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“Fools deride Me when I descend in the human form. They do not know My transcendental nature and My supreme dominion over all that be.” (Bg. 9.11)
Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu should not be considered to be one of us. He is Kṛṣṇa Himself, the supreme living entity, and as such He never comes under the cloud of  māyā . Kṛṣṇa, His expansions, and even His higher devotees never fall into the clutches of illusion. Lord Caitanya came to earth simply to preach  kṛṣṇa-bhakti , love of Kṛṣṇa. In other words, He is Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself teaching the living entities the proper way to approach Kṛṣṇa. He is like a teacher who, seeing a student doing poorly, takes up a pencil and writes, saying, “Do it like this: A, B, C.” By this, one must not foolishly think that the teacher is learning his ABC’s. Although He appears in the guise of a devotee, we should always remember that Lord Caitanya is Kṛṣṇa (God) Himself teaching us how to become Kṛṣṇa conscious, and we must study Him in that light.
In  Bhagavad-gītā  Lord Kṛṣṇa sets forth the highest religious principle in this way:
sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ
“Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reaction. Do not fear.” (Bg. 18.66)
This may seem to be a simple instruction to follow, but invariably our reaction is, “Oh, surrender? Give up? But I have so many responsibilities.” And  māyā , illusion, says to us, “Don’t do it, or you’ll be out of my clutches. Just stay in my clutches, and I’ll kick you.” It is a fact that we are constantly being kicked by  māyā , just as the male-ass is kicked in the face by the she-ass when he comes for sex. Similarly, cats and dogs are always fighting and whining when they have sex. These are the tricks of nature. Even an elephant in the jungle is caught by the use of a trained she-elephant who leads him into a pit.  Māyā  has many activities, and in the material world her strongest shackle is the female. Of course in actuality we are neither male nor female—for these designations refer only to the outer dress, the body. We are all actually Kṛṣṇa’s servants. In conditioned life, however, we are shackled by the iron chains which take the form of beautiful women. Thus every male is bound by sex life, and therefore when one attempts to gain liberation from the material clutches, he must first learn to control the sex urge. Unrestricted sex puts one fully in the clutches of illusion. Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu officially renounced this illusion at the age of twenty-four, although His wife was sixteen and His mother seventy, and He was the only male member of the family. Although He was a  brāhmaṇa  and was not rich, He took  sannyāsa , the renounced order of life, and thus extricated Himself from family entanglement.
If we wish to become fully Kṛṣṇa conscious, we have to give up the shackles of  māyā , or, if we remain with  māyā , we should live in such a way that we will not be subject to illusion. It is not necessary for one to abandon his family, for there were many householders amongst Lord Caitanya’s closest devotees. What must be re-