Volume 3 - Prabhupada Books

32 Sri Caitanya-caritamrta [Madhya-lila, Ch. 7
a/aukika vakya ce$ta tanra na bujhiya
parihasa kariyachi tanre 'vai$1)ava' baliya
SYNONYMS
a/aukika-uncommon; vakya-words; Ce$ta-endeavor; tafira-his; na­
without; bujhiya-understanding; parihasa-joking; kariyachi-1 have done;
tanre-unto him; vai$1)ava-a devotee of the Lord; baliya-as.
TRANSLATION
"I could not realize when I first spoke with Ramananda Raya that his topics
and endeavors were all transcendentally uncommon. I made fun of him simply
because he was a Vai$�ava."
PURPORT
Anyone who is a not a Vai�l)ava or unalloyed devotee of the Supreme Lord
must be a materialist. A Vai�l)ava living according to Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu's
injunctions is certainly not on the materialistic platform. Caitanya means "spiritual
force." All of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu's activities were carried out on the plat­
form of spiritual understanding; therefore only those who are on the spiritual plat­
form are able to understand the activities of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Mate­
rialistic persons who cannot are generally known as karmis or jnanis. The jnanis
are mental speculators who simply try to understand what is spirit and what is
soul. Their process is neti neti: "This is not spirit, this is not Brahman." The jnanis
are a little more advanced than the dull-headed karmis, who are simply interested
in sense gratification. Before becoming a Vai�l)ava, Sarvabhauma Bhanacarya was
a mental speculator (jnani), and being such, he always cut jokes with Vai�l)avas. A
Vai�l)ava never agrees with the speculative system of the jnanis. Both the jnanis
and karmis depend on direct sense perception for their imperfect knowledge. The
karmis never agree to accept anything not directly perceived, and the jnanis put
forth only hypotheses. However, the Vai�l)avas, the unalloyed devotees of the
Lord, do not follow the process of acquiring knowledge by direct sense percep­
tion or mental speculation. Because they are servants of the Supreme Lord, devo­
tees receive knowledge directly from the Supreme Personality of Godhead as He
speaks it in Bhagavad-gita, or sometimes as He imparts it from within as caitya­
guru. As stated in Bhagavad-gita:
te$arh satata-yuktanarh
bhajatarh priti-pOrvakam
dadami buddhi-yogarh tarh
yena mam upayanti te