Five hundred years ago, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu gave the gift of love of God to everyone He met. Now is your chance to take the gift He came to give you.
Lord Chaitanya spearheaded a spiritual renaissance in sixteenth-century India, which had as its foundation the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra. Five hundred years before Gandhi, this remarkable personality inaugurated a massive nonviolent civil-disobedience movement.
He introduced a revolutionary spiritual movement based on the world’s oldest and most comprehensive religious scriptures, the Vedas. This movement, He taught, would have universal appeal because it was based on the Absolute Truth, which transcends sectarian notions of race or creed.
There is no difference between the teachings of Lord Chaitanya presented here and the teachings of Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita. The teachings of Lord Chaitanya are practical demonstrations of Lord Krishna’s teachings. Lord Krishna’s ultimate instruction in Bhagavad-Gita is that everyone should surrender unto Him, Lord Krishna. Krishna promises to take immediate charge of such a surrendered soul.
Lord Chaitanya teaches direct worship of Lord Krishna, who appeared as the foster child of the King of Vraja. He also suggests that the place known as V?nd?vana is as good as Lord Krishna because there is no difference between the name, quality, form, pastimes, entourage and paraphernalia of Lord Krishna and Lord Krishna Himself. That is the absolute nature of the Absolute Truth.
Lord Chaitanya also recommended that the highest mode of worship in the highest perfectional stage is the method practiced by the damsels of Vraja. These damsels (gop?s, or cowherd girls) simply loved Krishna without a motive for material or spiritual gain. Chaitanya also recommended ?r?mad-Bh?gavatam as the spotless narration of transcendental knowledge, and He pointed out that the highest goal in human life is to develop unalloyed love for Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Lord Chaitanya’s teachings are identical to those given by Lord Kapila, the original propounder of s??khya-yoga, the s??khya system of philosophy. This authorized system of yoga recommends meditation on the transcendental form of the Lord. There is no question of meditating on something void or impersonal. One can meditate on the transcendental form of Lord Vi??u even without practicing involved sitting postures. Such meditation is called perfect sam?dhi. This perfect Samadhi is verified at the end of the Sixth Chapter of Bhagavad-Gita where Lord Krishna says: “And of all yogis, he who always abides in Me with great faith, worshiping Me in transcendental loving service, is most intimately united with Me in yoga and is the highest of all.” (Bg. 6.47)
Teachings of Lord Chaitanya, which is a summary study of Sri Chaitanya-Charitamrita, documents Chaitanya’s conversations with the great scholars, kings, saints and mystics of His day.