Unfortunately what is often missing in the photos and statues of Krishna is the sight of the living expressions of devotional feelings, the natural bodily changes that occur as well as the effulgence that emanates when the Lord meets with his devotee and when the devotee meets with the Lord. Seeing photos of Krishna without their actually emotional expression, we may naturally conclude consciously or unconsciously that this is what the holy abode is like, devoid of devotional feelings and expression. Then if such feelings are seen in this world when devotees are meeting with the Lord during their Bhajana during public Kirtan or when they are speaking or hearing the pastimes and qualities of Krishna, most think it's weird, become adverse and cannot cope with the situation. This is why generally Rasik or devotees who relish genuine rasa often hide such expressions as to not disturb others or be disturbed by the apparent negative reactions of others.
However where would we be if Lord Caitanya and His
associates did not drown the world in their prema bhakti kirtan which filled
the universe with living devotional expression and purified it of material
contamination. Lord Caitanya saw that Nityananada was not expressing his
esctatic devotional nature and just walking around like a peaceful sage or
super soul just observing. Lord Caitanya gave Nityananda the sighn,
saying if you do not act a little more wild in this world and express your
devotional nature and feelings in this world how are you going to accomplish
your mission of saving the conditioned souls. The way I see it the main mission
of our glorious disciplic succession of the Gaudiya Vaishnavas has been to get
the world ready to comprehend, receive and bare periodic intense raining of
prema bhakti rasa in public kirtan and with genuinely qualified devotees
glorifying the qualities and pastimes of the Supreme Personality of Godhead to
purify the contaminated atmosphere of darkness of material rasa enjoyed
by the inhabitants of this Kali yuga. Why else is the Supreme Lord and
the Acaryas putting books in our hands like Nectar of Devotion, Bhakti Rasamrita
sindu, Caitanya Caritamrita, Caitanya Bhagavata and so many other devotional literatures
meant to ultimately ignite our dormant devotional love of God. To help clarify
what we are discussing here, the following is a short conversation of myself
and a vaishnava who had a spiritual awakening and found that in the west
he felt the need to suppress it.
Devotee comment : During one time of what I experienced as
spiritual awakening I went out of hand, in India they respected me, in England
I got sectioned. A tough learning for me to exercise control.
Gaurahari das: I am glad you mentioned this topic as I see
the signs that the Lord is about to wake up in this world again through more
and more devotees .Yes exercise control until you get stronger and can handle
the feedback. Of course that's unless the Lord inspires you to be more of His
Self, channeling through you into this world to purify it. Bhagavatam states
that the body of the Lord is composed of ecstatic spiritual emotion. Channeling
the Lords personal potency in this world causes the world, who are mostly
adverse to this spiritual potency to react apparently negatively but its not
actually the case. When Krishna personal potency descends in this world, even
through his devotees, then one gets the experience of Gita verse, " Fools
deride me when I descend into this world". Well we are all fools and
sometimes he chooses some fools to express his divine nature through to purify
the world. The Me he is talking about is this ecstatic devotional potency
which causes the hecklers to come forth because they are attracted through
being adverse to the Lord. This is actually a good sign and this is part of the
purification is the contamination is fed into the fire this way. You are
actually doing the world a big service when you get strong enough to take the
heat caused by logs being feed into this devotional fire.
