Miraculous visitors Caitanya-maṅgala describes how one time, as a baby, the Lord was crawling around in the courtyard of Mother Śacī and Jagannātha Miśra. At that time Jagannātha Miśra was sleeping in the room next to the altar room, and Mother Śacī had Lord Caitanya on her lap and she was on the veranda. Just then the whole courtyard filled up with denizens from the higher planets. Some had special armor, some had two heads, and they were very beautifully decorated, and with them were brāhmaṇas. Mother Śacī wanted to call her husband. She wanted to call, but she couldn’t move. She opened her mouth to scream but it was a silent scream. No noise came out—she was stunned.
Then they took baby Lord Caitanya from her lap, and placed Him on a special golden table. On it they had a golden throne and a little bathing platform of jewelled gold that they placed Nimāi on. Then, while some of these celestial beings from the higher planets were chanting mantras, some priests were performing a big abhiṣeka and everybody was coming and bathing the Lord with milk and yogurt. It was a complete abhiṣeka and the Lord was enjoying it very much.
On Gaura-pūrṇimā we do abhiṣeka, but Lord Caitanya is fully-grown. They did abhiṣeka when He was a small child, just a toddler. Mother Śacī was watching and she was amazed. After the devas bathed Lord Caitanya, washed Him off, and dried Him, they put Him down on the veranda, and as He was walking, with every step there was the sound of ankle bells: ching, ching, ching. Then He turned to the devas and told them to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and dance. Mother Śacī was looking—there were no ankle bells on His ankles, but still the sound was coming. She was noticing so many amazing things that were going on there. Then Lord Caitanya, baby Nimāi, came over to the other side of the house, and He told the devas: “Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa!” So all the devas started to have a big kīrtana. They all started to dance, and Lord Caitanya was also dancing and chanting: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare.”
All the devas were dancing, having this big kīrtana, and Mother Śacī saw, when they were all chanting and dancing, that the little Nimāi, who normally could hardly walk, now suddenly started to dance, kicking up His feet and dancing in the kīrtana, raising His hands.
Then the kīrtana became very ecstatic, and when Mother Śacī saw all this she was so overwhelmed that she fainted. She hit the ground. Mother Śacī was so amazed to see all these extra-terrestrial beings chanting and dancing Hare Kṛṣṇa that she fainted and fell unconscious. Jagannātha Miśra heard the sound of her falling over so he came out to see what had happened: “Śacī, Śacī, is everything all right?” Then Mother Śacī woke up and she looked around and little Nimāi was in the courtyard crawling around in the sun. She started crying, “Pati, pati,” and then Jagannātha Miśra came running over and she jumped up, she was hysterical and crying. He embraced her, “What is wrong? What can I do? What is happening? Why are you crying?” Then Mother Śacī explained everything she saw, but then she looked around and everything was normal—nobody was there. She doubted whether what she had seen was real, and she asked Jagannātha Miśra, “Did it really happen or was it just a dream?”
They looked around in the courtyard and there was no evidence of any abhiṣeka—no milk, no yogurt, no water—it was all dry and it didn’t look like anybody had been there. “Maybe you just had a dream.” While they were discussing this, then they heard the sound: ching, ching, ching, ching, they looked and it was coming from Lord Nimāi’s feet. It was the sound of ankle bells, but He had no ankle bells on His feet.
Of course, celestial beings can come and go, and normally they are invisible to us. So if they want to clean up after themselves or do something on another level or dimension they can do that. Every day there were so many amazing things happening in the pastimes of baby Nimāi.
Gauranga – The golden incarnation of divine love- HH Jayapataka Swami
