Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu Meeting Srila Ramananda Raya (Part 1)

Radhanath Swami

Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu then embraced him. As they embraced, they fell into a trance of ecstatic love. They practically fell unconscious, tears were pouring from their eyes. Their complexions were becoming pale, paralyses, trembling, shivering from their mouths with choked voices they were continuously saying Krishna! Krishna! Krishna! This was the intimate reunion of Shri Krishna and Vishaka Gopi. As we know Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu is Krishna in the mood of Shrimati Radharani, and one of the most dear associates of Shrimati Radharani is Vishaka sakhi. In this particular incarnation, this was the first moment in which they met together. What was the intimacy of the ecstatic love they shared between each other? We would never know, but we can hear it, and try to become purified through this process. As they embraced, they were exhibiting such ecstatic symptoms of love, they would fall down become unconscious, and then again became conscious, and exhibit all kinds of different transformations of divine love. The brahmins, who were ritualistic by nature, they were struck with wonder. They were thinking in their minds, “this sannyasi who is effulgent like the impersonal brahman, why? why is he exhibiting such a happiness by embracing a sudra? And Ramanand Rai, he is a maha pandit, he is a great scholar. He is a big, big government officer, he is a very grave and sober personality, why he has become completely mad, lost all composure embracing a sannyasi?” They could not understand. Lord Chaitanya, Ramanand Rai noticing that these brahmins assembled were not able to comprehend the level of their spirituality, they somehow or other forcibly restrain their ecstatic feelings and became sober. Srila Prabhupada explains that sahajiyas, they like to imitate ecstatic symptoms in front of ordinary people, just to get followers and money. However great personalities even if they have ecstatic love of God, they will restrain themselves from manifesting it before anyone who cannot understand what it really represents.