Waves of Devotion

Śrīla Prabhupāda had a way with words in his translation of Sanskrit to English. The word bhagavān is the most common term for God. It means one who possesses all opulence and that is usually translated as the Supreme Lord. When Śrīla Prabhupāda used that term to refer to Śrī Krishna, he often translated the term as “The Supreme Personality of Godhead.” [emphasis mine] Why?

First a question that will help unpack the answer.

How is Krishna first referred to in both the Gītā, the book spoken by Krishna, and the Bhāgavatam, the main book about Krishna?

He is introduced to the reader in both texts as the chariot driver of Arjuna.

Coincidence? I don’t think so. I think both texts are composed in that way to affirm that Krishna is best deemed the Supreme Personality and not just The Supreme Lord. Here’s how.

When one is dealing with a subordinate, whose relationship is reverential, to reciprocate that mood one must maintain one’s identity and mood as a superior. A person in that disposition, however, is so much more than that. One can be, for example, also a friend or even a lover. Therefore, to appropriately reciprocate with a subordinate’s mood of reverence, so much of oneself must be concealed. Simply put, position covers personality.

In other words, the full revelation of a person occurs only when rank is put aside. And that’s why it is so significant that one is introduced to Krishna in both texts as the chariot driver of His friend and not as his lord. It insightfully portends Krishna’s intimate and fullest nature in such a visceral way.

What are persons if not the mood and identity displayed in their relationships as a child, a parent, a friend, or a lover? The fullest manifestation of being is not therefore in rank or position, but in personality and thus Krishna is just not the Supreme Position of Godhead, but something even more. He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

It is of note in this regard that in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, one of the most important seminal texts in krishna-bhakti tradition from Śrī Caitanya, Krishna is first defined as akhila–rasa–amṛta–mūrtiḥ — the reservoir of all pleasure, in which exist all the mellows of devotional service, namely śānta, dāsya, sakhya, vātsalya, and mādhurya.

Śrīla Prabhupāda certainly had a way with words. Śrī-bhagavān uvāca — “The Supreme Personality of Godhead said!”

Who is Murti Murti and what in the world does her name mean?

Murti Murti’s father was already a yogi when she was born, so she practiced vegetarianism from the beginning of her life. That was unusual for Venezuela in 1973. So, when Havi dasa, the first devotee preaching there, found out about her while visiting her school, he gave her some special attention and carefully explained to her the philosophy of Krishna consciousness. She was all ears. She must have had a connection with India from a previous life.

Soon after meeting Havi dasa she implored her father to let her join the ashram. She told him she had found God. The pious man, hearing her sincere plea, signed the legal documents giving permission for his teenage daughter to move into the ashram.  Soon after, Śrīla Prabhupāda visited her country and initiated her.

“Your name is Murti Murti,” Śrīla Prabhupāda announced, “the perfection of all forms.” She was a young and attractive teen, so when the brahmacārīs attending the initiation heard her name and looked at her, they blushed. But Śrīla Prabhupāda hadn’t yet finished his sentence. “Devi dasi, Murti Murti devi dasi, the servant of Śrī Radha, who possesses the perfection of all forms”

She remained a strict brahmacārīṇi (a celibate lady in the ashram), preaching and distributing books, for seven years. She then married an Argentinian devotee whose family were pious Catholics and insisted they get married in the Church. The kind local priest Jorge Mario Bergoglio (later Pope Francis) married her in the Church knowing that she was a Hare Krishna and later also baptized Kamala, her daughter. When later she was having a problem getting permission from the government for a Ratha-yātrā in Buenos Aires, she requested him to help. He agreed! The permit was quickly issued.

I first met Murti Murti when preaching in Argentina in 2005 where she served as temple president. She had never stopped her dedicated service to her guru maharaja’s mission. I was therefore surprised when Kaveri dasi, who is one of her students, and also mine, told me that Murti Murti had never been able to visit Vrindavan, the more-than-Mecca of the Hare Krishna faith.

How was that possible? It seemed an injustice that such a stalwart, selfless servant of ISKCON was never rewarded in this way for her life of devotion.

Well, from Argentina a round-trip ticket costs almost $2500. She also has health challenges and is elderly so it would be necessary for her daughter to accompany her. In that economy the amount required is a fortune, and a life of service is not necessarily monetarily renumerated. And the flight with layovers can often take nearly forty hours. But still, almost fifty years of selfless service. Something seemed wrong!

The Yogamaya Fund was started just for this purpose. We help those devotees who have done or could do substantial service for the mission of Śrī Caitanya but cannot afford to come to India. We therefore coordinated with Kaveri to start a GoFundMe for the ticket and pilgrimage of Murti Murti and Kamala, her daughter, and collected their expenses in less than ten days.

Could there ever be a devotee more deserving of this?

Murti Murti devi dasi and her daughter had a wonderful pilgrimage to the Govardhan Eco Village, Mayapur, Puri, Vrindavan, and finally Govardhan Hill.

On the next to last day, we started to walk around the sacred Govardhan. There is a place with a short clear path towards the hill where stones are piled up in a way that allows one to hug Govardhan in devotion. One devotee mentioned that to her, so she enthusiastically went in quickly and then came out waiting for the others who followed her. Suddenly, a small śīla (stone) fell next to her. Her friend noticed and pointed it out to her. They had no idea where it came from. She picked up the śīla and then showed me. I was astounded.

Any stone from Govardhan is considering worship-worthy as non-different from Krishna, but I had never in my life seen a śīla like this. It was heart shaped and on one side golden and the other side black, which in our tradition represents Śrī Śrī Radha and Krishna. Now sometimes in devotion one can find something with a slight resemblance to what one hopes to see and see it in that way. But this was different. Although it wasn’t painted, it could have been. It was dark black and distinctly golden on opposite sides of the śīla.

With proper blessing she took the small śīla for personal worship.

Later I consulted a sādhu friend who used to walk around the hill praying for Giriraja to appear when a similar thing happened to him. He had asked a revered local saint about it. “When Giriraja wants to enter a devotee’s heart, He can mystically appear in this way!”

Just a coincidence or did Giriraja appear to a devotee who selflessly served Śrīla Prabhupāda without apparently receiving the reciprocation and facility she deserved? Did He grace Murti Murti by bestowing Himself upon her in the form of an extraordinary, never-seen-before, heart-shaped golden and black śīla? I have no other explanation.

Do you believe in miracles?

The audience for Monday Morning Greetings is varied. There are senior practitioners on the path of bhakti and others that just have interest in spiritual topics and how I present them. Usually, I speak on general subjects that have relevance to all my readership. Last week I shared a bit of esoteric Vaiṣṇava scholarship. As I haven’t fully finished the subject of that piece, I will write about it again this week. I hope everyone will still find the continued discussion of the “mystery verse” to be interesting.

The Mystery Verse II

Last week I elaborately explained how Verse Eight of Chapter Twenty of the Caitanya-caritāmṛta is apparently out of place in the context of what is being discussed there. I didn’t have time or space in my post to explain that after I introduced this subject in a seminar, I discovered that there was a commentary on that subject.

Every year Hari Pārṣada Dās, a respected ISKCON Sanskrit scholar, was invited to be a presenter at my Puri retreat. He would also attend my classes. After our class on this subject, when I asked if there were any reflections on my presentation, he offered a comment.

He explained, there was a commentary on that verse by Radha Govindanath, a renowned Vaiṣṇava academic scholar of the early 20^th century. In the commentary, he first described the problem:

Verse Eight is an anomaly. Previous to this verse Śrī Caitanya’s painful feeling of separation in the mood of Śrī Radha was described. Why then is He suddenly experiencing harṣa (jubilation)?

Also, He has already completed His mission of preaching the holy name (saṅkīrtana). Why is He suddenly bringing it up again? And even from inside Gambhīra where He is relishing viraha-bhava (the mood of separation from Krishna)?[1]

Radha Govindanath then reconciles Verse Eight with what was spoken before:

What is described before Verse Eight is Śrī Radha in the mood of mohanākhya-mahābhāva (the highest level of Her devotion). One of the anubhāvas (after-effects) of that devotion is listed as brahmāṇḍa-kṣobha-kāritvaṁ (seeing the entire universe in a state of agitation). This is described in Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi 14.181-182.

Śrī Caitanya in the mood of mohanākhya-mahābhāva, Śrī Radha’s highest level of devotion, saw the universe suffering, especially in Kali-yuga, and felt compassion.

She (or more precisely Śrī Caitanya in that mood) saw only one solution for the souls of Kali-yuga, and that is hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana.

She (Śrī Caitanya in that mood) thus became joyous and hopeful for the jīvas of this age. Śrī Caitanya then spoke our mystery verse to Svarūpa Dāmodara and Rāmānanda Rāya inside Gambhīra.

“In great jubilation, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, ‘My dear Svarūpa Dāmodara and Rāmānanda Rāya, know from Me that chanting the holy names is the most feasible means of salvation in this Age of Kali.’” Antya-līlā 20.8

It was thus not an anomaly for Śrī Caitanya in the deepest mood of Śrī Radha to feel compassion for the souls of Kali-yuga and glorify hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana. Verse Eight thus fits perfectly in the context of the chapter.

When I had seen this particularly quandary myself and could not find a reference to support my claim, I had some lingering doubt if what I saw was true. It was thus edifying to discover that such an eminent commentator on the Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta also saw the same thing. I still liked, however, my own explanation:

“When feeling mercy, it’s natural to feel gratitude for the cause of one’s mercy. What is the mercy that Śrī Caitanya is experiencing? His two missions, both His preaching mission and his cultivation of rādhā-bhāva, have both been successfully completed due to the mercy of the holy name. How can He forget that, especially as it only due to the mercy of the holy name that He is experiencing the height of Śrī Radha’s love? Our mystery verse is thus a natural expression of gratitude for the holy name and what it has given Him.”

[1] I discussed this quandary much more elaborately in my last post of March 9^th (https://wavesofdevotion.com/2026/03/09/the-mystery-verse/).

I loved the verse.

“In great jubilation, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, ‘My dear Svarūpa Dāmodara and Rāmānanda Rāya, know from Me that chanting the holy names is the most feasible means of salvation in this Age of Kali.’” Antya-līlā 20.8

Although I loved the verse, I also had a problem with it. It came out of nowhere, so to speak, as it just didn’t seem to follow what was being described and discussed before it. I thus couldn’t fully understand the verse’s context and purport.

This Monday morning will explore why in the context of what is being discussed it is so mysterious and then offer an explanation to resolve that mystery.

I will begin by looking closely at the verses before Text 8 in Chapter 20 to see if I can unlock its context and thus meaning. I therefore will start my investigation in the previous chapter.

The beginning of Chapter 19 tells the story of Śrī Caitanya receiving a cryptic message in sonnet form from Advaita Ācārya, the head of the Vaiṣṇavas in Bengal. It was his sincere prayer that had been the cause of the Lord’s appearance.

“Please inform Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, who is acting like a madman, that everyone here has become mad like Him. Inform Him also that in the marketplace rice is no longer in demand.

“Further tell Him that those now mad in ecstatic love are no longer interested in the material world. Also tell Him that one who has also become a madman in ecstatic love [Advaita Prabhu] has spoken these words.” Antya-līlā 19.20 and 21

Everyone hearing the message was left flummoxed. What in the world was he talking about? Even Śrī Caitanya feigned ignorance of its meaning, although He indirectly expressed that He understood it. This is what He surmised.

There were two basic reasons for His appearance; the external cause (why He came for the benefit of others) and the internal cause (why He came for himself). For others, He came to spread the holy name and infuse spontaneous devotion into the world. For Himself, He came to experience the feelings of love felt by His topmost devotee, Śrī Radha, at the height of Her love. When Advaita therefore wrote that there was no demand for rice in the market, he was hinting that Śrī Caitanya’s external mission was successful. The world was flooded with pure devotion. People therefore no longer had demand for what they had already received by His mercy. The proof of this idea is confirmed in the next stanza, “[…] those mad with ecstatic love were all liberated and had no interest in the world.”

In simple terms, it was Śrī Advaita who petitioned Him to come and save the world. As that external mission has been successfully completed, it was now Advaita indirectly calling Him back.

Since He no longer had to be concerned with the external reason for His appearance, He could now singularly focus on His internal mission, to taste the love of His topmost devotee, Śrī Radha, at the height Her love, Her separation from Krishna. And He did:

“From that day on, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s emotional state changed markedly; His feelings of separation from Kṛṣṇa doubled in intensity.” Antya-līlā 19.30

The remainder of Chapter 19 describes the intensity of Śrī Caitanya’s internal pursuit after receiving Śrī Advaita’s message and order:

“As His feelings of separation in the ecstasy of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī increased at every moment, the Lord’s activities, both day and night, were now wild, insane performances.” Antya-līlā 19.31

Chapter 20, where our mystery verse rests, gives us a bird’s eye view of Śrī Caitanya in the Gambhīra (His cave-like room) where He did his bhajan, His deep spiritual practice. He spends day and night overwhelmed in ecstasy tasting the verses and songs of Śrī Radha’s deep feelings of separation. And please note that He remains absorbed in the holy name in that mood. He is totally lost in Śrī Radha’s intense feelings of separation. Now back to our mystery verse:

“In great jubilation, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, ‘My dear Svarūpa Dāmodara and Rāmānanda Rāya, know from Me that chanting the holy names is the most feasible means of salvation in this Age of Kali.’”

Do you now see why its placement in the chapter is such an apparent anomaly? Śrī Caitanya had completed His preaching mission and was now totally absorbed in the most intense experience in the mood of Śrī Radha. Why now, deep in the fulfillment of His internal mission, was He again involved in His external mission? Hadn’t Śrī Advaita indicated that this part of His life was now finished? My proposed resolution to this quandary is as follows.

When feeling mercy, it’s natural to feel gratitude for the cause of one’s mercy. What is the mercy that Śrī Caitanya is experiencing? His two missions, both His preaching mission and his cultivation of rādhā-bhāva, have both been successfully completed due to the mercy of the holy name. How can He forget that, especially as it only due the mercy of the holy name that He is experiencing the height of Śrī Radha’s love? Our mystery verse is thus a natural expression of gratitude for the holy name and what it has given him.

That’s my mystery verse. That’s my resolution. And I hope you enjoyed this rather long journey on my Monday post!

Last week I explained that after reading the first twenty verses of Gajendra Mokṣa in the Bhāgavatam, I was disappointed. The verses were descriptive, but I could not find the intellectual or emotional content there to inspire something for me to write about.

Was I wrong! I wish I had read just a few more verses that morning.

To make a long story short, all the animals in the forest were terrified by Gajendra, the king of the elephants, because he was so much bigger and stronger than they were. While bathing in the river, however, he got attacked by a crocodile. Despite his sizable advantage in physical stature, after a prolonged struggle he was facing imminent defeat. The water was just not his natural habitat. His strength gradually waned, while the crocodile, an aquatic, naturally gained strength. To save himself his only recourse was to take full shelter of God.

Gajendra’s fight is a metaphor for life. Just as the elephant needed a supportive environment to be successful in his fight, to strongly practice spiritual life in the face of life’s challenges we need to be economically (varṇa) and socially (āśrama) situated. I loved how Śrīla Prabhupāda put it.

“Our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement has actually declared war against the illusory energy, in which all the living entities are rotting in a false understanding of civilization. The soldiers in this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement must always possess physical strength, enthusiasm and sensual power. To keep themselves fit, they must therefore place themselves in a normal condition of life. What constitutes a normal condition will not be the same for everyone, and therefore there are divisions of varṇāśrama — brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra, brahmacarya, gṛhastha, vānaprastha and sannyāsa. Especially in this age, Kali-yuga, it is advised that no one take sannyāsa.” Bhāgavatam 8.2.30, purport

But what if, despite sincere effort, one cannot find a suitable economic and social situation? With one’s strength waning can one be successful in spiritual life?

The second aspect of the metaphor answers that.

Although Gajendra was wallowing in defeat because he was in an environment that was against his nature, his impending defeat was an impetus to take shelter of God. Similarly, the value of any socio-economic structure is the strength it gives us to take shelter of God. If our so-called defeat in life, however, inspires us to further take shelter of God, then how are we the loser?

Śrīla Prabhupāda brings the point home, and perhaps brings it one step further:

“We are always in danger because at any moment death can take place. It is not that only Gajendra, the king of the elephants, was afraid of death. Everyone should fear death because everyone is caught by the crocodile of eternal time and may die at any moment. The best course, therefore, is to seek shelter of Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and be saved from the struggle for existence in this material world, in which one repeatedly takes birth and dies. To reach this understanding is the ultimate goal of life.” Bhāgavatam 8.2.33 [emphasis mine]

And that is what I learned from the story of the king of elephants!