Sri Nityananda Prabhu's Glory (3)

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Ekachakra Dham, 23 February 2021, part 11
Translated from Bengali

Apart from Srila Raghunath Das Goswami, there were other great personalities who received Sri Nityananda Prabhu's mercy. Two of them are Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami and Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur.

You know that Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur was the son of Narayani, Srivas Pandit Prabhu's niece. He was born in Mamgachhi, Nabadwip (Modadrumdwip, or currently Bardhaman District). Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur stayed with Sri Nityananda Prabhu as His servitor since he was thirteen years old. He knew what Nityananda Prabhu liked to eat, etc. Once, Sri Nityananda Prabhu was taking all the devotees to Puri. They had taken prasadam in Nabadwip and started walking in the morning. In East Bardhaman, there is a village called Denur. Now, Sri Nityananda Prabhu had a habit to eat hartaki. (I heard from Gurudev that a mother can be nasty to her son, but hartaki can never be bad to your stomach—it always works; if you take green hartaki, it always helps digestion.) So, when some devotees in Nabadwip had given hartaki to Sri Vrindavan Das Thakur, he thought, "Prabhu will take prasadam on the way, and He will ask for hartaki again. Let me keep a few with me." When they set off from Nabadwip and reached Denur by midday, Sri Nityananda Prabhu sat in a mango grove and met with Sri Ramahari Chakravarti, a local brahman. Sri Ramahari Chakravarti had always thought, "When will Prabhu come? When will I get Nityananda Prabhu's mercy?" One day, he saw a dream in which he was told that he would get Nityananda Prabhu's mercy very soon. The next day, he saw that there were many sadhus in the mango grove near his house. He went to the grove and saw that his Prabhu Himself was there! Ramahari Chakravarti fell in a full obeisance to Lord Nityananda Prabhu saying, "Prabhu, please come with me to my house. Please take prasadam at my house." Nityananda Prabhu replied, "Do you have place for so many people?! Do Me a favour. Bring some rice, dal, etc.—we can cook here and take prasadam here." Ramahari Chakravarti arranged everything, and Lord Nityananda Prabhu took prasadam. After that, He told Sri Vrindavan Das Thakur, "Vrindavan, where is My thing? Give Me." He did not say in front of everyone what He wanted, but Sri Vrindavan Das Thakur understood and took a hartaki out of his pocket. Then, Akrodha-Paramananda Nityananda Ray (who has no anger and is always full of extraordinary joy) showed anger. To teach others, He said, "You are a brahmachari, but you are not keeping your brahmacharya properly! Your hoarding mentality has not gone away yet! You still think what you will eat tomorrow! You must not go with Me to Puri! Stay here, get married, and do what you like." This is how Sri Vrindavan Das Thakur stayed in Denur. Do you know what he did in Denur? He wrote Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata! He named his book Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, but in fact he mostly wrote about the glories of Sri Nityananda Prabhu in this book. When devotees read it, they laughed, "You should have called it Sri Nityananda-bhagavata!"

[His Divine Grace notices somebody is sleeping.] Hey, give him a pillow! Do you have a pillow in your room? Bring it, give it to him. You are falling asleep. Why do you suddenly feel so sleepy? Because Maya Devi is getting to you. There are three sisters—Ghum-parani (ঘুমপাড়ানী, fast asleep and snoring), Jhim-parani (ঝিমপাড়ানি, fast asleep and drooping) and Dol-dolani (দোল-দোলানি, fast asleep and rocking or jerking). You must have heard these three names. When you listen to Hari-katha, you feel drowsy, but when you watch TV series, you do not feel sleepy. In every house I go to I see that people sit in front of their TV sets and watch series. They have no time to listen to Hari-katha. They have no time to chant kirtans for half an hour in the evening (if you did, they would have already learned all kirtans by heart, but no, they have no time) They can easily tell what time which series are on, but they cannot remember kirtans, they have no time for kirtans. That is why sleep comes.

So, as I was saying Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur stayed in Denur and composed Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata there. Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami himself called him "Vyasadev of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's pastimes" ("Chaitanya-lilara vyasa—Vrndavana-dasa", Cc., 1.8). If you go to Denur now, you can still see his handwritten manuscript there.

This is how Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur received Sri Nityananda Prabhu's mercy and was able to write Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata in a very beautiful way.

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