Radhanath Swami describes Early Life of Srila Madhavacarya, 2014 Yatra, Udupi, Day 7 , Evening

Radhanath Swami on the Pitfalls of the Mayavadi Conclusion

On the path of bhakti, surrender is not a means to get to a place where we don’t have to serve any more. According to the mayavad’s school or philosophy, the absolute is the one supreme brahman and everything else is an illusion. This material world is false and the misconception that we are independent of God, the jiva is only temporary state of maya. Ultimatey, the jivatma, when it goes beyond the illusion of separateness, it realizes it is God. There is no individuality; there is no personality. There is only pure existence, sat. And when the absolute truth, that all pervading impersonal one supreme, descends into this world, it takes on a form, accepts names, gives teachings, performs pastimes, but it is all within the mode of goodness and therefore it is all temporary and it is maya. The absolute truth descends and appears in a form, in a personality that is maya, just to instruct us how to get out of maya. In our various forms of religion and yoga and when we understand those things, when we chant these names of God, when we meditate on these forms of God, when we follow these teachings of God, then ultimately we realize that we are God, there is no separateness and we realize that all the avataras and our own individual existence as a devotee is all an illusion. So this misconception was extremely prevalent throughout India. According to the Vedas, the Puranas, it is described that Lord Vishnu instructs Shiva, who is the greatest of the devotees, to teach this type of philosophy because ultimately it makes everything unimportant– illusion.

It can bring about, when it extends beyond just the philosophy, it opens the doors to immorality and anything goes, and in this way it pushes forward very rapidly the influence of the age of kali yuga. But ultimately, The Lord has his purpose and he sent great acharyas to come to re-establish because these teachings were based on the vedic scriptures, (misinterpretation of vedic scriptures) but then the Lord was going to send his own most beloved devotees in his own avatara as well and he would eventually come himself personally. Yes, you accept vedas, can’t you see what it says.

prema pumartho mahan

That love for God the ultimate, eternal nature of the soul. The absolute truth never comes under the influence of maya. Lord Brahma himself spoke:

isvarah paramah krsna sac-cid-ananda- vigraha

His vigraha, his form, his personality, his pastime are eternal, they are full of knowledge and they are full of bliss.

mamaivamso jivaloke jiva bhuta sanatana

All living beings are eternally part of me. So here in Udupi, as part of the Lord’s divine plan to establish what Krishna told in Gita, “Only through bhakti can I be understood as I am standing before you.”

janma karma ca me divyam evaḿ yo vetti tattvataḥ
tyaktvā dehaḿ punar janma naiti mām eti so rjuna

“One who understands the transcendental– transcendental means divya, means beyond maya, beyond material existence, pure truth– one who understands the transcendental nature of my appearance and my activities never takes birth in this world again but attains my abode.”

So in this Udupi area, is a small village, Pajakakshetra, and that is the place where Sripad Madhavacharya appeared within this world. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, who is Krishna himself, the Bhagvatam describes that in the age of kali, Krishna will appear not in blackish complexion, in golden complexion as Garga Muni explained during Krishna’s name giving ceremony.

kṛṣṇa-varṇaṁ tviṣākṛṣṇaṁ
sāṅgopāṅgāstra-pārṣadam
yajñaiḥ saṅkīrtana-prāyair

Radhanath Swami Speaks on Lord Chaitanya’s Connection with Madhavacarya

And he will establish the yuga-dharma of congregational chanting of the holy names; but he came in the role of his own devotee because Krishna already explained everything in Bhagavad Gita. And Srimad Bhagvatam already describes beyond what the Gita teaches, how to live the Gita though the stories of Prahalad and Dhruva and Ambarish and ultimately it culminates in Krishna’s pastimes in Vrindavan with gopis and the gopas.

“And the culmination of the entire Bhagavatam is Radha’s love for Krishna. Krishna left everyone to receive the service and love of Sri Radha.” –Radhanath Swami

But in kali yuga, so may misinterpretations, so many miscalculations that how to do it. So Krishna appeared in the mood of Sri Radha’s love, in the role of a devotee to teach us. And part of teaching us was the importance of accepting guru parampara, accepting a guru in a sampradaya, (a pure disciplic succession of great souls.) Bhakti Vinod Thakur explains how Lord Chaitanya, he accepted the essence of all four great vaishnav sampradayas. From Ramanujacharya, he extracted service to the vaishnavas and the path of pure devotion unmixed karma or jnana or any other material motivation. From the Nibarka sampradaya or Kumar sampradaya, he accepted the principles of the esteem of the gopis and Sri Radha supreme love. From the Rudra sampradaya, which later Vallabhacharya accepted, he accepted the path of grace, dependent fully on the mercy of Supreme Lord and unmotivated devotional service as the ultimate goal of life. And from Madhavacharya, the worship of Krishna and the refutation of mayavad philosophy and all those philosophies that distracted humanities attention from pure devotional service, undivided devotion to Supreme Personality of Godhead. And Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu personally accepted his initiation in the line of Sripad Madhavacharya. Baldev Vidyabhusan, who was the first Gaudiya Vaishnava to write a commentary on Brahmasutras, was trained within the Madhava sampradaya, and later in the association of Vishvanath Chakravarthi Thakur and other great Gaudiya Vaishnavas, became very deeply surrendered to the life and teaching of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and the mood of Vrindavan. So all of our acharyas in our Gaudiya sampradaya feel this deep connection to Sripad Madhavacharya and often quote his teachings, his books, and in gratitude we would like to speak just a few things about his life.

Radhanath Swami on the Birth and Early Life of Madhavacarya

In Pajakakshetra lived a Madhyageha Bhatta who was a great brahmana and his wife Vedavathi. They had no children. In course of time they had two sons but when they were very young, they died. They had one daughter, but they yearned to have a son. Not just for family purposes, because Krishna, as paramatma he is within the heart of everyone and he orchestrates in stages the appearance of great personalities at times. So they had this deep longing to have a son in the service of the Lord and they didn’t take it cheaply. They understood that it was dependent on a higher power because they wanted to serve the Lord who is that higher power through having a son. So they decided to perform tapasya. They were doing all sorts of fasting, pujas, orienting practically their entire attention of life for this purpose. Madhyageha Bhatta and Vedavathi at the Ananteshwar temple especially, they offered their prayers, their devotion, regularly going there to do pujas, to surrender their hearts, their lives and they did this for twelve years, never giving up hope because they were performing this for the pleasure of Lord Anantheshwar, Anantheshwar is Lord Narayan. This area of India is sometimes called Parsuram Kshetra. Long ago, we read in Bhagavat Purana and other puranas, The Supreme Lord Vishnu appeared as Parsuram, and seeing the egoism, selfishness, self-centered corruption among the power hungry leaders of the world, he as the brahman took the role of Kshatriya. And for twenty-one generations, he freed the world from such corruption, and ultimately he conquered the world.

But he didn’t do anything for himself. When everything was in order and nice, he took the entire world, the everything he had conquered, and gave it to the brahmans headed by Kashyap Muni, and there was nothing left for himself. But he wanted a place to do his bhajan, but he could not take away what he had already given. So he came to this area and he shot an arrow with a mantra and arrow went out to the sea, and where that arrow landed, the sea receded and what was once ocean became land from Kanyakumari up to Rambi area of Gokarna. So he didn’t take anything he had given. It was brand new land, and that is where he resided. And there are many beautiful stories that he personally appeared for the pleasure of his devotees in the form of the Ananteshwar murti who appears to be Lord Shiva but it is Lord Vishnu. And close to there is Chandramauleshwar temple where Chandra, the presiding lord in the moon planet, performed tapasya and worshipped to Lord Shiva. And Lord Shiva appeared as the Shiva lingam to him to bless him and to bless the world.

So these, in this very ancient town of Udupi were the two temples. Madhyageha would go to the Ananteshwar temple everyday from Pajakkshetra and spend many, many, many hours and eventually, when the Lord, by his own will, he sent his beloved devotee. In the Madhva sampradaya, it is understood that Vayu dev appeared three times. In the Treta yuga, he appeared as Hanuman. In Dvarpa yuga, as the elder brother of Arjuna (Bhima) and in kali yuga he appears as Sripad Madhavacharya. The child was so beautiful, so wonderful in every way. There was a name giving ceremony where the whole family came together, and brahmans were chanting mantras full with devotion, and the child was given the name Vasudeva. There are many stories and books written about the life of Madhavacharya, just a few very well known stories. His power of devotion, his intellect and his physical strength as well were extraordinary. After all, he was the expansion of same force that appeared as Hanuman and Bhima.

Radhanath Swami on Vasudeva’s Snack

When he was just a baby, his mother one time went out and asked Vasudev’s sister, “Please take care of him while I am away.” And he started, little baby, he started crying. And she didn’t know what to do. He was hungry and they were just a poor brahman family, they didn’t have much wealth. They just had a little home in Prajakkshetra, but they had some cows and the parents would boil what’s called horse gram, Its very, very cheap food that you feed cows. There was a big pile of it, giant pile of it and the little baby ate the entire pile, cow food. It’s impossible for humans to digest it, what to speak of infant baby who is just drinking the milk of the mother. So the mother came back and she said, “Where is the horse gram?” and the daughter said, “Vasudeva ate it all.” She was sure that her son was going to die, nobody can eat all that. And she did her prayers and her pujas, and Vasudev was just smiling. He didn’t have even the slightest indigestion.

Radhanath Swami Tells Vasudeva’s Bull Pastime

Another day when he was just a tiny little baby, the mother and father were looking all over for him, “Where did he go?!” Right at sunrise, he disappeared. And somebody said that, “We saw him.” After they were looking frantically all over the village of Prajakkshetra. They were told that, “We saw around sunrise a giant bull, and little Vasudeva was holding onto the tail of the bull as the bull was going into the forest.” They were looking all day for him; they couldn’t find him. Finally, right around sunset, twelve hours later, the bull comes back and little Vasudev smiling, holding on to the tail of the bull.

Vasudeva Pays the Loaner

When he was just around three or four years old, he was playing with his friend and his mother told him that, “Go and get your father, tell him lunch is ready.” So Vasudeva ran, and he could run really fast, and told his father lunch is ready. His father looked really disturbed. He said, “I cannot go home because I took a loan for farming purposes to buy a cow. I took a loan sometime back, and the person who gave me the loan wants me to pay him back but I don’t have anything to pay him. So he is sitting on the steps outside our house and he refuses to eat anything until I pay him back.” This was what kind of culture it was. If people today, there will be no problems for us. Now to court case, call mafia people and put him in jail, but in those days you didn’t have to do that. You have to just fast. And Vasudeva’s father, “How could I go and eat when he is fasting? He is a guest at our house.” So he could not eat. The father had to fast, and if he fasted he could not come home. He would offer him food; he wouldn’t eat, so the father couldn’t eat. So the father just said, “I can’t go home.” That was the type of integrity people had in those days. So, little Vasudev, there was a tamarind tree, just near his house, it is still there and tamarind seeds fell from it. And little Vasudev picked up the handful of tamarind seeds and gave them. Now there are different interpretations. Some say that the tamarind seeds turned into gold coins. So the person took them, he was very happy and left. Others, even though they were tamarind seeds, they were offered in such a way that this person was transformed. So he left and he was really happy. And after sometime Vasudeva’s father, Madhyageha Bhatta, he got money to pay him back and when he went to pay him back, he said, “No, No, your son has already paid me back. I can’t accept anything more. He full paid me.”

Radhanath Swami on Vasudeva’s Devotion

On another occasion, the mother and the father went to a marriage in a village not too far from here, and there all these festivities were going on in the village. And suddenly, little Vasudev, who was just a small, small child, he disappeared. The parents were looking everywhere for him but they couldn’t find him. And ultimately they were asking people, “Did you see this little boy?” And somebody would say, “He went that way, we saw him some hours ago.” And father went that way and met somebody else – “Did you see my son Vasudeva?” “Yea, he was running this way.” Finally he came to Ananteshwar temple, and little, tiny child was offering his full prostrate obeisance to Ananteshwar. The boy walked sixteen miles, 20 KMs to get there all alone. So when the father saw him offering his obeisances, he wondered, how could my little boy do this? and he said, “Who did you come with?” That’s what the father asked, and Vasudeva said, “Bhagvan, he is always with me.” This was quiet awakening for the father. Then the father prayed to Anantheswar, “Please Bhagvan, always be there with my sons.” very restless.

Radhanath Swami on Vasudeva’s Incredible Intellect

When he turned just around four years old,–– if you go to Pajakkeshetra, which many of you have gone, today, there is a big stone, and on that stone, it was the writing pad in which Madhyageha Bhatta was teaching for the first time the alphabet to his little son Vasudev. He said, “This is the…” giving them Sanskrit alphabets. And little Vasudev– and then the next day, he went to give him the next lesson, and Vasudev said, “You have already shown me that, I already know it” And he wrote the whole alphabet. When he was about four years old, there was a festival and his mother went to that festival and little Vasudev was sitting on his mother’s lap. There was a scholar whose name was Shivabhatt, and he was very famous at reciting and explaining the Puranas. So he was explaining in a very, very speculative way and there were so many people, the whole village was there at this festival listening to him speak with great respect and honor because he was very famous. And all of a sudden this little tiny boy on the lap of his mother, he called out, “Your explanation is not approved by Vyasdeva or Sukadeva Goswami!” The scholar, he said, “What do you know?” and then little Vasudev explained the proper conclusions of the Puranas. He told the story and the philosophical explanation of what he was supposed to teach us, and the person was totally defeated. That was the first lecture of Sripad Madhavacharya, from the lap of his mother. And then he came home and he told his father that, “This is what that Shivabhatt was saying; and this is what I said, who do you think is right?” His father was shocked. He said, “Vasudev you were right.”

Vasudeva Pacifies His Mother as Told by Radhanath Swami

He was so determined. Even he was boy of just three or four years old, there was four tirthas or kunds in the four directions near Pajakkshetra and it would take several KMs to walk all of them. He would take his bath in all four every day. And his mother was really worried, she would say, “You shouldn’t– you know, you are just a child.” And in those days going through fields and forest, there is dacoits and there are snakes and there is wild animals and it’s a long distance for a little child. She would tell him, “Please don’t go to all these places.” but he would go anyway. Because it was religious activity, it was purifying to go to these holy places. So when he saw his mother was really worried, one day he took a stick, and she was expressing to him how worried she was that he was travelling to so many places every day, he took a stick and he rubbed it against rock, and from the rock, right in front of everybody eyes, water started emerging and it filled a small lake, and all the waters from all those other four lakes would fill that lake. And he told his mother, “Now I can–“ and it was right outside his house. It is called Vasudev tirtha, still there today. He told his mother, “Just to make you happy, now I will bathe here and I will fulfill going to all the others.”

A Hint of Sannyasa

It came the time for his Upanayam and his father gave him the gayatri mantra. One day just after that, little Vasudev was holding a stick and he was holding it like a sanyasi holds the danda. He was just about four or five. His father said, “Why are you holding the stick like that?” Vasudeva, with great determination, little child, he said that, “I will establish the Vaishnava dharma within this world and eradicate all mayavad and misconceptions!” And father, he said, “its kali yuga, nobody will accept Vaishnava dharma in this age of kali yuga, this is very high philosophy.” The father said, “For people to accept Vaishnava philosophy in this age of kali, it’s like for your little stick to sprout.” So Vasudeva took the stick and pushed it in the ground, and it became a tree in order to show that what is ordinarily impossible, by the grace of the Lord Naryan, everything becomes possible. And he was also giving a preview of what his mission would be in his life.

Radhanath Swami on The Killing of Maneman

The biographers like to tell the story of how– in his previous life as Bhima in the Himalayas when he was going to collect flowers for Draupadi, an enormous demon attacked Bhima. His name was Maneman and Bhima killed, and Maneman was very upset. So he [Maneman] knew that Bhima was coming again as Madhavacharya and he wanted revenge. So there is a place near Pajakkshetra called Vimangiri and near this Vimangiri, on the hill, there is a temple of Durga Devi. So little Vasudev was playing, he liked to play, he was very playful, and as he was going to this Durga temple, this Maneman took the form of enormous poisonous snake, and he launched to bite and devour the little boy Vasudev. And Vasudev, with one toe, crushed his head. And while he was doing this, he was late for lunch, so his mother called him. She was really worried; he was a distance away. So, to not worry his mother, with one jump he went all the way from this rock to his home. When we will go to Pajakkshetra we will see, very holy place for the followers of Madhavacharya where his footprint is still there and even the print of Maneman is there.

Vasudeva’s Attraction to Sannyasa

He went to gurukul, and surprisingly, even as a child he knew all the lessons better than his own teacher. He was so brilliant. And after he came out of his gurukul, he was hardly nine years old, just approaching ten when he decided to take sannyasa. Because sannyasa for him was complete, the freedom to dedicate his body, mind, life and words for the spiritual benefit of humanity, to have no other obligations, no distractions, to give everything for the whole of humanity.

So there was an ashram not too far, where there was a saint name Acyuta Prekña who was a sanyasi, and Vasudev was really attracted to him. One was because Acyuta Prekña came from an ancient heritage, which began with Narayan, and it’s a long lineage of sannyasa. So he wanted to teach the world the importance of connecting with parampara. So he would study with Acyuta Prekña, and he would be away from home sometimes for days at a time. Now some of you are parents, if your child is only nine years old and he is away for days at a time, you get worried. So the father would go and find him at this ashram, studying, training to be a sanyasi. The father and the mother were horrified.

Vasudeva Discusses Sannyasa With His Parents

When he explained that he wanted to take sannayas for the salvation of humanity and they were pleading with him, they were chastising him, they were doing everything possible. They said, “You cannot take, you are only a child! And besides that we are very old, who is going to take care of us in our old days if you leave home forever?!” But he was determined. So he would go out and travel with Acyuta Prekña, and one day his mother and father, they found him in a forest with his Acyuta Prekña, and he was preparing himself. And they were pleading with him, they were begging him, “come home, come home!” And ultimately, they bowed down to him and he smiled. He said, “Krishna is speaking though you, because the only time the parents bow down to a child is if the child is a sanyasi. So Krishna is telling me through you that I should be a sanyasi.” Another time, the father, he said, “ If you take sannyas, I will end my life.” And he was really angry, really angry with his child, and little Vasudev, he took his outer cloth and tore it to the size of sanyasi’s kaupin and put it on, and said, “Go ahead; do it.” His father didn’t end his life; Vasudev knew he wouldn’t. Parents have, I don’t know how many times I have heard that. But anyways, when little Vasudev said, “go ahead and do it.” the father became really like, broken. He said, “Twelve years I performed tapasya to have you, and now you just want to leave me.” And Vasudev said, “Alright, I will take sannyas after you have another son, then you will have a son.” and then little Vasudev said– and then father, after he heard this, that he is going to stay around and he was having– Madhyageha Bhatta had no intention of getting any other sons: So this will assure that he is going to stay with us throughout our lives. So with that in mind, his father said, “Actually you know, I am a great scholar of scriptures and I know the vedas and I understand the greatness of taking sannyas. So for me, it is not such a problem, but for your mother, she gave birth to you, she will be totally broken hearted.” So Vasudev, he said, “So after you have a son, that means you have given me your permission, I just have to convince my mother, right, and if I convince her, it is all right with you.” So he was trapped.

Vasudeva Takes Sanyasa

So after sometime, miraculously, they had a son and next year. At this time, little Vasudev was ten years old and meanwhile he was at Achyuta preksha ashram, training to be a sanyasi. And when he found out that the son was born, he came home and he went to his mother and he looked at the little baby, his little brother and he was so happy. He said, “Now you have, So now I can take sannyas.” And the mother said, “No, no, I will not give you my permission to take sannyas.” Little Vasudev said, “I will give you two choices: If you don’t give me permission to take sannyas, I promise you, you will never see my face again for the rest of your life. And if you do give me permission, I will be sanyasi, but we will meet each other.” She didn’t give permission or not give permission, but in her silence she gave permission. So he went back to Achyutapreksha, and in the Ananteshwar temple, he was given the danda and he took the vows of sanyasi at the age of ten. He was given the name, Purnapragna by his guru.

Radhanath Swami on Young Vasudeva’s Influence

Now Vasudev, who has become Purnapragna Tirtha, he was so deeply learned and he had such compassion, such influence over others, even his own guru, he was a Vaishnav, but because Shankar philosophy and mayavad philosophy was so prominent everywhere that he had confusions too, but his disciple had no confusions. In fact one time, before he met Vasudev, Ananteshwar, the murti spoke to him Achyutapreksha and said, “You have confusions, but you will have a disciple who will liberate you from birth and death and teach you the highest knowledge.” So that disciple was now his sanyasi disciple Purnapragna. And he started teaching and Achyutapreksha, seeing the wisdom and profound mastery over philosophy and the incredible pure character and devotion of his disciple, he consecrated him as his successor, and made him the acharya of the whole math. Our ten-year boy, the acharya of the math!

And in those days debate was a big sport of India. You were champion debater; you were very highly esteemed by everyone. So some of the greatest scholars were coming to debate this ten-year-old boy. Budhisagar was one of them, he was very, very renowned throughout all of India. And little Vasudev, he and Budhisagar and his disciples they presented such incredibly complex logical philosophical scriptural challenges, and it is no way a boy could possibly answer these things because it took them a whole lifetime to work out these different systems. And little Vasudev completely defeated them, and then Vasudev said, “Now I have some questions for you.” And they said, “It’s late, the sun has already set, we will come back tomorrow.” He said, “No, no, answer my question now.” They said, “No, no, we will come back tomorrow.” He said, “Answer my question now!” “Little boy–“he said, “No, we will come back tomorrow.” He said, “Alright.” So that night, they disappeared forever. Purnapragna Tirtha wanted to go to Varanasi to bathe in the Ganga but Achyutapraksha, his guru was so deeply attached to his disciple, who was also like his own guru, he couldn’t tolerate the separation from him.

Radhanath Swami on the Essence of Renunciation

“Now this is a very interesting thing because the conception of an ascetic, a sanyasi, is that you are detached from everything in this world; but attachment to a vaishnav, attachment to Krishna, attachment to seva, not a particular seva but the spirit of seva, for the pleasure of the Lord, that attachment is a much higher, deeper spiritual state than just detachment.” –Radhanath Swami

“In bhakti, the whole purpose of becoming detached from the distractions, the enjoyments and the dualities of this world is so that we can become completely attached to remembering Krishna.” -Radhanath Swami

“Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was a sanyasi, the crest jewels of all sannyasis, but he taught that the highest renunciation is of that of the gopis of Vrindavan. And what was the renunciation of the gopis? Their total attachment to Krishna, the simplicity of the heart, always remembering Krishna, always singing about Krishna, every moment performing some seva for the pleasure for Krishna, that absorption in Krishna is the highest renunciation.” –Radhanath Swami

Radhanath Swami on Simultaneous Oneness and Difference

So it was really the fruit, the culmination of Achyutapreksha’s lifetime of detachment and renunciation is he became so completely attached to this devotee who was his disciple. When he heard that Prunapragna wanted to go to Varanasi, now that’s Udupi, Anantheswar temple is just few minutes away from here, that’s a long way. He wanted to bathe in Ganga. So Achyutapreksha was begging him not to go. When Achyutapreksha coroneted Purnapragna as the guru, the acharya for the whole math and his successors, he gave him another name: Ananth Tirtha and because he presented this system of philosophy so clearly, based on such logic, such comprehensive scriptural evidence, and gave people a direct experience of this truth, that the jiva is eternally the servant of Bhagvan, that we never become the God, to love God. Yesterday, one of the several of the brahmacharis met with HH Visvestirtha Maharaj in Pejavar Matha, and when asked about– yourself Nityanand prabhu, what was your question?

“Vedic statements definitely many places says that the living entities and Krishna are different, and in some places, it also mentions that everything is one. So Madhavacharya speaking about difference, five differences. How we accommodate the Vedic statements which says about oneness. It was the question I asked him.” –Nityananda Prabhu

So Madhavacharya was very much, when we see photos of him, he has two fingers like this dvaita, the distinction between jiva and paramatma. Eternally, every jiva is distinct from every other jiva, and there are unlimited jivas, and every jiva is always distinct in the subordinate position as the servant of the Supreme soul, the paramatma. And material nature (the prakriti) is the eternal energy of the Lord and is always separate from the jiva and the paramatama. So Nityananda prabhu asked, the Pejavar Math swami yesterday, that how is it that Madhavacharya was giving so much emphasis on dvaita, the dualism, when in vedas, there are so many places where it talks about oneness. And its really interesting how he answered that question. He said, “The very essence of Madhvacharya was given by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in his principle of achintya abheda bheda tatva (inconceivable oneness and difference). And the way he explained was so nice because Sripad Madhavacharya, there are volumes and volumes of books and literatures describing the intricacies of philosophical, logical, rational, experiential evidences to prove the dvaita system, and he saw that Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, in one line, encapsulates everything, inconceivable simultaneous one and difference. And he said, “Qualitatively we are identical to God, like a sunray is qualitatively is identical to sun, but quantitatively–“ it’s actually the Prabhupad explains, quantitatively we are always the subordinate, we are the part and Krishna is always the whole. The atma is eternally the person and paramatma is eternally the person.

Radhanath Swami on Our Constitutional Position

There is one supreme and there are limitless subordinate eternals. The subordinate eternals are always dependent on as Krishna is, but Krishna knows everything. Krishna is the ultimate source of everything that exists and we are his fragmental parts. And Sri Chaitanya mahaprabhua made it very simple:

Jīvera ‘svarūpa‘ haya-kṛṣṇera ‘nitya-dāsa

That we are eternally the servants of Krishna, and this is where Srimad Bhagvatam, we find in the prayers of the greatest personalities. They never desire anything material, they never desire mystic yogic siddhis or even liberation.

“This is the very foundation of the Srimad Bhagvat philosophy. The prayer of Prahalad, the prayer of Dhruva, the prayer of Ambarish, the prayer of all gopis and gopas is always eternal loving service to Narayan or Krishna.” –Radhanath Swami

Hanumanji, so many different types of people worship him, but to worship him is to follow in his footsteps also. Hanuman, the only desire he had, he was willing to jump across ocean, lift mountains single handedly, going to the most dangerous place in the world, burn the city of Lanka, face to face against Ravana, fight wars, he was willing to do anything and everything. And when Ram offered him benediction, all he wanted was to always remember the Lord, to always chant the names of the Lord and to always be the servant of the servant of the servant of the Lord. That is our constitutional nature. It’s so simple. When we come in contact with great acharyas who have realized this, its just so simple to understand that these impersonalistic misconceptions seem so obviously limited and flawed; but without that association its incredible how much the world is affected by it.

Achyutaprakesha’s Intense Attachment

So Achyutapreksha, he was such a great renounced sanyasi and the perfection of his renunciation was he was so deeply attached to Madhvacharaya. He said, “Don’t go to Varanasi, its too far away. I cant live without you for so long.” So to please his guru, after three days the Ganges was going to come, there is a kund called Ananteshwar Sarovar and in one of the corners white water started bubbling into it, and Ananteshwar revealed to Achyutapreksha that the Ganges from Varanasi, Ganges from spiritual world, is going to enter in the kund and then Madhavacharya doesn’t have to go to Varanasi, he can bathe in the Ganges here. And from that time that kund is known as Madhava Sarovar. I think you have all seen it, is that really beautiful kund that’s right next to Udupi Krishna temple, and in the middle there is a nice and they do tulsi puja and various other sevas there.

Madhavacharya Pleases His Family

Madhavacharya, still a boy, but people from all directions were coming to hear him speak. He would speak from the Puranas, he would speak from the Upanishads, he would speak from the Srimad Bhagavatam. People would listen with rapt attention. He was becoming so incredibly popular, and even great scholars, some from the nirvisesa and sunyavadi schools would come because they understood that this person, if we don’t defeat him, we are defeated. And he would defeat them all, but he spoke with such love, such compassion, such conviction. And one day, his father, from Pajakkshetra, came to Ananteshwar temple where Madhavacharya was preaching every day. And his father sat in the crowd of people and saw his son and heard how he was preaching, so convincingly, the highest philosophy of ecstatic loving devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. His father began to cry in ecstasy, he was so proud to see his little Vasudeva, a great sanyasi who was transforming the world. His father was happy for ever after. In fact, later on when his parents passed away and they would both, when he came back and told his mother, the mother, they were so happy- “Look at our son, what he is doing for the whole world in the service of Lord Narayan!” And when the mother and father grew old and passed away, his little brother became Madhavacharya disciple and took sannyas also. As people by the thousands and thousands were coming to Udupi, just to see him, to meet him, to hear him, he went on to the tour of southern India– and its getting late, so we will continue tomorrow, but let us have kirtan now.

Thank you very much.