A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada - Teachings of Lord Chaitanya

Lord Caitanya is the supreme personality of Godhead Krishna Himself in the mood of his pleasure potency, Srimati Radharani. He descended to this world in West Bengal, India, in 1486, to teach pure Krishna Bhakti (love of God) by his personal example.Although Lord Caitanya is Krishna Himself, He came here in the form of His own devotee to taste the confidential mellows of the purest love of His very Self. This book thoroughly describes Vaishnava philosophy and how to personally practice it.From the Introduction:Chaitanya means the living force. You and I can move, but a table cant because it has no living force. Not only movement, but resistance is also a sign of living force. Chaitanya means activities, amrita means immortal, and charita means character. There is no activity without living force. The material condition has living force but is not amrita, immortal. Chaitanya Charitamrita, then, means the character of the living force in immortality.But how is this displayed? It is not displayed by you or I none of us are immortal in these bodies. We have living force and activities, and we are immortal by nature and constitution. But the material condition into which we have been put doesnt allow these qualities to be displayed. It is stated in the Katha Upanishad that eternality and living force are characteristic of both God and us. 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 cloudy 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 cant 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 Gods position all this nonsense becomes insignificant. I, the living entity, am very insignificant, and my tendency is to come down into maya. God hasnt got this tendency. The Supreme Lord doesnt come down to maya, any more than the sun comes under the cloud. But we have the tendency to be controlled 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 doesnt 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 ABCs. Teaching us how to become Krishna conscious is Lord Chaitanyas position, and we must study Him in that light.