Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu (2)

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj,
Speaking to devotees in Venezuela
29 July 2012, part 2

There is one song in the Gaudiya Gitanjali, I do not know if you have it in the English songbooks,

o mora jivana-gati sri-rupa gosai ati
gunera samudra dayamaya
yanhara karuna haile chaitanya charana mile
vraje radha-krsna-prapti haya

(Srimad Rupa-Goswami-Prabhura Sochaka)

The meaning is this—if you get mercy from Rupa Goswami, you will get the lotus feet of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and you will get Vraje Radha-Krishna seva, service of Radha-Krishna, you will get service to Vraja Dham.

If you look at Srila Rupa Goswami, you can easily understand what parama-vairagya (extreme renunciation) is—he always practised, sometimes he did not eat, etc. He was always too much renounced...

When he went to meet with Mahaprabhu in Benares (Kasi, or Prayag), Rupa Goswami took his younger brother Anupam (Vallabha) with him, and later he also took him to Vrindavan. Rupa Goswami did what Mahaprabhu could not finish—he carried out Mahaprabhu's job in Vrindavan. And Rupa Goswami always spoke about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Vrindavan is Vraja Dham—Govardhan and Vraja Mandal are places of Krishna's and Radha-Krishna's pastimes, and all Vraja-basis know only about Radha and Krishna, no one there knew at that time who Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was. Sanatan Goswami and Rupa Goswami were first to preach about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu at that time. They told everybody about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, they told everybody that He is non-different from Radha-Krishna.

We can understand who Rupa Goswami is... Mahaprabhu gave such service to Rupa Goswami and Rupa Goswami fulfilled His desire. He also composed so many plays, kirtans, and dramas about Radha-Krishna's pastimes (rasa-keli), he composed Vidagdha-Madhava, Lalita-Madhava, and so many other books. He would take some pastime and narrate it in a song form. You can see it in the last part (Antya-lila) of Chaitanya-charitamrita.

So, tomorrow is his disappearance day. We must all pray to Srila Rupa Goswami, "Prabhu, wherever you are staying now, please forgive our offences. Please accept us as your dasa-anudasa: as a servant of a servant of your lotus feet. Please engage us to serve your servant, please tolerate us. Prabhu, we cannot practise properly, we have no quality or qualification, we only want to try heart and soul, but you are tolerating us so much! Prabhu, please accept us as a dog at your lotus feet!" We can pray to him in this way...

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