Śrīla Gurudeva: [To Tamopahā dāsa] What is the meaning of your śloka?
[Tamopahā dāsa recites the śloka of the previous day, beginning with samsara-sindhu-tarane.]
Śrīla Gurudeva: Try to utter the śloka without moving your head.
What is the meaning?
Tamopahā dāsa: If one is interested in crossing the ocean of saṁsāra (material existence), if one is interested in hearing the nectar of saṅkīrtana, if one wants to taste the ocean of love, then one must take shelter of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
Śrīla Gurudeva: Why don’t you say, “One must be surrendered to Kṛṣṇa?”
Tamopahā dāsa: Because Mahāprabhu is more merciful than Kṛṣṇa.
Śrīla Gurudeva: Yes. Kṛṣṇa has no time. He is always engaged in rasa with His mother, and He is busy cow-herding with His friends. He has come in the form of Mahāprabhu only to hear our prayers and to deliver us. Caitanya Mahāprabhu is most merciful. He traveled throughout India to help devotees and non-devotees alike. He made so many Vaiṣṇavas – hundreds of thousands.
Kṛṣṇa didn’t travel in that way. Rather, He went to fight in the Mahābhārata War, and also to fight with Śālva, Jarāsandha, and other demons. He traveled to fight, whereas Mahāprabhu didn’t go anywhere to fight.
Acyutānanda dāsa: What is the meaning of mānasa-rāja-haṁsaḥ?
Śrīla Gurudeva: The mind, mānasa, is like a royal swan. The author of this śloka challenges his mind, “Why are you engaged in taking bad things?” If water and milk are mixed in a reservoir of water, the swan can separate the two and drink the milk. “Now you are engaged in drinking all varieties of worldly tastes; you are always absorbed with this. Now, give this up and take milk.” That milk is śrī Kṛṣṇa’s name.
Śrīpāda Mādhava Mahārāja: When you told us this śloka before, you explained this meaning: “The swan in Mānasa-sarovara eats only lotus stems, not snails or other things. Similarly, my swan-like mind should eat only nectarean things from Your lotus feet; nothing else.”
Śrīla Gurudeva: We can learn from Mahāprabhu and His associates, who never engaged in politics. Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, Śrīla Sanātana Gosvāmī, and Śrī Svarūpa Dāmodara always thought about how to please Mahāprabhu; nothing else.
All disciples should be like this; thinking, how to please their guru. Myself, Śrīla Vāmana Mahārāja, Śrīla Trivikrama Mahārāja and others were always like this. We were not selfish, not engaged in politics, and we did not hear kathā about anyone but Kṛṣṇa and His pure devotees. In this way we served our Gurudeva, and this is why he became pleased with us. Thinking how to please guru later transfers into thinking how to please Kṛṣṇa.
Excerpted from the Gaudiya Vedanta Publication "Walking With a Saint 2009"
Cebu, Philippines
January 5, 2009