By Devotion One Understands

By Devotion One Understands

Caitanya Caritamrta Madhya 20.164-173
New York, December 13, 1966

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Prabhupada:

'bhaktye' bhagavanera anubhava-purna-rupa
eka-i vigrahe tanra ananta svarupa

Expansion of Krsna, that is being described by Lord Caitanya. They are described in different Vedic literatures, and we are getting the information in one place from Lord Caitanya. So that is the advantage, to be in the disciplic succession. To find out in different information from different scriptures, it is very difficult, but if we become in the line of disciplic succession, all the experience is at once achieved. If you want to fight in the law court and if you want to find out all the law sections from the law book, it is very difficult for you. Better to go to a lawyer who knows the law section and take help and it is all right. Similarly, there are different kinds of descriptions of the Supreme Lord. The experienced spiritual master gives us the information in one place.

So about the expansions of Lord Krsna, in Brahma-samhita, Isopanisad, and there are various Vedic literatures... They are all taken together, calculated and presented by Lord Caitanya. He says,

svayam-rupa tad-ekatma-rupa, avesa-nama
prathamei tina-rupe rahena bhagavan

Svayam-rupa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself, He is called svayam-rupa, His personal feature. Then tad-ekatma. Tad-ekatma-rupa means not exactly the same person, but almost the same. Tad-ekatma-rupa. And avesa. Avesa means that empowered. There is always difference between the individual soul and the Supreme Absolute Soul. When the individual soul is specially empowered by the Supreme Soul, that is called avesa. He can act almost like God. We accept, according to this avesa, avesa-avatara incarnation, authorized incarnation, we accept, my Guru Maharaja accepted Lord Jesus Christ and Hazrat Muhammad, this avesa incarnation, almost the same power.

svayam-rupa tad-ekatma-rupa, avesa-nama
prathamei tina-rupe rahena bhagavan

Now, in the first instance the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself, and tad-ekatma, His next expansion with the same features, and avesa, a powerful incarnation or powerful living entity...

'svayam-rupa' 'svayam-prakasa' -- dui rupe sphurti
svayam-rupe-eka 'krsna' vraje gopa-murti

Svayam-rupa, the supreme personal feature, and svayam-prakasa... His immediate expansion is called svayam-prakasa.

So in His svayam-rupa, in His personal feature, He always remains at Vrndavana, and He is just like a cowherd boy. That is His real feature, Krsna. The Krsna in the battlefield of Kuruksetra, that is not the real feature of Krsna. Just like a person, high-court judge, where you will find his real feature? His real feature you will find at his home, not on the bench. In the bench, even his father comes, the high-court judge's father, he will have to address the judge, "My lord." That is the court. The same person at home and same person in the court is different, although the same person. Similarly, the real Personality of Godhead, Krsna, He never goes out of Vrndavana. He remains always a cowherd boy. That's all. Cintamani-prakara-sadmasu kalpa-vrksa-laksavrtesu surabhir abhipalayantam [Bs. 5.29]. Surabhi means transcendental cows. He is engaged in that pastime. So svayam-rupa eka krsna vraje gopa-murti. Gopa-murti means cowherd boy.

'prabhava-vaibhava'-rupe dvividha prakase
eka-vapu bahu rupa yaiche haila rase

Then prakasa, expansion. From expansion, there are two kinds of division, prabhava and vaibhava. So prabhava, what is the prabhava expansion? It is given: eka-vapu bahu rupa yaiche haila. Prabhava expansion means the same feature, the same body, but it is distributed in innumerable places. That is called prabhava expansion. The example is, eka-vapu bahu rupa yaiche haila rase. In the rasa dance, Krsna performed the rasa dance, not exactly the ball dance... But it is an imitation of that rasa dance. Because you cannot have any idea of anything without its being originally in Krsna. Janmady asya yatah [SB 1.1.1]. That is the version of Vedanta-sutra. Any idea, whatever you... But they are simply perverted reflection. That's all. You cannot get anything, any idea, without its being situated in Krsna. The rasa dance, that is described in the Thirty-second Chapter of the Tenth Canto in Srimad-Bhagavatam. Five chapters, from Twenty-ninth Chapter to Thirty-fourth Chapter, Krsna's rasa dance is described there. The rasa dance... The short history of rasa dance is that Krsna was sixteen years old, and the girls of the village, Vrndavana, and the boys, they were all friends. Naturally in India the girls were early married, some at the age of twelve years, some at the age of thirteen years, some at the age of ten years. The boys remain... So the girls who were friends of Krsna, they always prayed to different demigods, Lord Siva, that "Krsna may be our husband." So that desire was there, but it was not possible to get Krsna to become everyone's..., because He was only a boy. But they maintained that idea although they were married and some of them were mothers. Some of them were unmarried. So Krsna, to fulfill their desire, He blew on His flute on a nice moonlight night, and all the gopis, all those girls, they came. And Krsna advised them, "Oh, you are now married. You have come at dead of night to Me. It is not good." In this way He advised so many things. They were very moral instruction. But the gopis denied to go back, and they arranged that dancing. That is called rasa dance.

In the rasa dance there were hundreds of gopis, but Krsna expanded Himself to dance with each one of them. That is called vaibhava-vilasa. He expanded.

'prabhava-vaibhava'-rupe dvividha prakase
eka-vapu bahu rupa yaiche haila rase

The same Krsna, I mean to say, expanded Himself in many Krsnas. That is expansion, vaibhava expansion. Another expansion is,

mahisi-vivahe haila bahu-vidha murti
'prabhava prakasa'-ei sastra-parasiddhi

So one expansion is vaibhava at Vrndavana, and another expansion was made by Krsna at Dvaraka when He was grown up and He was obliged to marry sixteen thousand wives, sixteen thousand wives. He had actually... Because the ksatriyas, the administrator, the royal family, royal class, they are allowed to marry more than one wife, not other class. Because they were rich, they were royal, kingly order, they had sufficient means. They could maintain many wives with the same comforts. So they were allowed; not others, not the poor brahmanas or others. No. So Krsna's father had sixteen wives, and one of the wives' name was Devaki, and Krsna happened to be her son, Devaki. Otherwise, Krsna's father, Vasudeva, had sixteen wives. He was also Krsna. So Krsna similarly had three or four wives, eight wives, yes. But He got information, prayer, application, prayer application, from sixteen thousand girls who were kidnapped by a demon, Narakasura. And they sent application to Krsna, "Please save us." So Krsna is always responsive to His devotee, so He went to save the girls. He killed that Narakasura and rescued those all sixteen thousand girls.

Now those sixteen thousand girls prayed to Krsna that "We are kidnapped." They were all king's daughters. They were also all princesses. "But because we are kidnapped, so nobody will marry us." That is the system. Once a girl goes out of the home, it is very difficult for her to be married in the society. Still that system is going on in India. Unmarried girls, young girls, they cannot go out unless she is married. If she goes out and if she passes some night with other boys, then no more place in the society. So those girls prayed to Krsna that "Because we are kidnapped by this Narakasura from our father's custody, now nobody will marry. So You become our husband. Otherwise there is no other way." So they appealed, they cried, and Krsna accepted: "Yes. I will accept you all, My wives." Therefore He brought those sixteen thousand girls. But what kind of husband? He is God, not an ordinary husband. So He constructed sixteen thousand palaces for all the wives and equally all decorated houses. They are described that the houses did not require any external light. It was all bedecked with jewels. And in sixteen thousand forms He used to live with each wife. That is God. You see?

So somebody may say, somebody questioned that "How is that, sixteen thousand? He was very lusty," somebody says, poor fund of knowledge. Or "It is simply story." No. It is... Krsna is neither lusty, nor it is story. He is Supreme, full in Himself. He did not require even one wife. Because we require the association of wife or girl because we feel the need, if God is in need, then He is not God. He must be full. But just because His devotees wanted Him her husband, therefore He played the part of a perfect husband. That is the position. Nobody, no husband, can expand himself in many ways. Suppose one has got many girls friend. Oh, he can go to one girl friend, not to many. This is. Another point is that isvarah sarva-bhutanam hrd-dese arjuna tisthati: [Bg. 18.61] "The Lord is situated in everyone's heart." So if the girls prayed God that "You become our husband," so if God comes out of the heart and becomes her husband, what is the difficulty for God? So not sixteen thousand, if He would marry sixteen millions of wife, still it was insufficient, because He is everywhere. Isvarah sarva-bhutanam hrd-dese 'rjuna tisthati [Bg. 18.61]. This is called vaibhava-vilasa, vaibhava-vilasa, inconceivable. Lord Caitanya is presenting the real, factual features of Krsna, what is Krsna. So,

mahisi-vivahe haila bahu-vidha murti
prabhava vilasa ei sastra-parasiddhi

Now, the yogis, some of the yogis, not all the yogis... Those who are highly qualified and advanced yogis always remain in... There is a name of Saubhari Muni, Rsi, and he was in meditation, in trance within the water. Because the trance, there is no breathing, so there is no difficulty to remain even in water, because breathing causes difficulty within water. Within goes... So he was in trance, and he was a great yogi. He was meditating within water, but he... Some way or other, he was agitated by sex desire, by seeing the fish have sex intercourse. Just see. The sex power is so strong that even such a yogi who could meditate within the water, he was also agitated by sex desire. So he came out of the water and went to the king and asked him that "You give me your daughter as my wife." Oh, he was a great rsi, and because he was in the water, his feature was very ugly. So the king became perplexed: "Oh, how my daughter will select such a nasty body as my son-in-law?" So he was yogi; he could understand: "Then all right..." (snaps fingers) He became very nice. Because yogis, they can do anything, very nice bodily feature. Then the king tried to avoid him, and the king told him, "Well, sir, my determination is I have got eight daughters. So I can offer my daughters to one who can become eight at least." He wanted to see how much he was yogi. And he bifurcated himself at once into eight forms. So here it is stated,

saubhary-adi-praya sei kaya-vyuha naya
kaya-vyuha haile naradera vismaya na haya

Because that oneness... Just like in photograph. In photograph you can expand yourself in millions, but that is not actually expansion. So similarly, the yogi Saubhari Rsi, he expanded into eight, but that was not actually expansion. That was merely a show, just like photograph. But Krsna's expansion, here it is compared, He actually expanded in different houses, in different feature, and differently dealing. That is mentioned in the Bhagavata.

So He is giving evidence from Srimad-Bhagavatam as it was experienced by Narada. Narada doubted that "How Krsna is married with sixteen thousand wives, and how He is dealing with them?" So when he came, in whichever house he entered, palace, he saw Krsna was there. Somewhere He was taking bath, somewhere He was playing with the children, somewhere... Just like if you go in different houses, the householder, you will find differently engaged. So he went each of those sixteen thousand palaces and saw Krsna differently engaged. Then he was surprised, and he recited this sloka,

citram bataitad ekena
vapusa yugapat prthak
grhesu dvy-asta-sahasram
striya eka udavahat

Dvy-asta-sahasram. Dvy means double, and asta means eight, and sahasra means thousand. That means double eight thousand, or sixteen thousand. Dvy-asta-sahasram striya eka udavahat. And Krsna, one, He married, and He was expanded in sixteen thousand forms and features.

sei vapu, sei akrti prthak yadi bhase
bhavavesa-bhede sa 'vaibhava-prakase'

Now, the feature, the body, is the same, but in different house with different devotees, the exchange of feelings is different. That is called vaibhava-prakasa. So it is a very complicated idea, which of them is vaibhava, which of them is prabhava, which of them is vilasa, which of them is tad-ekatma, avesa...  There are different divisions of Krsna's expansions. But we can note down if we like from original Krsna how many, I mean to say, expansions, innumerable expansions Krsna has got. But some of them were shown when He was present before us just to prove that He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, because in future so many fools will imitate to become Krsna as the incarnation of God or God, but Krsna has in His life so many uncommon features, nobody can show that. Just like Govardhana. You have seen that picture. At seven years old, He lifted the hill. And when He was young He married sixteen thousand wives, and sixteen thousand features... So... And when He was in Battle of Kuruksetra, He showed the universal form. So before claiming oneself as "I am God," they should be prepared to show these uncommon features. Otherwise, no sane man will accept any fool as God.

ananta prakase krsnera nahi murti-bheda
akara-varna-astra-bhede nama-vibheda

Then He says, "There are unlimited expansions of Krsna in the spiritual world, and..." Nahi murti-bheda. Just like His expansions in the spiritual world... He is originally two-handed, but in the spiritual planets... There are innumerable spiritual planets, and He is situated in each of them in four hand. Now this four hand, each hand... There are four symbols: conchshell and wheel and club and a lotus flower. Now, these four symbols are differently manifested in. Just like four hands. Beginning from right, this is lotus flower, club, and then conchshell, then wheel. And some of them, here begins wheel, here begins club. In this way the four has about sixteen divisions, and they are represented... Not sixteen. Twenty-four. Twenty-four, I mean to say, change of the place of the symbols. And according to the change of symbols, you will find different names. In the cover of the book Srimad-Bhagavatam, you have seen. These symbols are there. And there are different names. Some of Them named Hrsikesa, some of Them named Pradyumna, Aniruddha, Vasudeva, Sankarsana, Padmanabha... In this way there are different names according to the different change of the symbolic representation.

anye ca samskrtatmano
vidhinabhihitena te
yajanti tvan-mayas tvam vai
bahu-murtyeka-murtikam

So there are different kinds of devotees also. Some devotee worships the Narayana feature, some devotee worships Krsna feature, Nrsimhadeva... So there are innumerable devotees and innumerable forms also of Krsna. But not these ordinary demigods. When Krsna says, ye yatha mam prapadyante tams tathaiva bhajamy aham: [Bg. 4.11] "Any devotee who wants to worship Me in My different feature, I offer him in that feature..." Just like Hanuman. He was a devotee of Rama. So there is one verse by Hanuman, that "I know Rama and Nrsimha and Narayana, Krsna, is the same. But still, I want to worship Rama." Just like we, ourself, we know Lord Rama and Lord Krsna the same, but we want to worship Krsna. So different devotees have different inclination to offer his service to different features of God. And therefore He has got innumerable features of the presentation. They are differently named.

Thank you very much. (end)

 

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Madhya-lila 20.164-173 -- New York, December 13, 1966

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