The next day, when Pradyumna Mishra came again to Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the Lord asked directly: "Have you heard talks about Krishna from Sri Ramananda Raya?" Pradyumna Mishra described instead what he had seen, the devadasis, the bathing and dressing, all of it, without saying whether he had actually heard any krishna-katha at all. Mahaprabhu understood exactly what was troubling him, and what He said next is the heart of this whole episode.
Mahaprabhu Explains What Pradyumna Saw #
"I am a sannyasi," Mahaprabhu said, "and I certainly consider Myself renounced. But what to speak of seeing a woman, if I even hear the name of a woman, I feel changes in My mind and body. Therefore who could remain unmoved by the sight of a woman?" Having admitted this about Himself, He turned to defend Ramananda Raya in the strongest terms. Even while Ramananda Raya touched the young dancers, his mind never changed at all. Mahaprabhu said that this was proof that his body had been completely transformed into a spiritual entity, not a material one. He also said that "the authority for such acts is the prerogative of Ramananda Raya alone" and that no one else could dare to imitate it. Ramananda Raya alone, and no one else, could understand the true position of his own mind.
A Bhagavatam Verse on Hearing about Krishna #
Mahaprabhu did not simply state this. He supported it with the teaching of Srimad-Bhagavatam about rasa-lila, Krishna's dance with the gopis of Vraja. On the surface, these pastimes sound just as intimate as what Pradyumna Mishra had just watched. The verse He quoted says that a sober, transcendentally situated person who hears or describes these pastimes with genuine faith attains the highest devotional service. It also says that the lusty desires that are the disease of the material heart are quickly and completely destroyed (Srimad-Bhagavatam 10.33.39). When they are heard properly, from a realized soul, with faith, even Krishna's most confidential pastimes have a purifying effect, not a polluting one. But heard from anyone else, in any other spirit, the same words could do real harm. Ramananda Raya, Mahaprabhu said, was situated exactly on that level of spontaneous love. And so He simply added, "I also hear topics about Krishna from Ramananda Raya. If you want to hear such topics, go to him again." He told Pradyumna Mishra to use His own name as an introduction, and to go quickly, while Ramananda Raya was still in the assembly room.
Ramananda Raya's Full Discourse #
Pradyumna Mishra went straight back. This time Ramananda Raya, overjoyed to hear Mahaprabhu Himself had sent this guest, took him to a secluded place and asked what krishna-katha he wished to hear. Pradyumna Mishra, now speaking as a humble disciple rather than a curious visitor, asked for the same subjects Ramananda Raya had once discussed at Vidyanagara, the very conversations, in fact, that Ramananda Raya had shared with Mahaprabhu Himself during His South Indian tour. Ramananda Raya began speaking, posing questions and answering them himself, and the discourse continued without either man noticing the day pass, until a servant finally told them evening had come. Pradyumna Mishra returned home fully satisfied, "drowned," as he put it to Mahaprabhu that evening, "in a nectarean ocean of talks about Krishna."
Not the Speaker, but the Instrument #
One more detail from that meeting mattered enough for Pradyumna Mishra to repeat it word for word. Ramananda Raya had told him: "Do not consider me the speaker in these talks about Krishna. Whatever I speak is personally spoken by Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Like a stringed instrument, I vibrate whatever He causes me to speak." Krishnadasa Kaviraja comments directly on this. He says it is not really possible to describe Ramananda Raya's talks in ordinary language, because "he is not an ordinary man" and his words are themselves absorbed in krishna-bhakti-rasa.
In his purport on this verse, Srila Prabhupada explains the wider principle behind it. A genuine spiritual master must never be regarded as an ordinary human being. When such a person speaks, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is understood to be speaking through him within the parampara system. Krishnadasa Kaviraja goes further still. He connects the whole episode to something Mahaprabhu did on purpose in His preaching. To break the false pride of renounced people and scholars, the Lord spreads real religious teaching even through someone the world would call lowborn. In his outer position, Ramananda Raya was a householder of the fourth social class. Yet he became the instructor, and both Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Himself and a purified brahmana, Pradyumna Mishra, became his listeners.
