(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 18 July 2013, Sandton, South Africa, Krsna Balaram Youth Group Lecture)
One time, in Jagannath Puri, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu asked Advaita Acarya, “Acarya, where are you coming from?”
Advaita Acarya replied, “I’ve just come back from the temple. I took darshan of Lord Jagannath.”
“No, no, no, Acarya, what did you do? Where did you just come from?”
“I came back from the temple.”
“Yes, and then?”
“Well, then I took darshan of Lord Jagannath.”
“And then?”
“Then I did the parikrama. I circumambulated the deities.”
“Yes!” Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu said. “Therefore I have defeated you.”
Advaita Acarya said,”Oh!”
Advaita Acarya is known as Advaita simha – like a lion, he roars very loudly. He has a very powerful voice, a very large, powerful personality, “You have defeated me? How have you defeated me?”
Lord Caitanya said, “When I go to the temple of Lord Jagannath, I stand in such a place that I can always see the deity at all times. But you, you go around the deity and turn your back on the deity. Therefore I have defeated you.”
In this way, Sri Caitanya .Mahaprabhu showed that devotional service goes beyond the mechanical level. That it actually comes to the point where the devotee develops such deep attachment to Krsna that even a moment of separation from Krsna appears like twelve years or more.
And therefore even such a thing as parikrama which is otherwise part of religions activities was rejected by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu who said that we should just full-time take as much darshan of the Lord as possible.
So this is the spirit that is coming to us again and again from the revealed Vaisnava sastra. Vaisnava sastra is never about materialistic performance. Vaisnava sastra is never about trying to obtain material blessings for any material purpose. Vaisnava sastra is simply about unalloyed pure devotional service to Krsna.
