2 Teachings of Lord Chaitanya

both ourselves and God. But God and ourselves, although both immortal,
are different. The living entities have many activities, but have a tendency
to fall down. God has no such tendency. He is All-powerful. He never comes
under the control of material Nature, because material Nature is only a display
of His energy.

There is a nice example of this: When I was flying from San Francisco,
the plane was above the cloud ocean. Above the cloud was the sun; and though
we came down through the cloud and everything in New York was dim,
still, above the cloud, the sun was shining. A cloud cannot cover the whole
world—it can’t even cover the whole United States, which is not more than
a speck in the universe. From the sky the skyscrapers are very tiny, just as
from God’s position all this nonsense becomes insignificant. I, the living entity,
am very insignificant, and my tendency is to come down; but God hasn’t
got this tendency. The Supreme Lord doesn’t come down to Maya, and more
than the sun comes under the cloud. But we have the tendency to be con-
trolled by Maya. Mayavadis, impersonalist philosophers, say that because
we are under the control of Maya in this world, when God comes, He is also
put under the control of Maya. This is the fallacy of their philosophy.

Lord Chaitanya therefore is not one of us. He is Krishna Himself, the
‘Supreme Living Entity. He doesn’t come under the cloud of Maya. Krishna
and His expansions, or even His higher devotees, are never in the clutches of
Maya. Lord Chaitanya came to preach Krishna Bhakti: Lord Krishna Himself
is teaching us how to approach Krishna; just as the teacher, seeing a student
not doing well, takes the pencil and says, “Do it like this, write like this: A,
B, C.” But we must not mistakenly think that the teacher is learning the
ABC’s. Teaching us how to become Krishna conscious is Lord Chaitanya’s
position, and we must study Him in that light.

In Bhagavad Gita the Lord says, “Give up all this nonsense and surrender
to Me.” And we say “Oh—surrender? Give up? But I have so many respon-
sibilities.” And Maya says to us, “Don’t do it, or you'll be out of my clutches.
Stay in my clutches, and I’ll kick you.” It’s true; you are being kicked by
Maya. Do you know how Maya kicks? The she-ass kicks the male-ass in the
face when he comes for sex. Among the cats, they fight and whine. These
are the teachings of Nature. She tricks. It is like the capture of an elephant.
He is caught in the forest by the use of a trained she-elephant, who leads him
and makes him fall into a pit. Maya has many activities, and her shackle is
the female. Of course, male and female means this outer dress—we are all
actually Krishna’s servants. But we are shackled by iron chains which are
