Topic : Sripad Shyamananda Pandit

Speaker : H.G. Deena Bandhu Prabhuji

Translated by : Cakori Radha dasi

JAI SRIPAD SHYAMANANDA PANDIT

JAI SRILA PRABHUPADA

Shyamanada Pandit appeared somewhere in Northern Orissa, it was in

Manipur district which is Bengal but at that time it was in Orissa. His father’s
name was Krishna Mandal and Krishna Mandal’s wife’s name was Kurika. So He
was from a Shat Gopa community. It’s described, Shat Gopa means they
deliver milk products to the people and it is a shudra community. But even
though He was not born in a very high class family, from His childhood He was
always attracted to learning and studying philosophy. And when anybody
would come and tell the stories of Lord Chaitanya, as they were just not far as
they just had to cross the border of Bengal, people would come on their way to
Puri and tell stories about Lord Chaitanya. So He would learn those stories and
He would repeat those stories. And then He wanted to learn Sanskrit so His
parents, seeing His aptitude, seeing that He was not at all following their line,
but that He was very anxious for philosophy and like that, they got Him to
study philosophy and Sanskrit and so many things.
And thus He thought, and they also agreed that since He was in the line of
spiritual life and for really making advancement in spiritual life, one should
accept a Guru. But hearing all the stories about the different associates of Lord
Chaitanya, somehow He was very much attracted to Hridayi Chaitanya. So He
decided that He would accept Hridayi Chaitanya who lived in Ambikakalna,
which is not far from Navadvipa. You get the train, you go back about three
stations, Padmapara, Saptagram and then come Ambikakalna, very wonderful
place. But His mother was very worried that that was so far away, but then He
argued that there are so many devotees going back and forth on pilgrimage
from going to Puri and then returning, so He could return with them, some
pilgrims and then He would be protected like that. So finally they decided to
agree.
So He started off towards Ambikakanla, on the way they passed a village
Abhiram Thakur, and when He met Abhiram Thakur He fell in a complete trans
of ecstasy, so ecstatic to be one of Mahaprabhu’s close associates. And then
He travelled on to Kalna, and in Kalna it wasn’t very hard, Hridya Chaitanya was
very famous, His Guru was Gauri Das Pandit, they were both very famous in
the village, so everyone very happily directed Him to the temple of Gaur Nitai.
Now this is a very special Gaur Nitai, because Lord Chaitnaya Nityananda, they
came to Ambikakalna and they were invited by Gauri Das Pandit to stay in His
house and accept hospitality from Him.
So one day, after few days of remaining with Guri Das Pandit, they begged
permission to leave and Gauri Das Pandit said “No, No, You cannot leave. I am
enjoying so much ecstasy in Your association. How can You leave?” In this way
a big argument was going on, they said “No we have to go. We have our
Sankirtan mission to complete.” So finally He said “Alright. Let me make some
deities. Because a deity is non-different from Yourself. Right?”, The Lords
agreed and said “Yes. It’s non-different.” So they called one carver and these
were probably the only deities that Lord Chaitanya and Nityananda posed for,
so very very exclusively beautiful deities. So Lord Chaitanya and Nityananda
posed for these deities and when the deities were finished, then Gauri Das
Pandit said to the Lords that, “ These deities are non-different from You.” The
Lords said, “Yes.” So He said “Then let the deities go and preach and You stay
here in my house. So then Lord Chaitanya and Nityananda froze and became
deities and the deities became Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda. He said
“No, no, no. You are cheating me. No, no, no. You will stay and the deities will
go.” So then they switched back and then Lord Chaitanya and Nityananda tried
to go again, and again He said, “No, no, no. You are cheating me.” This way
they changed back and forth and He was no longer aware that which were the
deities and which were Lord Chaitanya and Nityananda. So then He accepted
the deities and let Lord Chaitanya and Nityananda go.
Sometime later, He had a disciple named Hriday Ananda. So He left on
pilgrimage and left Hriday Ananda to take care of the deities. When Gaur
Purnima time came, Hriday Ananda didn’t have any order from His Guru to do
a festival but He thought that it is Lord Chaitanys’s appearance day and there
should be a festival, but it wasn’t common yet to have a Gaur Purnima festival.
So, He called all the Vaishnavas and made this a big festival, Kirtan was going
on, loud noise was going on, and Gauri Das Pandit came back from His
pilgrimage. He saw all this hullah-hallah going on in His temple and He just
wanted to come back and worship His Lords and be happy. He said, “What is all
this? I did not give you any order to do all this. Why is all this going on.” To this
Hriday Ananda said, “Guru Maharaj I am very sorry, I just thought it would be
nive to have a festival.” And Gauri Das Pandit said, “You just take your festival
somewhere else.” So they went out to field nearby and they were having a
roaring kirtan and Hriday Ananda was having an ecstatic Kirtan ,everybody was
rolling on the ground, pulling their hair, crying.
And Gauri Das Pandit cooked for His deities , He came to the deity room,
opened the curtain and Gaur Nitai were not there on the alter and He said,
“Oh my God, what is this.” And then He looked and saw Gaur Nitai were
dancing in the Kirtan. They had left the Kirtan to go join the Kirtan. So Gauri
Das Pandit grabbed His stick and He came running. When they saw Gauri Das
Pandit running with a stick. Then Lord Chaitanya jumped into Hriday Ananda’s
heart and nobody could understand, nobody knew Gaur Nitai were standing
there, and thus nobody knew why Gauri Das Pandit was running with a stick,
and why He was shouting at Hriday Ananda, “You get back in alter, You get
back in alter.” So they went back on the alter and therefore at that temple,
they never give you long darshan , they just give you a short little darshan as
they’re afraid that They may walk off the alter again. So from that time, since
Lord Chaitanya his in His heart, we can imagine how pure He must have been
that Lord Chaitanya took up residence in His heart, so He became known as
Hriday Chaitanya.
So seeing Hriday Chaitanya, Shyamananda Pandit fell on His feet and begged
Him to accept him as His disciple. And Hriday Chaitanya was very happy to
accept him as His disciple and began to train Him in so many ways and nourish
Him in spiritual life. Now we missed a piece of the story that before
Shyamananda Pandit was born, His parents had several children but they were
either born dead or they died shortly after their birth. So they named Him
Dukhie, hoping that the God of Death seeing that this person was so unhappy,
would not bother Him. So He was named Dukhi and Hriday Ananda gave Him
the name, Krishnadas, so He became known as Dukhi Krishnadas.
So Dukhi Krishnadas presented one time that He had a desire as all good
sadhus to go on pilgrimage. So then He went on pilgrimage, He went to so
many holp places, Gaya, Prayaga, all the different holy places and even went
up to Northern places where usually Gaudiya Vaishnavas don’t go. Then on the
way back, He stopped in Puri, to see the places of Lord Chaitanya’s pastimes,
then Navadvipa and finally He returned to Orissa to His home, where He met
His parents again and they were very happy to see Him. Then He returned to
Kalna to Gauri Das Pandit and then again Gauri Das was overwhelmed to see
him back, He embraced him with tears and again He trained Him in spiritual
life. And then He told Him that actually You should go the Vrindavan because
Jiva Goswami is there. He’s the most learned and He can really train You in
Gaudiya Viashnava philosophy.
So with a heavy heart, He set out for Vrindavan, on the way He reached
Radhakunda first and there was met by Raghunatha Das Goswami and
Krishnadas Kaviraja. When they heard that He was a disciple of Hriday
Chaitanya, They were overwhelmed and they embraced Him with tears in their
eyes, and They took very nice care of Him and told Him that He should quickly
hurry to Vrindavan and meet Jiva Goswami. So then He hurried to Vrindavan
and He asked for the whereabouts of Jiva Gowami, He found Jiva Goswami,
surrendered at His lotus feet and the gave Him a letter from His Guru that He
wanted to study with Jiva Gowami. Jiva Goswami was overjoyed to receive a
letter from Hriday Chaitanya, this was so much ecstasy for Him. So He was very
happy to have a disciple of Hriday Chaitanya in His school. So then He joined
Srinivas Acarya and Narottam Das Thakur were also there.
Jiva Goswami was very happy, He now had a team that was competent to do
preaching work, so He was very happy. He trained Him very nicely and He
trained Him in Raganuga bhajan and He would go into trance and He
discovered His identity as Kanaka Manjari, He had some special service to do in
the spiritual world. So He would go into these deep trances and elaborate
meditations and return to this material world again. Then He asked Jiva
Goswami for some special service, so Jiva Goswami said, “Yes, You should
sweep the Kunj because Shyamsundar temple is Sevakunj area, so You should
sweep the Kunjas every dau. So, He gave Hima very humble service , generally
sweeper is a very low-down service but He very happily took the service and
was sweeping the Kunj everyday.
One time in the Sevakunj area, Radha and Krishna and all the Gopis were doing
rasa dance and somehow that night, They just went mad in ecstasy and
everybody was dancing wildly and so wildly, and Radharani was dancing so
wildly, She didn’t notice that Her ankle bell fell off. And then later they retired
from the rasalila. And the next morning, here comes Dukhi Krishnadas doing
His service sweeping, suddenly He saw this beautiful nupur bracelet, ankle bell
bracelet and He could see it was glowing and the whole Kunj was brilliant with
this golden glow. He could understand this was not an ordinary thing, and
when He reached down to touch it, spiritual charge went through His whole
body. Then very carefully He lifted that, He tied it in His cloth and thought, “I
will have to return this to its owner, and owner must be someone very special,
So He continued sweeping, then sometime later Radharani noticed that Her
ankle bell had fallen off in Her ecstasy. So She told Lalita, You have to find this
ankle bell.
So Lalita Sakhi disguised Herself as an old woman and she went back to the
Sevakunj area and as She was looking around, She saw this fellow sweeping. So
She asked Him, “Did You happen to see a very valuable ankle bell?”, and He
said, “Yes. Is it Yours?”. She said “No. It belongs to my daughter-in-law.”
Because She is playing the part of an old lady. So He said, “So it’s not Yours
then?”, and she said “No. But You can give it to me and I will give it to my
daughter-in-law.” Bur He said “No, no, no. This is a very valuable ankle bell. I
can only return it to the owner itself.” To this the old lady said, “But She is my
daughter-in-law, You can give it to me, I am honest.” But He said, “No, no, no.”
He was very clever, He knew something very special was happening.
So then Lalita Sakhi took Him out of the Kunj and went into Radharani’s
quarters. When He went into the quarters of Radharani, the suddenly He was
stunned in spiritual ecstasy, He fell on the ground and began to cry. And
suddenly Lalita Sakhi revealed Herself and He saw the beautiful form of Lalita
Sakhi and the beautiful forms of Radharani. And He was just in ecstasy and
then Radharani asked for Her ankle bell. He took it out of His cloth, He handed
it to Radharani, He took and placed it on His forehead like this so that it came
down and made a mark on His head like this. And then she took one bell and
touched Her lotus feet and put a little bindu with the dust of Her lotus feet.
And told Him that, “You have so much love for my Shyam. Your name will be
Shyamananda”, and then She manifested a beautiful deity of Radha and
Krishna right from Her heart and gave it to Shyamananda to worship.
So whenever you go to Shyamasundar temple, you’ll see that the pujaris
everywhere have a special type of Tilak. The leaf part of the Tilak is empty
because She just put the ankle bell so it fell like that, so it’s empty and there’s
a Chandan coloured bindu. The tilak is very similar to Nimarka tilak, but
Nimarka tilak has a black bindu, this is a Shyamanandi tilak. So then everybody
began to notice that Dukhi Krishnadas had a new name and He had a new type
of tilak, a bona fide tilak or a bogus tilak. So it became a big controvery, it was
all over the internet, Jiva Goswami has reinitiated Dukhi Krishnadas and given
Him a new name, He stole Hriday Chaitanya’s disciple and all these rumours
went through the Vrindavan town. And finally some disciples of Hriday
Chaitanya passing through Vrindavan heard these rumours, They saw it was
true, He was now known as Shyamananda, He has this speculation tilak.
So they went back to Kalna and told Hriday Chaitanya that this was going on.
Hriday Chaitanya was very furious, how Jiva Goswami has stolen my disciple
and reinitiated Him. So He immediately wrote a letter to Jiva Goswami But Jiva
Goswami was jumping ahead. Jiva Goswami saw His funny tilak and His
beautiful deities and He understood something had happened. And Radharani
had told Him that, “You take these deities and you worship them and later you
will meet Rasik Murari and you will preach all over Orissa with Rasik Murari.”
But He had never heard of Rasik Murari spo He had no idea what She was
talking about but She had given Him this instruction. So when He saw this
funny tilak and this new name, then Jiva Goswami asked and He explained
everything to Jiva Gsowami. And Jiva Goswami said, “Yes, very nice. This is the
mercy of Your spiritual master Hriday Chaitanya.”
So Hriday Chaitanya wrote a big letter criticizing Jiva Goswami and all this and
He sent five of His disciples. They went through to Jiva Goswami and Jiva
Goswami laughed and He said, “How can I take Him as my disciple if I am not
even fit to be His disciple. This was the special mercy of Hriday Chaitanys that
He got this special name and He got this special tilak.” And so He sent a letter
back to Hriday Chaitanya saying as such. But Hriday Chaitanya wasn’t
convinced when He got the letter. He said, “No. Everbody’s telling the same
thing. Everybody who comes says that You’ve stolen Him.” So He got all the 64
mahants and many other associates and a big group of them went off on a big
long tour to Vrindavan. And when they got to Vrindavan, they challenged Jiva
Goswami. But Jiva Goswami didn’t say anything, He just denied of stealing Him
and again said that I am not even fit to be His disciple, what to speak of taking
Him as my disciple.
So the Hriday Chaitanya said, “I will wipe this tilak. Where did you get this
tilak.” He said, “Guru Maharaj this is all Your mercy.” To this Hriday Chaitanys
said, “Where have I given this tilak? Where have I given this name?”. He said, “
But Guru Maharaj this is all Your mercy.” And Hriday Chaitanys said, “I’ll show
You my mercy.” So He took sand and water and began to rub that tilak mark to
wipe it from Shyamananda’s face. And the more He wiped, the more began to
glow the golden colour and shine like anything. And all the Vaishnavas were
astonished when they saw this. They were amazed. Then Hriday Chaitanya
realized that this is some special mercy.
Then Jiva Goswami who wanted to wait till the proper time, He told the whole
story how Radhrani has given this name and how Radharani has given this tilak.
And all the Vaishnavas bowed at the lotus feet of Jiva Goswami, they were
sorry for calling Him out on speculation tilak and speculation name and
everything was settled very nicely. And many Vaishnavas stayed with Hriday
Chaitanya in Braj for some time and then they went on parikrama. So now the
controversy increases even more.
So in their travels they came to Sanket, a place between Barsana and
Nandagrama. Sanket means signals, so it is the place where gopis sent signals
between Barsana and Nandagram where the leaders were going to be in the
evening. So there was a group of rasalila players there. So this idea of actor’s
playing out Krishna’s lilas is going on from at least 500 years, it is not a new
thing. So they were displaying the lila of Radha and Krishna and Shyamananda
went into the most ecstatic trance and He rolled on the ground, He was crying
and pulling His hair. And Hriday Chaitanya was looking at this because Guri Das
Pandit is Subal in Krishna Lila, so Gauri Das and Hriday Chaitanya are in Sakhya
rasa. But He was being overwhelmed with Madhurya rasa. So He became very
angry again and said, “What is this nonsense. You’re not following us, we’re in
sakhya rasa. Shyamananda begged His forgiveness and said, “But I cannot
change the feeling of my heart. It’s an affair of the heart.” He said I cannot
change but Hriday Chaitanya said, “No, no, no. I am going to reject You as a
disciple and a big argument was there and finally He decided He would wait for
the next and think about it what to do.
So He meditated all night, He became even more angry and in the morning He
said, “Why have You stepped over Your Guru.” He said no and then explaind
that in Madhurya rasa, sakhya rasa is also there and said that “I am not leaving
out sakhya rasa. This is my eternal identity. What can I do?” And Hriday
Chaitanya grabbed a branch and began to beat Shyamananda like anything till
the time the bruises and cuts were coming on His body, He beat Him with this
branch. And all the mahants stopped Him, they said, “What are you doing?
What are You doing? Stop all this! Stop all this!”
So that night, in His dream, Lord Chaitanya appeared and He had all this cloth
on His body that was all sticking to His body with blood and Hriday Chaitanya
fell on His feet, “Mahaprabhu what happened? What happened? My dear Lord
what happened?” Krishna said, “What do You mean by what happened? You
Yourself have done this. Shyamananda is my very dear devotee. So I have
protected Him from Your beating and so I have taken all that beating.” We
hear only about Haridas Thakur when Mahaprabhu took the beating of the
Muslim soldiers. So this is the second instance. Then Chaitanya Maharprabhu
said, “You immediately beg forgiveness from Him.” So in the morning, Hriday
Chaitanya fell at the feet of Shyamananda, Shyamananda fell at the feet of His
Guru, They embraced each other and everything was settled and He said that
“Yes. It’s true the Sakhya rasa is included with it because all the rasa are
included in Madhurya rasa.” And in this way, He was very happy and said that,
“From now on, You are not my servant. You are my life and soul.” And then He
returned to Kalna with all the Vaishanvas.
Also when Lord Chaitanya criticized Hriday Chaitanya for beating
Shyamananda, He said, “You can only rectify this situation by performing
twelve festivals in Braj. So in this way, Hriday Chaitanya collected and collected
and performed 12 festivals, dol yatra, jhulan yatra and so many different
festivals and then Hriday Chaitanya returned to Kalna.
So finally Jiva Goswami saw that nobody in Bengal knew that the Vishnava
philosophy was being systemized by all the Goswamis in Vrindavan. So He
needed to get the books to Bengal and the three most competent people were
Narottam, Srinivasa and Shyamananda. So He had some merchants from
Mathura built a special bullock cart with space o lock up all the books and
facilities to carry our three saints on these and with the blessing of Jiva
Goswami, they started off for Bengal. Then somewhere in Banavishnupur, King
Bir Hambir stole all the books. We can’s imagine the distress of the devoteed
when they woke up in the morning and the books were gone, its’s
unimaginable. But Srinivasa said, “I will stay to find out, You go on.” So then
Shyamananda and Narottam went together to Ketrigram and they stayed there
for some time and then Shyamananda told, “My duty is to preach in Orissa.”
So He returned to Orissa and there He began His preaching. And this was very
important because after Mahaprabhu left,the Mughals had attacked and the
dynasty of Maharashtrapura was overturned. Even one King attacked the
Jagannath temple and they had to take the deity and flee. So everything was
disturbed, all the great preachers of Mahaprabhu’s movement had left. There
were a few of them, Dhyanchandra and Gopalguru. But gradually Gaudiya
Vaishnavism was fading out and people were becoming very materialistic, the
Mughals disturbed everyone and tortured everyone and killed them. And the
people were in a very distraught condition. An that was when our
Shyamananda appeared on the scene, He was a very powerful preacher and He
began going around and reviving. He was most important person for reviving
Gaudiya Vaishnavism in Orissa.
Then after sometime, He again went to spade another visit Braj and He met
Jiva Goswami, He was very happy to see His Guru, His Guru had already heard
about His great preaching, hoe He was reving and revitalizing the preaching of
Gaudiya Vishnavism in Puri, His Guru was very happy to see Him and told Him
to hurry back and continue the preaching work. Then on the way back He
stopped as He heard that everybody was going to the Katerigram festival. So
He went to Ketrigram, then He stopped at Kalni again and then He went back
to Orissa, and again in Orissa he began His preaching in a very heavy away. And
that’s when He stopped in one village in North Bengal and the son of the king
of that place was very much spiritually inclined, and the King and queen were
also spiritually inclined, so they all became the disciples of Shyamananda. And
since He was the King, He also became Chaitanya das just like King Bir Hambir
also became a Chaitanya das and His son became Rasikananda but he’s more
famously known as Rasik Murari, as Radharani had told that You should preach
with Rasik Murari.
So they preached all over, Orissa and then there was one fellow named
Damodar, who was a great Mayavadi, big big learned scholar and philosopher
Rasik Murari was anxious that somehow He get the association of
Shyamananda. So they met Damodar, and for 15 days they had debate and
finally Damodar was defeated and He became the disciple of Shyamananda, so
with Rasik Murari and Damodar, He began His preaching like anything. And
then in some village, they were having a Harinam Sankirtan when He was very
famous for His special kind of Kirtan called Reneti, just like Narottam was
Padyavali and His was Reneti.
And then there was one soldier named Sher Khan and seeing the Vaishnavas
blissfully chanting made him furious and he rode himself into the middle of
them and broke up their Kirtan party and prohibited them from doing this. So
next day, Shyamananda got even more people together and again they did
ecstatic kirtan, and this time Sher Khan became really infuriated, he began to
break the mrdangas and beat the people. Then suddenly, Shyamananda began
to chant in a very hight voice, “Radha Krishna. Radha Krishna.” And suddenly
the Muslim soldiers began to vomit blood and Sher Khan saw he was vomiting
blood and their beards were catching fire. So they immediately ran to the river
and put out the fire in their beards.
And the next day Sher Khan came and fell at the feet of Shyamananda and said
last time, golden divinity appeared in my dream and He told me that, “You
should know that there’s no difference between who you call allah and who
the Hindus worship. You have mistreated my devotees, I am very angry with
you and I’m going to finish you unless you take initiation from Shyamananda.”
And then Sher Khan said, “So that golden divinity told me that I am non-
different from the Hindus and He told me to come and I am begging You for
initiation.” So He gave Sher Khan initiation.
So then He established a beautiful Radha Shyamsundar temple ina place in
Northern Orissa called Gopi Balapur and this is the peet of Shyamanandi
Vaishnavas. So He preached around Gopi Balapur and converted many people
to Gaudiya Vaishnavism and He was the main person after Chaitanya
Mahaprabhu’s disappearance to revive Gaudiya Vaishnavism in Bengal. So in
this way He had many nice disciples in Northern area called Nrsimhapur. So He
went there to Narsimhapur, and while in Narsimhapur, He got the news that
Hriday Chaitanya had left His body. Upon hearing this news, Shyamananda was
completely devastated and He was practically ready to leave His body but
somehow the Vaishnavas begged Him to stay. Then He stayed for sometime,
and then He got the news that Damodar had also left this world, but He never
recovered from the shock of Damodar leaving and after that He became very
ill. So finally the devotees realized that He was going to leave, so there was a
big kirtan and He left this world. And Rasik Murari made a beautiful samadhi
for them in Narsimhapur and every year, throughout the year they do the
twelve festivals in honour of the twelve festivals they had performed in
Narsimhapur. So this deity in Radha Shyamsundar temple in Vrindavan, the
actual original deity of Shyamananda Prabhu is a small deity on the right side.
And the big deity is the deity of Baladeva Vidyabhushan. So this temple is a
very special temple.
Also when Lord Chaitanya criticized Hriday Chaitanya for beating
Shyamananda, He said, “You can only rectify this situation by performing
twelve festivals in Braj. So in this way, Hriday Chaitanya collected and collected
and performed 12 festivals, dol yatra, jhulan yatra and so many different
festivals and then Hriday Chaitanya returned to Kalna.

JAI SRIPAD SHYAMANANDA PANDIT

JAI SRILA PRABHUPADA
JAI SRILA GURUDEV