Celebrating the Sri Gaura Purnima festival.

By Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj

Translated from the original Bengali editorial
published in Sri Gaudiya Darsan,
Volume 8, Issue 8, Tuesday, 12 March 1963.

This year again, as in previous years, a grand festival organised by Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math for Sri Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama and Sri Gaura Jayanti was observed with great pomp. With the auspicious visits of Acharyas and devotees from various places in India, this grand annual festival in Sri Dham Nabadwip produces great spiritual inspiration and enthusiasm. How the world is now becoming attracted to Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is becoming evident by the joyful illustration of this grand Sri Gaura Jayanti festival. In particular, in Kolkata this year also this festival was observed with great inspiration.

prthivite achhe yata nagaradi grama
sarvatra prachara ha-ibe mora nama
(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavat: Antya-khanda, 4.126)

[“My Name will be chanted throughout all the towns and villages of the world.”]

Seeing that this prophecy of Sriman Mahaprabhu is gradually being fulfilled, there is no limit to the devotees’ joy. Today we offer our obeisance with heartfelt admiration at the feet of Srila Prabhupad Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Goswami, the great soul who appeared sometime ago in this world as Sriman Mahaprabhu’s potency, pierced through the armour of the Eastern and Western materialistic society, and spread Sri Chaitanya’s message worldwide. He is the one who first sent envoys of the spiritual world—tridandi-sannyasis—as messengers of Sri Chaitanya from door to door in this world and arranged for the ultimate welfare of the souls sleeping in illusion. He is the one who grandly inaugurated the circumambulation of Gaura Dham. Still today, His followers, the Gaudiya Maths’ Vaisnava sannyasis, continue the worldwide campaign for Sri Chaitanya’s message.

The path shown by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the soul’s only way to good fortune.

naham vipro na cha nara-patir napi vaisyo na sudro
naham varni na cha grha-patir no vanastho yatir va
kintu prodyan nikhila-paramananda-purnamrtabdher
gopi-bhartuh pada-kamalayor dasa-dasanudasah
(Padyavali: 74)

[“I am not a priest, king, merchant, or labourer. I am not a student, householder, retiree, or mendicant. Rather, I am the servant of the servant of the servant of the lotus feet of the Lord of the gopis—the ocean of nectar that brims with the totality of divine ecstasy.”]

By establishing the soul’s one and only eternal identity with this verse, Sri Chaitanya has accepted every soul. That we, the people of the world, have become attracted to Him is solely a result of His affection towards us.

Today, on this auspicious occasion, we are offering ourselves at the feet of Sri Gaurahari and His associates with Srila Prabodhanandapad’s pranam mantra, feeling ourselves to be most fortunate.

kaivalyam narakayate tri-dasa-pur akasa-puspayate
durdantendriya-kala-sarpa-patali protkhata-damstrayate
visvam purna-sukhayate vidhi-mahendradis cha kitayate
yat karunya-kataksa-vaibhavavatam tam gauram eva stumah
(Sri Chaitanya-chandramrta: 5)

[““For the fortunate souls who have received His merciful sidelong glance, merging into the Lord is hellish, the abode of the gods seems phantasmagorical, the uncontrollable senses become like defanged poisonous serpents, the world appears to be full of joy, and Brahma, Indra, and the other gods seem like insects. Let us glorify Sri Gaura.”]