2
“Fools deride Me when | 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 Mahaprabhu should not be considered to be one of us. He is Krsna
Himself, the supreme living entity, and as such He never comes under the cloud of
maya. Krsna, His expansions, and even His higher devotees never fall into the
clutches of illusion. Lord Caitanya came to earth simply to preach Arsna-bhakti,
love of Krsna. In other words, He is Lord Krsna Himself teaching the living entities
the proper way to approach Krsna. 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 Krsna
(God) Himself teaching us how to become Krsna conscious, and we must study Him
in that light.

tn Bhagavad-gita Lord Krsna sets forth the highest religious principle in this way:

sarva-dharman parityajya
mam ekam Saranar vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo
moksayisyami ma Sucah
“Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. | 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 | have so many responsibilities.”” And maya,
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
maya, 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. Maya 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 Krsna’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 Mahaprabhu 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
brahmana and was not rich, He took sannydsa, the renounced order of life, and thus
extricated Himself from family entanglement.

If we wish to become fully Krgna conscious, we have to give up the shackles of
maya, or, if we remain with maya, 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-
