Follow by Email

Monday, March 07, 2016

Advaita-parivāra does not believe in Caitanya Mahāprabhu?

Advaita-parivāra does not believe in Caitanya Mahāprabhu?

In Bengal, some say about our Advaita-parivāra - ওরা গৌরকে মানে না orā gaur ke māne nā. The Bengali root-verb mānā means to honour, respect, believe in, obey, or accept the authority of. In other words, they claim the Advaita parivāra does not honour, respect, believe in, obey, or accept Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. However, none of these translations of the Bengali accusation applies to us. Advaita Ācārya is known as gour ānā ṭhākur, the Lord who invoked the advent of Gaurāṅga Mahāprabhu. If Gour is not Bhagavān then what would be special about invoking Him? What would have been the need? Advaita Ācārya would then be an ordinary guy too. Why would we then worship the 13th direct descendant of an ordinary guy? How can Gour not be Bhagavān without Advaita Prabhu losing His divinity with it? Why are we fasting on Gaur Pūrṇimā if we don't believe in or respect Gaur? It is on our calendar. We start our day at 5 a.m by singing maṅgala āroti goura kiśora, the traditional maṅgala ārati-song of Mahāprabhu, before we do Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa maṅgala ārati. Before a lecture is given we sing the song ‘jaya jaya nityānandādvaita gaurāṅga’, also according to Vaiṣṇava tradition, and in the evening we sing the traditional sandhyā-ārati-song about Mahāprabhu, ‘bhāli goracānder āroti boni’ – without Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s mercy, Śrī-Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa cannot be attained. These songs are mentioned in our paddhati, or manual of daily worship, as shown below –


This issue is added to my omnibus 'In defense of the Advaita vaṁśa'  on my website.

Furthermore the accusation is made against Sādhu Bābā (Nikunja-gopāl Goswāmī) personally that he would not accept mahā-prasād of Gaurāṅga Mahāprabhu. That cannot be true because Gaura is Kṛṣṇa and why would he not accept Kṛṣṇa-prasāda?

1 comment:

  1. Pranams,

    That you sing jaya jaya nityanandadvaita gauranga also shows that you are honoring Nityananda Prabhu, which may have been questioned.