Description

This book presents the pastmes and teachings of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, as well as the reasons for His appearance. Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the Supreme God, Lord Sri Krsna Himself, and appeared about five hundred years ago as His own devotee. He has mercifully bestowed His spiritual teachings upon the people of this world. If anyone studies this book earnestly, then they will learn that the teachings of Lord Chaitanya include the essence of all the Vedic knowledge – including the knowledge of the Vedas, the Puranas, the Ithasas, and the Upanishads. Moreover, whatever knowledge is not available elsewhere is procurable in this book. The knowledge presented in this book is very simple and can easily be understood by everyone. It is congenial to the learned who are bestowed with scriptural knowledge and have the determinaton to judge between right and wrong.

For those who have faith in the Supreme Lord and practce spiritual life, those who are learned in the Vedic scriptures, those who accept there is life after their death, and those who are curious about the real truth, relishing the knowledge of this book will award deliverance from the conditoning of this material world. Those who have broad intellect and have interest to cultvate spiritual knowledge impartally (without bias) will easily attain the required knowledge from this book to receive selfrealization within this life. The teachings of Lord Chaitanya are so perfect, appealing, and transcendentally saturated that sincerely reading them will relieve one from entanglement from various ambiguous doctrines and false opinions.

The Supreme Lord is the creator of the animate and inanimate. In other words, all things that we see in this world, whether they grow and produce byproducts or they cannot grow and cannot produce any byproducts, come under God’s creaton. Among these, birds, beasts, worms, insects, and plants are sentient beings because they have the power of determining what is good and what is bad for their survival. But among all of these, the human beings are the best because they can contemplate about their past, present, and future. For this reason, the human being is considered to be the best among all God’s created beings. God is the creator of everything, but because He does not possess a material body made of flesh and bones, He cannot be seen with our physical eyes. He possesses a transcendental body and permanently resides in the spiritual world, situated beyond this material world and heaven. This book helps one acquire the impetus to obtain purity and love, thereby receiving spiritual vision to be able to see the transcendental Lord.

Even though we are all sentient beings, we are encaged within material bodies furnished with blunt material senses, which is why our sentient nature remains covered by material nature. God is fully transcendental, with pure sentience, and this is His natural character. That is why He can only be seen through the eyes of devotion. The teachings of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu presented in this book help one become a true devotee of Lord Krsna. Thus, in due course, the eyes become anointed with the mascara of spiritual love, due to which He becomes seen by that devotee. There are many unfortunate souls who do not believe in God because they cannot see Him with their material eyes. That is why they proclaim that there is no God and no one can be called God. Such unfortunate people are like those who are blind and cannot see the sunlight. Such unfortunate people learn unfair theories from likeminded company. Thus, they stick to their convictions and do not recognize the existence of God. Such people remain beret of the blessings of God.

Those who are curious ask, “Who am I, what is this enormous universe in its reality, who created it, and what is my relationship with the creator?” While searching deeply for answers in many places, one fortunately comes in connection with Vedic scriptures, which explain the science of spirituality, and finds that he or she is a sentient spirit soul. While studying Vedic scriptures, one comes across many auxiliary Vedic doctrines such as the philosophy of the Nyaya Shastra of Sage Gautama, the philosophy of the Sankhya Shastra of the Mayavadi Kapila, the philosophy of Yoga Shastra of Sage Patanjali, the philosophy of Vaisesika of Sage Kanada, and the philosophy of Karma Mimamsa of Sage Jaimini, which apparently follow the Vedas. We have discussed these philosophies inside this book in detail. Besides these philosophies, there are some non-Vedic doctrines, such as Buddhism, which introduces Nirvana (cessation of one’s self). Nirvana is not equal to liberation because the stage of Nirvana is a quality of phenomenal existence where no taste of spiritual bliss or love of Godhead is experienced. Then there is an atheistic thought by Charvak Muni who told to enjoy while alive and not worry about what happens after death. This ultimately leads to suffering.

There are various other doctrines of materialism such as positivism, secularism, pessimism, skepticism, pantheism, atheism, etc. that are taught and preached around the world. There are some doctrines that came to exist which propagate the presence of God by the way of empiric logic or philosophy. When these paths are based on faith, they are called theism, and when they are taught or preached as the word of God, then they fall under various categories, such as Christianity, Islamism, Judaism, and so on; and these have their own scriptures to follow. But Vedic scriptures are different from all of these because they relate to the unalloyed spirit soul which has nothing to do with anything of this world. For example, one feels frustrated even though an abundance of material facilities are supplied for enjoyment, because the spirit is not the body, and the body is just a temporary covering for the soul. No amount of material facilities can satisfy the spirit. This knowledge can only be found in Vedic Scriptures.

When the living spirit soul lands into this material world, it occupies the material body and deals with the material mind and senses. Due to this reason, the pure spirit soul accepts the qualities of the phenomenal world, Maya, as its own. Thus, being contaminated, its real characteristics become eclipsed and it becomes covered by Maya’s qualities. In this state, the living entity needs to follow the filtering process of devotional service so it can become purified again. Just as contaminated water becomes purified again through the filtering process, similarly, the materially contaminated living entity becomes purified through devotional service. This purifying process of devotional service is presented in this book, introducing the connection of the sentient soul and the Supersoul. This devotional service purifies the soul enough to enter into the Kingdom of God, where it resides forever.

The source of Supersoul appeared as Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, moved around on earth as a devotee, preaching about Lord Krsna and convincing everyone to become devotees. He predicted that chanting the Holy Name of Lord Krsna will spread in every town and village of this world. Lord Chaitanya appeared about five hundred years ago and Srimad Bhagavatam was written over five thousand years ago, where it is stated that whosoever will follow Lord Chaitanya’s philosophy and chant the Hare Krsna Mahamantra will have the finest intelligence in this world. Therefore, let us follow Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s path and prove that we possess the finest intelligence.