Srila Gurudeva: Do you know the first kirtana in saranagati by Bhaktivinoda Thakura?
sri krsna caitanya prabhu jive doya kori
sva-parsada sviya dhama saha avatari
-Sri Krsna Caitanya Prabhu Jive Doya Kori 1
[Sri Krsna Caitanya Prabhu, being merciful to all the living beings, descended with His own divine abode and personal associates.]
You should explain this kirtana. If you want to do bhajana from the core of your heart, then you should try to listen very carefully, not artificially or outwardly. Try to take it into the core of your heart and try to follow all these words. Try to understand what is the deep meaning of this song. Then very quickly you can develop your Krsna consciousness. Otherwise you will only do aropa-siddha-bhakti, thinking, “We are doing bhakti.” But really it is like zero. You are thinking that you are doing bhakti, but you are doing everything for yourself, like karma, and thinking that, “Oh, this is very high class bhakti.” So you should try to follow each word of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura in this song.
[Different devotees explain various line of this kirtana]
Srila Gurudeva: You should understand one thing. Take for example a big emperor. He is anywhere in his very big palace and he is playing with his wife and children and he is making so much merry there. But very far away from him, there are two people quarreling, drinking, and fighting with each other. They both somehow or other became injured. That emperor was there, very far away in his palace and playing with his wife and making so much merry. Could he come and take interest in these bogus people? So Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Krsna Himself, He was playing with Srimati Radhika and all His associates like Rupa Manjari, Rati Manjari, Lalita, Visakha, and all the cowherd boys in Goloka Vrndavana. He was very far away and he was so happy. He had forgotten everything.
He is mugdha and sarvajna at the same time, all-knowing and bewildered. He is not knowing anything and is always engaged in playing with His gopis and gopas in Goloka Vrndavana in the highest places like Radha-kunda with all His associates. Then here in this world, in the brahmanda, there is us who are forgetting Krsna and are always engaged in sense gratification, quarreling with each other over little things, and are always engaged in collecting so many things which we will have to give up at the time of death. We are uselessly destroying our time here, quarreling and doing all these bogus things. We think that by doing so many things we will be happy, but we don’t know that we will have to give up this body and everything we are collecting.
[Spoken by Srila Gurudeva on December 21st, 1998, Bali, published as part of the Bhakta Bandhav Anthology, Volume 24]