Mathura-mandala Parikrama, Part 26
BY: SUN STAFF
Barsana Temple, Mathura
Oct 06, 2011 — CANADA (SUN) — By Srila Narahari Chakravarti Thakur.
The Glories of Shri Gaurasundara
Overwhelmed in ecstatic love, Raghava Pandita began to narrate the characteristics of Lord Chaitanya to Shrinivasa: "Lord Chaitanya is the eternal Supreme Personality of Godhead, param brahma. He is the Lord of Navadvipa, and He is Vrajendra-nandana, the son of Nanda Maharaja. He appeared in Navadvipa in the house of Shaci and Jagannatha Mishra due to the loud calling of Advaita Acarya. The wonderful pastimes of Lord Gauranga cannot be described even by Ananta-Shesha with His thousand mouths.
A few days after the disappearance of His father, the Lord went to Gaya to perform shraddha. At that time the most fortunate Ishvara Puri regained his life by seeing Gaurachandra. Gaurasundara is the life of the devotees, thus He offered the greatest affection to Ishvara Puri. Lord Chaitanya spoke His initiation mantra in Ishvara Puri's ear and then, receiving the mantra back from Ishvara Puri, He fell on the ground offering His obeisances. After accepting Ishvara Puri as His guru, Lord Chaitanya always floated in His own tears. And Ishvara Puri became mad with ecstasy after accepting the deliverer of the universe, Lord Vishvambhara, as his disciple.
You may say that Lord Chaitanya is the guru of the entire universe—yet He accepted a guru. This is certainly puzzling. Therefore I say that to instruct the people in general the Lord established the principles of religion by His own example. Who can understand this transcendental pastime of the Lord? He Himself thus glorified the Madhva-sampradaya.
By accepting mantra from a bona fide sampradaya one becomes successful. If one receives mantra from an unauthorized source that will certainly be fruitless. In Kali-yuga there are four authorized sampradayas mentioned as: Shri, Brahma, Rudra, and Sanaka [Kumara]. This is all elaborately described in the Puranas.
