Nectar Upon Nectar

Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna!

Dear Guruji and devotees please accept my humble obeisances.

Sri Vrindavana dasa Thakura’s Sri Chaitanya-Bhagavata is an ever expanding ocean of nectar and yesterday I read how Lord Gauranga Krishna directly shares, extends and expands that ocean to His devotees. It is the story about the very exalted devotee Shridara who earned His livelihood by selling banana leaves. He passed the entire night by without sleep while loudly chanting the Names of Krishna and Hari. The atheists thought that he couldn’t sleep because he was so affected by poverty and afflicted by hunger. Here you can see how devotees are not at all recognized by, and totally hidden from, non-devotees.

During Lord Gauranga’s scholarly pastimes He bought daily banana leaves from Sridhara and He would quarrel with him about the price and buy his goods for half the price and sometimes the Lord took forcibly away all his goods. Sridhara never became angry. It is amazing to see Lord Gauranga’s expertise in hiding and revealing His identity. At that time while quarreling with Sridhara, Sridhara had no idea he was dealing with the Lord of his worship. So the Lord can stand right in front of His pure devotee, in Person, and still He is able to hide His true identity. This means that we are never able to recognize the Lord unless He reveals Himself. It is solely by the will of the Lord that He is recognized. Not even the purest of His devotees can recognize Him without His benediction.

Anyway during that special evening in Srivasa’s house when the Lord was sitting on the throne showing all His opulences, the Lord asked for Sridhara. When Sridhara came he saw that Lord Visvambhara was blackish like a tamala tree, he saw the flute, Balarama, the goddess Lakshmi, Brahma, Shiva and the thousand hoods of Lord Ananta as an umbrella over the head of Lord Gauranga Krishna, while Sanaka, Narada, and Sukadeva were chanting the glories of the Lord. Sridhara was so struck with wonder that he fainted but the Lord was far from done with showering His blessings upon Sridhara. He said: “Get up get up!” and he asked Sridhara to offer prayers to Him. Sridhara felt totally unworthy to do so but by the order of the Lord, Sarasvati the mother of the universe and the goddess of learning, manifested on the tongue of Sridhara.

Sridhara is saying some very extraordinary things in His prayers. He says: “You are dharma, You are karma, You are bhakti and You are jnana. You are the scriptures, You are the Vedas, and You are the object of all meditation. You are the mystic perfections, You are prosperity, You are enjoyment, and You are yoga. You are faith, You are compassion, You are illusion and greed. You are Indra, You are Chandra, Your are Agni and Varuna, You are Surya, You are Vayu, You are wealth and strength. You are devotional service, You are liberation, You are Brahma and Shiva.” Sridhara shows here that He sees the Lord in everything and then he says: “But why consider You to be them? They are all subordinate to you.” This is so wonderful and ecstatic because He first sees Lord Gauranga Krishna in all of His manifestation but then he makes a new distinction: actually everything I just mentioned is expanded from You. Lord Gauranga Krishna’s first expansion is Lord Nityananda Who expands further into the rest of all manifestations. So all the purusha expansions are subordinate to Adi purusha and all of it is there to serve the Lord Gauranga Krishna. Sridhara reveals here the glue of the whole of all manifestations: Love for Lord Gauranga Krishna. First he sees only Lord Gauranga Krishna through al differentiation and then he sees differentiation again but now with new eyes: all he perceives is in service of the Lord. There is so much to this that from this point on Sridhara elaborates on devotional service itself and how the Lord is conquered by devotional service. Until Lord Gauranga’s appearance devotional service was attained by exalted devotees like Bhisma, Yasoda, the gopis and gopas, but now the entire world hankers for Lord Gauranga Krishna’s devotional service. Here Sridhara has arrived at the pinnacle of the truth about Lord Gauranga Krishna and he concludes that in the past (during the Lord’s other incarnations) only two or four persons defeated the Lord by their devotional service, but now Sridhara says: “You will be bound by one and all!” Then the Lord says: “O Sridhara, choose and ask for any benediction. I will give you the eight mystic perfections... I want to make you king of a great kingdom.” But Sridhara says: O Lord will You again deceive me?” Sridhara does not want anything else than: “O Lord, give me this one benediction. Let that brahmana who forcibly took away my banana leaves be my Lord birth after birth. Let me always engage in the service of the lotus feet of that brahmana who constantly quarreled with me”. Then text 226 of the ninth chapter of the Sri Chaitanya Bhagavata is one of those verses in which we see the transcendental Love exchange between the Lord and His pure devotee in such a way that when grasping only a little particle of it, it raises (at least) all of your hairs and you are not able to read any further. It says: “While speaking in this way, Sridhara’s love for the Lord increased and he began crying loudly with his arms raised.” Here we see that the Lord’s benediction took effect immediately even while Sridhara was still asking for it. Standing in front of the Lord his love for Lord Gauranga Krishna was already unlimited and still the Lord raised its intensity. Sridhara was experiencing an ocean of love for the Lord and still the Lord reduced that ocean to a drop in an even greater ocean of love. The ocean of love for the Lord is always expanding and by reading such exalted exchanges between the Lord and his pure devotee we sometimes are granted a little glimpse of that supreme exchange. Who doesn’t long to be a particle of dust in such a glorious environment? I get stuck at such a verse and can’t read any further, it’s like I get petrified hoping that I can read further tomorrow or maybe the day after tomorrow however it doesn't really matter because all what counts at the moment: balite balite prema badaye sridhare…

Thank you again for allowing me to share this wonderful nectar upon nectar of the glories of Lord Gauranga Krishna.

Your servant,

Hadai Nityananda dasa

Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna!

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