16
Teachings of Lord Chaitanya
portant: One temple is Madanmohan, another is Govinda, and the third is Gopinath. These temples are the ones visited by all pilgrims. About 300 or 400 years after the construction of these temples, with the development of Vrindaban city, many other temples were built, but when Krishna Das Goswami was living, there were not so many. The only principle temples were these three—Madanmohan, Govinda, and Gopinath. Because he was a resident of Vrindaban, he must offer his respects to the deities. And his first offering is respect. He considers himself as a layman and very slow to make progress. He asks God's favor: "My progress in spiritual life is very slow, so I am asking Your help."
He is offering his obeisances first to Vigraha. Vigraha, according to devotional service, is the deity Who can help us in dovetailing ourselves with Krishna Consciousness. Our first business is to know Krishna, and to know our relationship with Krishna. To know Krishna is to know oneself, and to know oneself means to know one's relationship with Krishna. What is our relationship with Krishna? That is learned by worshipping Madanmohan Vigraha. Therefore, Krishna Das Goswami first establishes his relationship with Madanmohan Vigraha. When one is established in relationship with Krishna, then he begins his function. The functional deity is Govinda.
He offers his obeisances to Govinda, Who resides in Vrindaban. Vrindaban is the place where there are desire trees. Actually, in the Spiritual World of Vrindaban, it is explained, that the land is of touchstone and the trees are desire trees.  Desire tree  means whatever you want you can have. And the Lord is herding spiritual cows, known as  Surabhi  cows. And He is worshipped by hundreds and thousands of Gopis, who are all Goddesses of Fortune. When Krishna descends, this same Vrindaban descends. Just as when a Governor or a President goes to someplace, all his entourage and paraphernalia, secretary, military—everything goes there with him. Similarly, when Krishna comes, His land also comes. Therefore Vrindaban is considered to be not in the material world. And therefore devotees take shelter in Vrindaban. Vrindaban in India is considered the replica of the original Vrindaban; and so one should accept the trees of Vrindaban as being the same  Kalpa briksha , desire trees. Now, one may say of the Vrindaban trees, "Oh, we can ask anything?" But first of all you should become a devotee. You simply cannot go and test them to see whether these trees are desire trees. Actually, when the Goswamis were there, the  Kalpa briksha  was there. The Goswamis were each under one tree for one night, and all their wants were satisfied. So how could they live that way unless the trees were so nice as desire trees? For the com-