ETERNAL MEANS WHAT?

Meena devi dasi: I have a question.

Gauraharidas: Yes, Good.

Meena devi dasi: Lord Chaitanya... His form is eternal…that pastime of the Lord as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu…it's eternal... it's not something new that just happened. The pastime goes on all the time. It just wasn't available until He manifested it five hundred years ago. So, is that understanding right? And if so, what about Lord Jesus? Is that an eternal pastime going on all the time?

Gauraharidas: Yes. Yes. On both accounts. There’s no difference. It's the revelation of God through the devotee which becomes the fact in this world. Just like the revelation... the way we can understand... the revelation through Moses was the regulative path... to follow the rules and regulations... preparatory. People’s consciousness... they weren't ready. And the revelation through Jesus was this love of God at this particular level... salvation. 

So yes, Jesus is eternal. He is always eternal but when was Jesus revealed? See that's when we can begin to get it. Same thing with Lord Chaitanya… Lord Chaitanya is the revelation and we take advantage of it when it's revealed. So it was revealed five hundred years ago. Once it's revealed it stays here. 

It's like the preaching of Paul; realizations of Paul were very deep. He said Jesus is the same in the past when it was revealed. He's the same in the present. And He'll be the same in the future.(1) That’s why we see those who faithfully take shelter of Jesus’s words through the authorized preaching of John and his associates now… they get the Holy Spirit.

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Some people or some devotees might think the kind of devotion you might get with Jesus or with Lord Chaitanya or with say another sampradaya would be the same kind of devotion. It could be devotion. Jesus said there are many mansions in My Father's house.

But the kind of devotion one gets from worship of a particular deity whether it's Jesus or in whatever line one is in is the kind of devotion that is revealed by these kinds of personalities… whether by God himself as Lord Chaitanya or by His devotees. What kind of devotion is being revealed is what one can get because that's how it's gotten. 

Is one favorable to that kind of devotion? Not everyone is. Not all devotees are favorable. Some like the Vaikuntha rasa. Some like the heavenly celestial thing. They come to Vaishnavism because they want to go to heaven. Christians also…they want to go to heaven. They have that desire.

Not everybody is favorable to the kind of devotion… pure devotion that Lord Chaitanya came to give… at that particular level. It's astronomical! It's so cosmic proportions! Never... rarely been seen. So who's really favorable? People may say, “OH, yes. I'm following Lord Chaitanya in Vaishnava Gaudiya line”… and everything. But if they see this kind of bhakti in the world will they be able to recognize it? Appreciate it? Most run away. They see but don’t see. They hear but don’t hear. But those who do see and hear and appreciate start to get it.

Any comments?

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Mahavirya: Yes. About Lord Chaitanya and Jesus… Anything transcendental...and the only thing transcendental is this manifesting of suddha sattva...this love of God…God and His devotee. That's it. It's the only thing that exists in this world… Is Me and My devotee. Everything else is illusory because it's in the modes of material nature. 

These modes of material nature… they are like clouds and these clouds open up and you see a ray of sun come down from the clouds and you say, “Oh. Is this ray eternal?” Of course it's eternal. It's part of the sun. But we're used to seeing manifestation of the clouds. You know, they're born at some time because of the mode of passion. They maintain for some time because of the mode of goodness. And they're destroyed by the mode of ignorance. So we tend to put a stamp like that on everything...Everything has a beginning, a middle and an end. But that's not the case for transcendental manifestation. They're all eternal.

1. HEBREWS 13:8