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 Gos-
wami 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 devo-
tional 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 Gover-
nor 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 any-
thing?” 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-
