One day a mendicant brāhmaṇa visited the house of Jagannātha Miśra. He was worshipping a Deity of Gopāla, and he came and was talking with Jagannātha Miśra about Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Jagannātha Miśra and Śacīmata loved to have guests, especially Vaiṣṇavas, come and take prasādam at their house. Here was a Vaiṣṇava devotee travelling with his Deity, so they requested him, “You please take prasādam.” The brāhmaṇa Vaiṣṇava replied, “I don’t eat anything that I don’t offer to my Deity. So until I offer to my Deity, I can’t take. You don’t have to bother, just give me some fruits and roots. I can offer them to my Gopāla Deity.” But they said, “You are always eating fruits and roots and things in the jungle. Let us one time offer you a nice meal. You are a guest in our house, how can we just let you have some fruits? Let us offer you nice prasādam, a nice meal. We will cook it and you offer it. We are brāhmaṇas, brāhmaṇis, so we will cook and you offer to your Deity.” So he agreed and then Mother Śacī and all the other ladies they very happily came together and cut up vegetables and arranged a very nice feast to be cooked for Gopāla. The brāhmaṇa prepared the offering, and put a plate in front of the Deity.
In the Deity worship system, part of the process is that you meditate and invite the Lord to come and eat the offering. So the brāhmaṇa went into meditation and he was inviting the Lord: “Gopāla, Gopāla, come here and take your meal, take this bhoga, eat this offering. Gopāla come here and eat this offering.” While he was meditating like that, little Nimāi walked up and started eating the offering. So when people saw that Nimāi was eating the offering, they started saying, “Oh no!” and then the brāhmaṇa looked down and saw that this little boy was eating the offering, and he also said, “Oh no! The offering is spoiled!” He didn’t know that Gopāla personally came and accepted his offering—he thought that this baby spoilt the offering. Then Jagannātha Miśra came and saw what had happened, and he became so angry that he started chasing Nimāi, and Nimāi was running here there in the house. Jagannātha Miśra picked up a little stick and said, “You naughty boy, how are you doing this, ruining the brāhmaṇa’s offering?”
The brāhmaṇa became frightened and practically tackled Jagannātha Miśra and said, “Please, please, don’t hit the boy. He is innocent. He doesn’t know. He is a little child, a little toddler. What does he know? It is all right. It is not in my stars to eat today, just give me some fruits.”
Then they were all pleading, “No, no, my dear Sir. We are attached householders, how can we survive if our guests cannot eat? We will be very unhappy, you must let us cook one more time. We will cook another offering, and you can offer again.” So they were pleading and requesting, and finally he agreed.
This time they put Nimāi out of sight. Again all the ladies were happy once he agreed, and they were cooking again very enthusiastically for this brāhmaṇa to make the offering to Gopāla.
This time, by the time it was ready, it was probably about six in the night. So then again the brāhmaṇa went into his meditation and was calling, “Gopāla, come take this offering. Eat this offering Gopāla.” Again, from nowhere, little Nimāi appeared and He started eating the offering. This time the brāhmaṇa cried out again and Jagannātha Miśra really became angry, chasing Nimai: “This time you’re really in trouble Nimāi. How could you ruin this brāhmaṇa’s offering?”
So Nimāi was running and skipping away from His father, and again the brāhmaṇa stopped Jagannātha Miśra and said, “Sir don’t, please don’t be angry. It is all ordained by the Lord. It doesn’t matter, I am not meant to eat today.”
Then Viśvarūpa, Nimāi’s older brother, came back from the Bhāgavatam class of Advaita Gosāi. By this time Viśvarūpa was maybe nine or ten years old. When the brāhmaṇa saw Viśvarūpa he was amazed—because he is a devotee, and Viśvarūpa is actually Saṅkarṣaṇa. When he saw Viśvarūpa he was so attracted. He said, “Who is this boy?” His heart was immediately drawn to Viśvarūpa, “Who are the fortunate parents of this boy?” He was just amazed.
Then Viśvarūpa saw that His father and mother were crying and everybody was upset. He asked, “What happened? What is wrong?” Then He found out that they were upset because the brāhmaṇa was their guest and they couldn’t serve him properly. They couldn’t give him proper prasādam.
This is the principle of atithi-nārāyaṇa, serving the guest as if Nārāyaṇa had personally come to your house. This is a very strong principle in Vedic families, brahminical families. They really wanted to serve the guest. So everybody was really upset. You can’t imagine how much desire they had to serve this Vaiṣṇava, but this Vaiṣṇava was determined. He said, “I am going to eat fruits. It is alright, forget it.”
Then young Viśvarūpa came and He spoke in such a charming way, “My dear brāhmaṇa, you are very detached, you spend most of your time living in the forest. Some days you eat, some days you don’t eat. You are always fasting, always austere. Going without food is not a big problem for you. But you see, for us, we are all living in the house, and our dharma is to serve our guests. So my parents are very upset that they can’t serve you, so you please liberate my parents from their suffering and let them help you one more time to make the offering, and you can offer it to your Deity. You can offer in the middle of night—everybody will be sleeping, nobody will be around.”
Because Viśvarūpa was so charming, and the way He spoke was so beautiful and philosophically correct, the mendicant became won over: “Okay, okay, do whatever you want to do.” Then Mother Śacī came back to life. They had also not eaten the whole day—the guest didn’t eat so how could they eat? They started cooking again, but they didn’t mind at all. They were just upset because they couldn’t feed their guest. That degree of hospitality is probably not seen very much nowadays.
This time again they prepared everything and gave it to the brāhmaṇa. He looked around and saw Nimāi was sleeping—everybody had gone to sleep. They told him, “You just offer it and take your meal. We will leave you alone.”
So again the brāhmaṇa went into meditation and called out, “Gopāla, Gopāla! Come and take.” Then again little Nimāi came out and started to take the prasādam. The brāhmaṇa couldn’t believe it, how the child was coming. But now there was nobody around. So then Lord Caitanya changed His form to Gopāla Kṛṣṇa, and said, “You keep calling me, and I am coming and taking. Why are you getting upset?” Then the brāhmaṇa, the mendicant, seeing that his own Lord was coming and personally taking His meal, was overwhelmed to see Kṛṣṇa face to face. He paid his obesiances. Then little Nimāi explained: “Now I have come here in this house but I am hiding myself, but you kept calling me, so I came. Why are you blaming me?” Like this He blessed His devotee, then He went back to His form as Lord Caitanya and went to His room and lay down.
The mendicant was so ecstatic, he was remembering what he had just seen: “Here is the pile of rice, here is where Gopāla had taken my offering.” Then he is just took some rice and started rubbing it on his body, thinking how the Lord personally came and took his offering. He was shouting, “Haribol! Haribol!” and rubbing the rice on his body and his head.
By his shouting, Jagannātha Miśra and everyone came running to see what had happened, and they saw the brāhmaṇa there rubbing rice on his body. They asked, “What happened?” but the brāhmaṇa couldn’t say anything because the Lord said not to tell anybody. He was looking silly with rice stuck on his body, but he couldn’t explain it so he just started eating. They thought, “Maybe he is just happy that finally he is getting some rice.” They didn’t know what had happened. So like this, little Nimāi was having so much fun with His different devotees and parents.
Gauranga – The golden incarnation of divine love- HH Jayapataka Swami
