads are speaking, that some of the senior ones and more developed conceptually and personifying that, they’re getting anxious, they want to say something, because they don’t think that the other ones are fully delivering Kṛṣṇa Conception. It’s very sweet actually, I’m presenting it, my presentation is little crew, but… What’s there is very sweet and based upon the insight of Viśvanātha Chakravartī Ṭhākur.

So, when we… the reason I’m saying this reminds me Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Goswāmī is in this way. And I’ll give a little background that “vande rūpa-sanātanau raghu-yugau śrī-jīva-gopālakau” (Ṣaḍ-Gosvāmy-aṣṭakam), also written by Śrīnivāsa Āchārya we just mentioned. So we hear there is Rūpa, Sanātan, Raghu, two: Raghunāth Bhaṭṭa, Raghunath dās, there were actually few more Raghudas. So, when Raghunātha dāsa Goswāmī came to Mahāprabhu he was called svarūper raghu, Svarūp’s Raghunath dās. But, so, Raghunath Bhaṭṭa then Jīva Goswāmī, the great scholar, like arguably the greatest scholar of our time, but then Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Goswāmī …So, Gopāla Bhaṭṭa was only unique in that… he was from the South Indian brahmiṇ family, Śrī-Vaiṣṇavas, that means in the Rāmānuja line. The others for various reasons, they’re disqualifies in the Vedic society, it’s very interesting actually, without going to all the details, like Raghunath is considered as kāyastha…rūpa…they ‘re not, they didn’t hold the esteem what brahmiṇs did in the society, and this is something interesting. When Mahāprabhu meet someone like Vallabha Bhaṭṭa, who is again a high class brahmiṇ, Mahāprabhu would tell him indirectly, “All the people I’ve heard from, like, I cannot properly talk about Kṛṣṇa, but like the people I’ve heard from, like Rāmānanda Rāya, I’ve learned everything I know from him, he’s a śūdra [laugh]

Technically Rāmānanda is a…, “If I’ve learned all this rāga-mārg from Rāmānanda. I’ve learned like, Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭāchārya, he is a great philosopher, but Advaita Āchārya, who is he? He is like God. Sākṣād-īśvar, he is God Himself, as far as his concern. Nityānanda eyes are, how do you say, Kṛṣṇa-premera-sāgar, he is an ocean of Kṛṣṇa-prem,” he starts naming all these different persons, and Svarūp Dāmodar, were, ‘I’ve learned from him,’ and then after he mentioned, all these principal followers, then he gives the whole list of all other devotees. And Saraswatī Ṭhākur and Bhaktivinod, they saying in the purport, this was his like soft way of kindly telling him, “This is how you get Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, is through devotees”. He just named like forty devotees who he feels are responsible for enlightening him in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness.

But anyway, still we may think that’s the substance over matter, but still we have to consider how to present things to society, whatever society you’re in. And we have to think about that too, that’s part of this project here, is in the modern world, the world we understand and come from, how to bridge this ontological siddhāntic world of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, make a bridge into the modern digital world and …how do you say, retain its conceptual authenticity and substance, so this is kind of always there in different ways.

So, this is interesting we hear Gopāla Bhaṭṭa being… Veṅkaṭa Bhaṭṭa is his father, Prabhodānanda Saraswatī Ṭhākur is his uncle and Trimalla I mean think about it. Mahārabhu visited there when he was a boy, when Mahāprabhu was at that foreman Chāturmāsya, that’s when Gopāl Bhaṭṭa was a boy he was like bring prasādam, cleaning the, you know, doing like trivial menial service for Mahāprabhu, but you can imagine how beautiful Gopāl Bhaṭṭa was and pure, and Mahāprabhu stay there for four months. So, anyway that Gopāl Bhaṭṭa because of this high brahmiṇical lineage and, how do you say, status, social status, Jīva Goswāmī and Sanātana Goswāmī they were working on Hari-bhakti-vilāsa under Mahāprabhu’s order, which will be a book about Vaiṣṇava-sadāchāra what’s the proper behavior for vaiṣṇavism, and everything is in there, how observe Holy Days, everything that you need to know and do in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness with proper śāstric reference to show that it’s authentic and legitimate. But from what I understand hearing from Guru Mahārāj about it, Gopāl Bhaṭṭa is like madly extracting things from the Scriptures but not organizing these things, just like, he is the person with like thousands of quotes, like everywhere, you know, over here is more, and he is like extracting like, you know, it’s like there are stacks all over and Sanātan Goswāmī and Jīva Goswāmī are like, “Hmm… these will structure in this file, put that in this file, this goes over here, this is on behavior this…,” you know. They like structured the whole thing and presented, but even though it’s Sanātan Goswāmī and Jīva Goswāmī, as bizarre as this sounds in that world… This is India… they won’t accepted it.

Why? Because of this varṇāśram or I would say the, broken remnants of varṇāśram. Were… they thinking they’re not high class brahmiṇs, what is their business dealing with this thing? So, what Guru Mahārāj said they did was they present Hari-bhakti-vilās in the name of Gopāl Bhaṭṭa Goswāmī. Cause he has this pakka, uh, unquestionable credentials, being a South Indian brahmiṇ from the Śrī-sampradāya, everything’s per…that’s totally acceptable to them. So, it tells us something about his background, it tells also that we may sometimes factor in our consideration how we deliver things to people.

Like one of Śrīla Prabhupad’s thing was about the Bhaktivedanta Institute and scientists. I remember once we went to Atlanta, GA, to the temple, there beautiful Gaura-Nitāi Deities, and Swārup Dāmodar Mahārāj was there, famous scientist of Bhaktivedanta Institute, and Prabhupad was saying how he wanted them to preach, and our Bhakti Mādhava Purī Mahārāj, who was Mādhava Prabhu at that time, and he was telling how he wanted them to approach, and with scientists. And he said, “You should put Kṛṣṇa Consciousness in a bombastic language”. And that was the perfect word, he said, “bombastic language”. Which shows you what he thought about the science. He is just like, it’s a lot of bombastic language and, now I’m offending that group. But anyway that, it was showing that you saw, you put in their language, Guru Maharāja’s version of that is The Subjective Evolution of Consciousness. So, there is some consideration about that. Avadhūt Mahārāj was talking about that the other night, he mentioned Kṛṣṇa-saṅgīta, Bhaktivinod Ṭhākur’s realization, right I’m addressing modern people here, most modern people have…, this is a basis or foundation of how they approach things, so I’ll conceive that to them and not make issues over trivial things. And then deliver the substance to them.

So, there is some entrance or precedent for that. But interestingly they said Mahāprabhu when He travel the South India, that’s where he met this extraordinary family. And even in the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam in the later cantos, there is a line about, actually maybe even in the twelfth canto, it calls Dakṣiṇa-deśa, that’s the name for south India, it’s saying as degraded as Kali-yuga will become, religion will still be strong in the southern part of the country. So, we hear, I haven’t really been there, Janārdan Mahārāj has been there, Avadhūt Mahārāj, maybe someone of you, other devotees have. But so Mahāprabhu after he took sannyās, he went the southern part of the country and visited these famous holy places, particularly Raṅgakṣetra, Śrī Raṅga. And that’s where Veṅkaṭa Bhaṭṭa the father of Gopāl Bhaṭṭa observed this divine symptoms and qualities and characteristics of Mahāprabhu, and invited him to stay with for the rainy season at this place. Because generally during that time which is around four months because of the heavy rains one couldn’t travel, so sannyāsīs would stay at some holy place, so it was perfectly in order. And as we told, Gopāl Bhaṭṭa is there as the boy serving Mahāprabhu with great love and affection. Every day he and Veṅkaṭa Bhaṭṭa they’re having hari-kathā, Kṛṣṇa-kathā, can imagine four months.

And then one day we hear that Mahāprabhu says in a little teasing way a little bit of joking, mildly joking, he says, “You know,…” cause we remember Śrī Vaiṣṇava, they worship Viṣṇu, four-armed Viṣṇu Nārāyaṇa. So, Mahāprabhu said, “You know one thing I find interesting, curious, is that Lakṣmī-devī, who’s like either at the lotus feet of her Lord or is in the chest of her Lord, eternally she is the ultimate chaste lady, right, it says that pati-dharma, I forget the exact word, but she is always first to be mentioned, it said that, she is eager to have rāsa with Kṛṣṇa, that’s a little curious, peculiar. And Veṅkaṭa Bhaṭṭa’s thinks and he quotes his famous śloka that “siddhāntatas tv abhede ’pi śrīśa-kṛṣṇa-svarūpayoḥ…” (CC: Madhya 9.117). Think, “Well, cause philosophically speaking Kṛṣṇa and Viṣṇu are identical, so, but they, but they manifest different tendencies qualities or characteristics or particular emphasis. So, Kṛṣṇa’s known as Rasarāj, that’s his specialty is rāsa this type of divine loving exchange.

So, if Lakṣmī Devī wants to approach Kṛṣṇa for that, as much as He and Nārāyaṇa are identical, she is not being unchaste in any way but it’s the harm. And so Mahāprabhu says, “Alright what you’re saying, you’re quoting Scriptures, that makes sense, I can understand that, but what I find a little puzzling is that she is not given entrance into the rāsa-līlā with Kṛṣṇa, Rādhārāṇī, Vraja-gopīs. So, what you say is true but then why is she not given entrance there?” Then, Veṇkaṭa Bhaṭṭa starts becoming a little puzzled and then Mahāprabhu said, “This is not a joking matter.” “Yes, I know…”. “And not only that, not only is she not given entrance into the rāsa-līlā, Rādhā, Kṛṣṇa, Vraja-gopīs, but the veda-stuti is the personified Vedas we were talking about before, they are given entrance, the daṇḍa-kāraṇya ṛṣis, they were charmed by the beauty of Rāmachandra in Rāma-līla and they gave in to erotic sentiments, we’re talking about Rāmachandra, are conjugal sevā is restricted to Sītā-devī, but when I appear as Kṛṣṇa in Vṛndāvan, those divine desires you have can be fulfilled at that time. So, they’re given entrance, but Lakṣmī Devī is not.

Then he quotes Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, the Kāliya-līlā, after Kāliya has been chastised sufficiently and all the poison has been danced out of him, and he was sitting there somewhat like staggering and… (What’s the word, is when your consciousness is out of the balance?...right, but like if you’re stunned like …where they are not unconscious, but when you’re coming back). So, the wives of Kāliya started to offer prayers to Kṛṣṇa, cause they were thinking, minutes before he was a despicable person, now he’s got imprints of lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa all over him, and they think how is this possible and they say these words,

kasyānubhāvo ’sya na deva vidmahe
tavāṅghri-reṇu-sparaśādhikāraḥ
yad-vāñchayā śrīr lalanācharat tapo
vihāya kāmān su-chiraṁ dhṛta-vratā
(Śrī Chaitanya-charitāmṛta:  Madhya 8.147)

Saying Lakṣmī-devī, she performed austerities in the top of… forest for many life times to try to get this position and she couldn’t achieve that. And here is our husband, who was such a despicable personality moments ago and now he’s got marks of Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet all over him. So, how did he get this position? So, Mahāprabhu is showing this type of logic. Veṇkaṭa Bhaṭṭa realized, we’ve left human comprehension.

Just as I was telling Avadhūt Mahārāj earlier, when I walk around the tank in Dum Dum Park in the afternoon I meet this one man, he is always hearing the kīrttan and everything, would come and visit, sometimes inviting me in his house, and I was like declining to go, but finally I see one day, I meet him and he is going, “ I am not going to your temple anymore”. And I go, “Oh, really why is that?” And he said, “I heard your ārati”. And I’m saying, like, “What do you mean?” And he started the Saraswat-ārati where it says ‘śambhu agochara’. Where it says even Śiva cannot grasp, this it’s so high, even Śiva, it’s beyond what he can conceive. (He said), “I cannot accept that” [laugh]. And I’m, like, “Oh, now we see something here”. So, he found that unacceptable.

But that’s the point, and also he didn’t understand, Guru Mahārāj could explain to him, Śiva’s occupying three positions: Bhog-Śiv, Tyāg-Śiv and Bhakta-Śiv – Sadā-Śiv. So, he’s saying, “Śiva, when taking as a representative of ‘jñāna-miśra-bhakti’, ‘brahma-karma-miśra-bhakti’, ‘śiva-jñāna-miśra-bhakti’, it’s beyond, what can be conceived. But for Sadā Śiva, Bhakta Śiva, that’s another thing.

So, here, but Veṇkaṭa, he is smart enough, sincere enough, he knows that he’s having a conversation with the Supreme Reality, he also knows that [laugh]. It’s hard to comprehend, you’re (he’s) staying at his house, he also knows, who Mahāprabhu is, but to what extend does he know who Mahāprabhu is becoming clear by the moment. So, he says, “What you’re speaking about now and what you’re alluding to, it’s beyond human comprehension.

“Achintyāḥ khalu ye bhāvā na tāṁs tarkeṇa yojayet…,” things that are ‘achintya’, inconceivable, ‘achintya’, ‘adhokṣja’, beyond the grasp of the mind, the senses, mind, intellect. They’re not, you cannot argue about it, not something arguable, so, when he realizes Mahāprabhu is really upgrading him to Kṛṣṇa Conception and Mahāprabhu explained to him, he said, “And interestingly, so Lakṣmī-devī, who is Viṣṇu’s consort, she is attracted to Kṛṣṇa, but the Vraja-gopī, if we’re going to this “siddhāntatas tv abhede ’pi śrīśa-kṛṣṇa-svarūpayoḥ”. If we’re going to follow there’s what he said, there’re the same, then answer this, why is that Lakṣmī-devī is attracted to Kṛṣṇa, but when Kṛṣṇa plays that trick on the Vraja-gopīs by manifesting four arms and appearing as Nārāyaṇa Viṣṇu, they were interested.

It says, ‘rāgodayaḥ kuñchati’, like their rāg was crippled it was constrained, they were disappointed, because we hear when Kṛṣṇa wants sometimes, separates himself from them to increase their loving affection and intensity through separation, cause ‘separation makes the heart grow fonder’ they spied to go, they said, “Oh, there is Kṛṣṇa overby that kuñja and they starting… and Kṛṣṇa thinks, “What can I do?” So, he manifests two other arms to show four and when they get there they see oh, it looked like Kṛṣṇa from far away, but now we see, it’s actually Viṣṇu. And they like, “Namo Nārāyaṇa. How are you?”. “I’m fine”. “Kemon āchen? …oh you don’t understand but…,” so he speaks like that. They’re like, “Have you seen Kṛṣṇa?”

kāhāṅ mora prāṇa-nātha muralī-vadana
kāhāṅ karoṅ kāhāṅ pāṅ vrajendra-nandana
(Śrī Chaitanya-charitāmṛta:  Madhya 2.15)

Where is Kṛṣṇa? They’re searching for Kṛṣṇa, they asking Viṣṇu, who is inconceivably beautiful and charming. What does Rūpa Goswāmī say? Jīva’s fifty qualities, officer class jīva’s fifty-five, Śiva, you know, Viṣṇu sixty, Rāmachandra, Baladeva sixty-two, Kṛṣṇa sixty-four. Also Bhagavān, how to understand this? Use the vaidūryamani, but it’s a jewel, we don’t really know about, but I’ll tell you like this, more like we know the prism, you know prisms, light goes through a prism, comes out like the colors of the rainbow, so, that, when we say, “Kṛṣṇa is akhila-rasāmṛta-mūrti” he is reciprocating all rāsas if you put it in a prism, you’ll see, it can separate out śānta, dāsya, sakhya, vātsalya, mādhurya, and different, and everything in between, but really He’s the source of all of them.

So, He is akhila-rasāmṛta-mūrti, so, in this instance of, with the Vraja-gopīs by showing, appearing to be Viṣṇu, these four qualities. It’s not just Kṛṣṇa has four more than Viṣṇu, he has enumerable qualities, but here we’re talking about sixty-four that are prominent, but four that are exclusive to him. How was that,

So, it is saying, this extraordinary sweet sound of Kṛṣṇa’s flute, that’s only Kṛṣṇa, even Rādhārāṇī and Vraja-gopīs, when they meet, what to speak of Viṣṇu, when they meet Dvārakā Kṛṣṇa at Kurekṣetra, and they’re looking like, “Where is your flute? You’re dressed like a King, we’re like, “gopa-veśa, veṇu-kara, nava-kiśora, naṭa-vara, nara-līlāra haya anurūpa” (CC: Madhya 21.101), we’d like to see you as the cowherd boy at the banks of Yamunā, playing your flute, your sweet flute under the moonlight. And now you’re dressed like a King, no flute, surrounded by all these ministers and people instead of vṛndāraṇya, you’re now we’re on the lokāraṇya, the forest of people.

So, at the same time, when Kṛṣṇa try to do the same trick to Rādhārāṇī, he is unsuccessful. So, he try four arms, and Rādhārāṇī looks at Kṛṣṇa and she is Kṛṣṇa-moi, means wherever she cast her glance, only Kṛṣṇa can be seen. So, she casts her glance and Kṛṣṇa loses these two arms. He can’t play that joke, he can only be Kṛṣṇa before her. Svayaṁ-bhagavān.

“Ete chāṁśa-kalāḥ puṁsaḥ kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam” (CC: Adi 5.79). Svayām-bhagavān is only at the right hand of Rādhārāṇī. So, in his Archanā-paddhati, Gopāl Bhaṭṭa Goswāmī … it’s got one very beautiful śloka and there it says, “govinda-vallabhe rādhe prārthaye tvām ahaṁ sadā”, saying, if you want to have connection with me, then you have to go, that’s not my department, you have to go to Rādhārāṇī, she can give you the connection with me.

What’s the other one? “Vṛndāvanādhīśe karuṇāmṛta-vāhini,” she is a ‘karuṇāmṛta-vāhini’, an endless stream, current of mercy connecting devotees to the service to the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa. So, that Gopāl Bhaṭṭa, he wrote those ślokas. We know also, his deity, his Rādhā-Ramaṇa, that as a brahmiṇ, South Indian brahmiṇ, śālagrām worshipping vaiṣṇava, he had twelve śālagrāms. And the way they tell about Rādhā-Ramaṇa temple is the other time of Nṛsiṁha Chaturdaśi, thinking of Nṛsiṁhadev’s Appearance, he thought, “Oh, from the love of Prahlāda, he appeared from the stone, I’m not so fortunate”. And he went to sleep and he had a dream: “Gopāl, Gopāl Bhaṭṭa!”, and he awaked and got some inspiration to check his śālagrāms and among the twelve śālagrāms, like there is you know Keśava, Nārāyaṇa, all of them, but Dāmodar… śālagrām had, they under eleven and there was Rādhā-Ramaṇa, who we know is this extremely beautiful deity and then he established his worship in Vṛndāvan, and his some gṛhastha disciples took at that worship. They’re doing it to this day.

So, today’s Tirobhāva of Rāmachandra Kavirāj, and I was saying to Avadhūt Mahārāj before, we don’t know so much about him, but if all we know is that prayer of viraha, the prayer of Narottama dāsa Ṭhākur, “je ānilo prema-dhana”, where he says in his own song “narottama-saṅga māge narottama dāsa”… Excuse me, “rāmachandra-saṅga māge narottama dāsa” (Sāvaraṇa-Śrī-Gaura-pāda-padme Prārthanā). That he is Narottam Ṭhākur is crying out and hankering for his association that alone tells us how exalted he is. So, it’s his disappearance, Gopāl Bhaṭṭa’s Appearance Day. So, we’re fortunate to even vibrate their names.

Hare Kṛṣṇa!