The Appearance Day of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu

Today we celebrate the appearance day of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. We honor His appearance with a full day fast (until moon rise), followed by a special vegetarian feast. Also to honor the Lord’s appearance day, we have selected these two verses from the Sri Caitanya-caritmrta.

“O most munificent incarnation! You are Kṛṣṇa Himself appearing as Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Mahāprabhu. You have assumed the golden color of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, and You are widely distributing pure love of Kṛṣṇa. We offer our respectful obeisances unto You.

“We offer our respectful obeisances unto that merciful Supreme Personality of Godhead who has converted all three worlds, which were maddened by ignorance, and saved them from their diseased condition by making them mad with the nectar from the treasure-house of love of God. Let us take full shelter of that Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya, whose activities are wonderful.”

Full text and Bengali

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Appearance Day of Lord Caitanya

Bhagavad-Gita-Original-Art-Pancha-Tattva1

Today we celebrate the appearance day of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. We honor His appearance with a full day fast (until moon rise), followed by a special vegetarian feast. Also to honor the Lord’s appearance day, we have selected these two verses from the Sri Caitanya-caritmrta.

“O most munificent incarnation! You are Kṛṣṇa Himself appearing as Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Mahāprabhu. You have assumed the golden color of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, and You are widely distributing pure love of Kṛṣṇa. We offer our respectful obeisances unto You.

“We offer our respectful obeisances unto that merciful Supreme Personality of Godhead who has converted all three worlds, which were maddened by ignorance, and saved them from their diseased condition by making them mad with the nectar from the treasure-house of love of God. Let us take full shelter of that Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya, whose activities are wonderful.”

Full text and Bengali

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Nam Hatta: The Onus is On You

Nam Hatta: The Onus is On You

by Hansadutta dasa

In Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, Chapter Seven, Lord Chaitanya’s method of preaching and Prabhupada’s comments regarding the process of preaching Lord Chaitanya practiced while traveling throughout South India (a period of about two years) are very necessary for all devotees to study and understand clearly.

Because of the circumstances under which most of Prabhupada’s early disciples joined the movement, a widespread misunderstanding has become a great obstacle for people in general to accept and practice Krishna consciousness in a realistic and progressive way under all circumstances. That misunderstanding is that a serious candidate for accepting and advancing in Krishna consciousness must abandon his worldly environment and responsibilities to join a temple ashram and live a communal or communistic life style under the rigid authority of an ISKCON GBC or guru. Nothing could be further from the truth, as we can plainly understand from the following descriptions of Lord Chaitanya’s preaching method and Prabhupada’s purports, which clearly support and obviously encourage the process introduced by Lord Chaitanya in His dealing with the Kurma brahmana and everyone He encountered throughout His two years of traveling and preaching in South India.

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The Scent of Krsna’s Body

Scent of Krishna

…Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī expressed to Her gopī friends how She hankers for the transcendental scent of Kṛṣṇa’s body. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu recited that same verse and made its meaning clear.

” ‘The scent of Kṛṣṇa’s transcendental body surpasses the aroma of musk and attracts the minds of all women. The eight lotuslike parts of His body distribute the fragrance of lotuses mixed with that of camphor. His body is anointed with aromatic substances like musk, camphor, sandalwood and aguru. O My dear friend, that Personality of Godhead, also known as the enchanter of Cupid, always increases the desire of My nostrils.’

“The scent of Kṛṣṇa’s body surpasses the fragrances of musk and the bluish lotus flower. Spreading throughout the fourteen worlds, it attracts everyone and makes the eyes of all women blind.

“My dear friend, the scent of Kṛṣṇa’s body enchants the entire world. It especially enters the nostrils of women and remains seated there. Thus it captures them and forcibly brings them to Kṛṣṇa.

“Kṛṣṇa’s eyes, navel and face, hands and feet are like eight lotus flowers on His body. From those eight lotuses emanates a fragrance like a mixture of camphor and lotus. That is the scent associated with His body.

“When sandalwood pulp with aguru, kuṅkuma and musk is mixed with camphor and spread on Kṛṣṇa’s body, it combines with Kṛṣṇa’s own original bodily perfume and seems to cover it.

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Process of Surrender

This morning I was going through some files and came across this important verse from the Caitanya-caritamrta Madhya-lila Chapter 22, text 100 describing the process of surrender. I always liked this verse because it describes the simple process of surrender; namely accepting things favorable to devotional service, rejecting things that are unfavorable to devotional service, and developing the faith that Krishna will give protection.

’The six divisions of surrender are the acceptance of those things favorable to devotional service, the rejection of unfavorable things, the conviction that Kṛṣṇa will give protection, the acceptance of the Lord as one’s guardian or master, full self-surrender and humility.

One who is fully surrendered is qualified with the six following characteristics. (1) The devotee has to accept everything that is favorable for the rendering of transcendental loving service to the Lord. (2) He must reject everything unfavorable to the Lord’s service. This is also called renunciation. (3) A devotee must be firmly convinced that Kṛṣṇa will give him protection. No one else can actually give one protection, and being firmly convinced of this is called faith. (from purport)

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Teachings of Lord Chaitanya

1968 Edition of Teachings of Lord Chaitanya

Today we honor the Appearance of Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu with a fast until moon rise, followed by a nice vegetarian feast. We also will be chanting and reading about some of the many pastimes of the Lord. You can read about some of the very important teachings of Lord Caitanya in the book “Teachings of Lord Chaitanya” which we have included as a free download, (just click of following link to view or download. Hare Krishna!

Teachings-of-Lord-Chaitanya-original-1968

The Beautiful Kusum Sarovar, Vrindavan

Located between Govardhan and Radha Kund in Vrindavan, Mathura, Kusum Sarovar is a beautiful reservoir fringed by palatial sandstone building from the bygone era. The reservoir has a flight of stairs which can be used to descend in the pond. The sarovar is believed to have got its name from one of the girl attendants of Radha, named Kusum. The water is ideal for swimming and dips. Kusum Sarovar also has several temples and ashrams in the vicinity.

Filled with emerald green water, Kusum Sarovar dates back to the era of Radha and Krishna. The pond is bordered on all sides by forest containing flowers like beli, chameli, juhi, yuthi, mallika and campaka. It is believed that Krishna would collect flowers and make garlands for Radha here. Pilgrims from all over the country visit the lake to explore the magnificent structures that surround the Sarovar, the beautiful paintings depicting the life of Krishna and his pastimes and the temple dedicated to Grijraja in there. The Kusum Sarovar is perfect for quiet evening outings where one can spend a complete evening watching the sunset while resting under the Kadamb tree under which Krishna would play and hide mischievously.

This beautiful place is located about one-and-a-half miles south-west of Sri Radha Kunda. It is also known as Sumana Sarovara due to the beautiful forest that surrounded the lake formerly.

The Divine Couple Radha and Krishna performed many pastimes here.

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Original Sri Caitanya-caritamrta (1974) Free PDF Downloads

Original Sri Caitanya-caritamrta (1974) PDF Downloads

Please find the links below to all 17 Volumes of Srila Prabhupada’s original Sri Caitanya-caritamrta EXACTLY as it was published by Srila Prabhupada in 1974.

Please download and save and read the seventeen volumes of Srila Prabhupada’s original 1974 Sri Caitanya-caritamrta below!

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Origin of the Hare Krishna Movement

Origin of the Hare Krishna Movement
By His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Back to Godhead Magazine Volume 01, Number 20, 1968

Lord Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the Great Apostle of love of God and the Father of the Sankirtan Movement, advented Himself in the City of Nabadwipa in Bengal, India. This was in February, 1486, by Christian reckoning.

By the will of the Lord there was a lunar eclipse on that evening. It is the custom of the Hindu public to bathe in the Ganges of any other sacred river during the hours of eclispe, and to chant the Vedic mantras for purification. When Lord Chaitanya was born during the eclipse, then, the whole India was roaring with the holy sound of Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

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Identity of Lord Chaitanya

lord-caitanya-krsna-radha

Today marks the appearance of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu otherwise known as Gaura Purnima. We will honor it today with a fast till moonrise followed by a feast.

 Identity of Lord Chaitanya
By A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Excerpted from Back to Godhead Magazine 1960 Vol. 3 Part 16

Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is no other than the combined form of Sri Sri Radha and Krishna. He is the life of those devotees who strictly follow the footprints of Sri Srila Rupa Goswami.

Srila Rupa Goswami and Srila Sanatan Goswami both are principal followers of Sri Swarup Damodar Goswami who acted as the most confidential servitor and constant companion of Lord Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu whose name was known as Viswambhar in His early life.

And from Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami comes as the direct disciple and the author of Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita i. e., Sri Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami stands to be his direct follower.

From Goswami Krishna Das Kaviraj the direct disciple is Srila Narottam Das Thakur who accepted Viswanath Chakrabarty as his servitor. Viswanath Chakrabarty accepted Jagannath Das Babajee from whom Srila Bhaktivinode Thakore was initiated and Srila Gour Kishore Das Babajee the spiritual master of Om Vishnupada Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Prabhupad-the Divine spiritual Master of our humbleself.

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