His Meeting With Ramananda Raya

The Lord explained the word mukti to be equivalent to the word Visnu, or the Personality of Godhead. To attain mukti or liberation from the bondage of material existence is to attain to the service of the Lord.

The Lord then proceed towards South India for some time and converted everyone He met on the way to become devotees of Lord Sri Krsna. Such devotees also converted many others to the cult of devotional service or to the Bhagavata-dharam of the Lord, and thus He reached the bank of the Godavari, where He met Srila Ramananda Raya, the Governor of Madras on behalf of Maharaja Prataparudra, the King of Orissa.

He talks with Ramananda Raya are very important for higher realization of transcendental knowledge, and the conversation itself forms a small booklet. We shall, however, give herewith a summary of the conversation.

Sri Ramananda Raya was a self-realized soul, although outwardly he belonged to a caste lower than tha brahmana in socail status. He was not in the renounced order of life, and besides that he was a high goverment servant in the State. Still Sri Ciatanya Mahaprabhu accepted him as a liberated soul on the strength of the high order of his realization of transcendental knowledge.

Similarly, the Lord accepted Srila Haridas Thakur, a veteran devotee of the Lord coming from a Mohammedan family. And there are many other great devotees of the Lord who came from different communities, sects and castes. The Lord's only criterion was the standard of devotional service of the particular person. He was not concerned with the outward dress of a man.; He was concerned only with the inner soul and its activities. Therefore the whole missionary activities of the Lord are to be understood to be on the spiritual plane, and as such the cult of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu or the cult of Bhagavata-dharma has nothing to do with mundane affairs, sociology, politics, economic develpoment or any such sphere of life. Srimad-Bhagavatam is the purely transcendental urge of the soul.

When He met Sri Ramananda Raya on the bank of the Godavari, the varnasrama-dharma followed by the Hindus was mentioned by the Lord. Srila Ramananda Raya said that by following the principles of varnasrama-dharma, the system of four castes and four orders of human life, everyone could realize transcendence.

In the opinion of the Lord, the system of varnasrama-dharma is superficial only, and it has very little to do with the highest realization of spiritual values. The highest perfection of life is to get detached from the material attachment and proportionately realize the transcendental loving service of the Lord. The Personality of Godhead recognizes a living being who is progressing in that line. Devotional service is, therefore, the culmination of the culture of all knowledge. When Sri Krsna the Supreme Personality of Godhead appeared for the deliverance of all fallen souls, He advised the deliverance of all living entities as follows.

The Supreme Absolute Personality of Godhead, from whom all lving entities have emanated, must be worshiped by all their respective engagements, because everything that we see is also the expansion of His energy.

That is the way of real perfection, and it is approved by all bonafide acharayas past and present. The system of varnasrama is more or less based on moral and ethical principles. There is very little realization of the transcendence as such, and Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu rejected it as superficial and asked Ramananda Raya to go further into the matter.

Sti Ramananda Raya then suggested renunciation of fruitive actions unto the Lord. The Bhagavad-Gita advises in this connections: "Whatever you do, whatever you eat and whatever you give, as well as whatever you perform in penance, offer to Me alone." This dedication on the part of the worker suggests that the Personality of Godhead is a step higher than the impersonal conception of the varnasrama system, but still the relation of the living being and the Lord is not distinct in that way. The Lord therefore rejected this proposition and asked Ramananda Raya to go further.

Raya then suggested renunciation of the varnasrama-dharma and acceptance of devotional service. The Lord did not approve of this suggestion also for the reason that all of a sudden one should not renounce his position, for that may not bring in the desired result.

It was further suggested by Raya that attainment of spiritual realization freed from the material conception of life is the topmost achievement for a living being. The Lord rejected this suggestion also because on the plea of such spiritual realization much havoc has been wrought by unscrupulous persons; therefore all of a sudden this is not possible.

The Raya then suggested sincere association of self-realized souls and hearing submissively the transcendental message of the pastimes of the Personality of Godhead.

This suggestion was welcomed by the Lord. This suggestion was made following in the footsteps of Brahmaji, who said that the Personality of Godhead is known as ajita or the one who cannot be conquered or approached by anyone. But such ajita also becomes jita (conquered) by one method, which is very simple and easy. The simple method is that one has to give up the arrogant attitude of declaring oneself to be God Himself.

One must be very meek and submissive and try to live peacefully by lending the ear to the speeches of the transcendentally self-realized soul who speaks on the message of Bhagavata-dharma or the religion of glorifying the Supreme Lord and His devotees. To glorify a great man is a natural instinct for living beings, but they have not learned to glorify the Lord. Perfection of life is attained simply by glorifying the Lord in association with a self-realized devotee of the Lord. The self-realized devotee is he who surrenders unto the Lord fully and who does not have attachment for material prosperity.

Material prosperity and sense enjoyment and their advancement are all activities of ignorance in human society. Peace and friendship are impossible for a society detached from the association of God and His devotees. It is imperative, therefore, that one should sincerely seek the association of pure devotees and hear them patiently and submissively from any position of life. The position of a person in the higher or lower status of life does not hamper one in the path of self-realization.

The only thing one has to do is to hear from a self-realized soul with a routine program. The teacher may also deliver lectures from the Vedic literatures, following in the footsteps of the bygone acharayas who realized the Absolute Truth.

Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu recommended this simple method of self-realization generally known as Bhagavata-dharma. Srimad-Bhagavatam is the perfect guide for this purpose.

Above these topics discussed by the Lord and Sri Ramananda Raya, there were still more elevated spiritual talks between the two great personalities, and we purposely withhold those topics for the present because one has to come to the spiritual plane before further taljs with Ramananda Raya can be heard. We have presented further talks of Srila Ramananda Raya with the Lord in another book. (Teaching Of Lord Caitanya).

At the conclusion of this meeting, Sri Ramananda Raya was advised by the Lord to retire from service and come to Puri so that they could live together and relish a transcendental relationship. Some time later, Sri Ramananda Raya retired from the Goverment service and took a persion from the King. He returned to his residence in Puri, where he was one of the most confidential devotees of the Lord.

There was another gentleman at Puri of the name Sikha Maiti, who was also a confidante like Ramananda Raya. The Lord used to hold confidential talks on spiritual values with three or four companions at Puri, and He passed eighteen years in that way in spiritual trance. His talks were recorded by His private secretary Sri Damodara Gosvami, one of the four most intimate devotees.

The Lord extensively travelled all over the southern part of India. The great saint of Maharashtra, known as Saint Tukaram, was also initiated by the Lord. Saint Tukaram, after initiation by the Lord, overflooded the whole of the Maharashtra Province with the sankirtana movement, and the transcendental flow is still rolling on in the southwestern part of the great Indian peninsula.

The Lord excavated from South India two very important old literatures, namely the Brahma-samhita and krsna-karnamrta, and these two valuable books are authorized studies for the person in the devotional line. The Lord then returned to Puri after His South Indian tour.

On His returned to Puri, all the anxious devotees of the Lord got back their life, and the Lord remained there with continued pastimes of His transcendental realizations. The most important incidence during that time was His granting audience to King Prataparudra.

King Prataparudra was a great devotee of the Lord, and he considered himself to be one of the servants of the Lord entrusted with sweeping the temple. This submissive attitude of the King was very much appreciated by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. The King requested both Bhattacharya and Raya to arrange his meeting with the Lord. When, however, the Lord was petitioned by His two stalwart devotees, He flatly refused to grant the request, even though it was put forward by personal associates like Ramananda Raya and Sarvabhauma Bhattacharaya.