After crossing Bengal and reaching Mathura, Narottama wept at his first sight of the Yamuna. He pressed on to Vrindavana itself, where Jiva Goswami received him warmly. But Jiva Goswami did not usually give formal initiation to disciples himself. He told Narottama to seek shelter instead at the feet of Lokanatha Gosvami, the eldest of the Goswamis living there. Lokanatha Gosvami was so absorbed in separation from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and disliked name and fame so much, that he is said to have asked Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami to leave his own name out of Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita altogether.
A Guru Who Did Not Want Disciples #
When Narottama approached him, Lokanatha Gosvami refused outright. By most accounts he simply did not wish to accept anyone as a disciple. In one telling he asks how he could take on the responsibility of serving as someone else's guru, when he himself could not even properly serve Gaura and Nityananda. In another he protests that a prince, so clearly learned and refined as Narottama was, should not become the disciple of a penniless renunciant. Narottama asked again and again and was refused every time. Yet he resolved privately that he would accept initiation from Lokanatha Gosvami or from no one else.
A Year of Hidden Service #
Instead of pressing his request further, Narottama began going out secretly each night to clean the forest area where Lokanatha Gosvami relieved himself. He took care that Lokanatha Gosvami never learned who was doing it. He kept this up for close to a year before Lokanatha Gosvami discovered who he was. Moved by such quiet, humble devotion, Lokanatha Gosvami gave in and initiated Narottama on the full-moon day of the month of Shravana. This story is still told across Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition as an example of how humility, not birth or status, wins a guru's heart. The sources agree on this point. Lokanatha Gosvami performed the initiation himself, even though he was unwilling at first. He did not hand the rite over to Jiva Goswami or to anyone else. At the same time, Lokanatha Gosvami revealed Narottama's own eternal identity in Krishna's pastimes. He was Champaka Manjari, a maidservant who assists Rupa Manjari in her confidential service to Radha and Krishna. This is an inner teaching that a guru does not usually reveal so soon after initiation.
An Eternal Service Revealed in a Dream #
Soon after his initiation, tradition says, a Vaishnavi appeared to Narottama in a dream. She told him that his sincerity had earned him a confidential service. Each afternoon in the kunja, she said, the gopi Champakalata prepares a milk dish for Krishna, and Narottama would now assist her in boiling the milk. Narottama ran to tell Lokanatha Gosvami of the dream. His guru embraced him and confirmed that the Vaishnavi was Radharani Herself. She was simply giving back to Narottama a service that was already, eternally, his own. From then on, devotees say, Narottama would sometimes become so deeply absorbed in meditation on this service that, when the milk in his vision began to overflow, he would try to stop it with his bare hands. He bore the burns without complaint. Afterward he tried to keep his marked hands covered, but all of Vrindavana came to know how he had received them.
Formed by Two Goswamis at Once #
After initiation, Narottama remained in Vrindavana, living by madhukari: begging only a little food from door to door, in the manner of a bee gathering pollen, so as never to keep a stocked kitchen of his own. He continued his deeper studies of rasa-shastra under Jiva Goswami, who was his siksha-guru even after Lokanatha Gosvami had become his diksha-guru. Lokanatha Gosvami himself is remembered chiefly for his single-minded absorption in the Radha-Vinoda Deity. Tradition holds that Krishna personally gave him this Deity to carry through the forests of Vraja in a cloth bag. Narottama's regard for his guru later appeared in his verses. He wrote of Lokanatha Gosvami as "a storehouse of single-minded service to the lotus feet of Radha-Vinoda," the same Deity Lokanatha Gosvami carried through Vraja. Around this time Narottama's closest companion in study became Srinivasa Acharya, and before long they were joined by Shyamananda Prabhu, newly arrived from Gauda-desha. The three studied together under Jiva Goswami with such single-minded absorption that later biographies speak of them together as the generation that would carry the Goswamis' teaching out of Vrindavana. That moment came when Jiva Goswami called the three of them together and instructed them to take the Goswamis' writings to Bengal and preach the message of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu there (see Return to Bengal and Preaching).
