(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 23 March 2016, New Jagannath Puri, Durban, South Africa, Gaura Purnima Evening Lecture)
Before the Ratha Yatra performed, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu engaged in the pastime of the cleansing of the Gundica temple. It is said that all the devotees were engaged by Caitanya Mahaprabhu in sweeping the dirt. Mahaprabhu himself would sweep up the most dirt and at the same time, he would check on everyone else. If they did not do enough, he would tell them, “Is that all?” In this way, he pushed everyone to sweep up more dirt but he swept up more than everybody else together. After sweeping twice, they started to throw water around the temple. Everyone brought pots of water and the devotees were running up and down from Indrayumna Sarova which was next to that temple. They were only saying, “Krsna! Krsna! Krsna!” and they understood each other. Instead of saying, “Bring a pot!” they said, “Krsna! Krsna!” And someone says, “Krsna!”, which means, “Yes, the pot is coming,” or something like that. Everyone understood each other and the name of Krsna was echoing everywhere.
The water was being thrown around the temple and it was an ocean of water and it was total ecstasy. One devotee from Bengal, he took a pot of water and instead of washing the temple, he threw it on the feet of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and drank the water. Well, Lord Caitanya was seeing that he was a devotee from Bengal called Svarupa Damodara and said, “This Bengali devotee of yours, look what he has done!” Svarupa Damodara punished him and said, “Out! Out! Rascal.” Meanwhile, he was ecstatically dancing away because he drank the water of the lotus feet of the Lord.
So this is very interesting because in this particular pastime of the Caitanya Caritamrta, the exchange with Caitanya Mahaprabhu shows us that we should not just passively wait for the mercy of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu to flood the whole world. Patiently waiting, “The flood did not come to my home yet but I guess it is gonna reach one of these days.” No, we should think of ways to go after it and to get extra mercy and that, that is the movement of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Yata yata piye, trishnā bādhe anukshana (Caitanya Caritamrta Adi 7.20.20-21). As the devotees plundered the storehouse of love of God, their thirst was increasing and as their thirst was increasing, the devotees became more and more alert and were looking more and more. “Where is this mercy to be found?” They became nectar bhaktas, always looking everywhere for some mercy and that is actually the movement of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.
