It was those coming after caitanya, FAIK. Directly after him, Vaisnavism was split up. On one hand those who emphesized litteraru study, and on the other hand those who emphesized ecstasy. The litterary study line has developed to the GV of today, and the ecstasy group has developed into the sahajiyas of today. In real Caitanyaism there is both.

Apart from all that, the brahmana's, who wanted to preserve their top position in society, where very fast to restrict Vaisnavism to only brahmana's again, since Caitanya who allowed sudras and muslims as disciples was not liked at all by them. And then hinduism was also divided up in Shaktism and Vaisnavism. Everyone wanted to hold on to their positions in society and did not want the unity of hinduism that Caitanya came with. Caitanyaism was unique in that it was not Visnu or Shakti, but it was Radha and Krishna, shakti and shaitiman together. It was really a challange to all the status quo of hinduism, and it was very fast undone.

Some don't like Bhaktivinode, and so on up to Prabhupada, since they again made an attempt to bring back original Caitanyaism as a kind of general hinduism, and again glue together the departed pieces of study and ecstasy. Prabhupada started the effort of bringing Radha and Krishna as a centerpiece of the faith. Just that ISKCON is clueless of the mission and has again banned ecstasy and now only focusing on Krishna to the exclusion of Radha.

That was an interesting historical commentary. I like the observation that things split off into scriptural and sahajiya camps after Chaitanya. But there are some more ecstatic and Radha centered camps say in the Gaudiya Math, don't you think? If you like what Prabhupada did, then Narayan Maharaj more or less is running the same show with emphasis on Radha. Not that I agree with him for many other reasons though.

I also don't agree with him on many points.
Do the followers of that camp experience ecstatic trance, or do they just talk about it?

Isn't trance something kinda relative? Chaitanya went into trance we believe, but he was God. His followers, probably only arrived in some form of trance by intense sadhana. I don't think that the traditional lines are against trance, but trance is induced with a real cultivation of practice and thus authentic. Do you think the sahajiya lines really have trance, or is it some spin induced frenzy thing like Sufis? I have been in a Sufi camp where people go into trances, but that isn't hard when you spin a lot. But a type of trance no less.

Trance for the love of God, I have seen Iskcon devotees approaching a trance as well as NM devotees. It is more a humble thing. They are absorbed. They don't try to take credit for it. It is natural for them because of their sincerity.

Soul or no soul, but still, computers cannot be sued if they do something wrong, even if they have "artifical intelligence". So what can be sued? Persons posessing a soul, and then groups of persons possessing souls.
Somehow or other, even though the concept is there is no soul, yet only things having that nonexisting soul are considered responsible for their actions.

Isn't that strange?

Some time ago when I was discussing the topic of "God in the brain" somewhere, Subal (formerly Subal Swami, disciple of ACBS, former GR member and now founder of "Radha-Krishna Universalist Association") shared with me his opinion that Caitanya was an epileptic. I found it surprising that he would believe this and spontaneously shared his opinion with me. It's not something I've looked into but I would like to think about the possibility at some point. Given that some studies entertain the connection between spiritual experiences (visions) and temporal lobe epilepsy, and the graphic descriptions of Caitanya's ecstasies in the CC, it remains an intriguing possibility.

Yes, and it is the subject of a long-running debate.

I think I have heard this before. I believe also it could be true. The descriptions of his falling into trance and barely being able to speak but a few syllables like Lord Jaganath (Jag-- Jag---ga---ga) seem just like an epileptic fit.

But wasn't epilepsy diagnosed back then? Why didn't any other commentator expose this at all? Chaitanya is not like Jesus, in that there are numerous indisputable sources of historical record about his existence, and it was modern enough that if doubts were raised, then it should be documented.

That might have been on this forum: http://www.gaudiya-repercussions.com/index...c=438&st=60 for instance post #68 and #74.

It could very well have been a point of discussion here, but I believe I have heard of it totally elsewhere also. Which makes me think that the theory as it were is at least a little common, but probably not that common. Well, who would it be common with? People with no contact with KC wouldn't give a rats ass and those who do care, would consider it sacrilege. Gr is of course, more or less sacrilege according to the GV status quo.

Definitely I will check those posts you mention. Also I'd mention that any logical person, I think, upon hearing for instance stories of avadhutas being pure devotees, like Vamsi das Baba, would discount those individuals as madmen and also discount the orthodox story telling of such babas as pure devotees and not madmen at all. At least I did and few others around me.

But guess what? For some reason, I liked the concept of these madmen being not mad at all, but actually so absorbed in their devotion, that I followed suit and decided that the orthodox view was right. But now I am back to thinking they were all bonkers and I was bonkers to believe they weren't.

I believe it is also there in other religions that the extreme faith in the religion has turned the mind a bit bonkers. But I do believe however that any conditions that a person is born with or acquires some how on the path, can successfully practice their faith singlepointedly and not let their condition interfere with it. So I think that is why Mahaprabhu and other Babas with some form of madness were even more successful and noteworthy by the public.

Some orthodox Jewish followers also believe Jesus was a madman.

I had been meaning to get back to this. While St John's writings are interesting, are there any records of Christian mystics (or indeed mystics from other religions) exhibiting the similar types of ecstasies as recorded in Caitanya's case? When St John speaks of disjointed bones, how can we be sure that what he means is what we understood as taking place in Caitanya's life? Is there evidence of Christians thinking in that way?

If Dasgupta was right in saying that such descriptions of Caitanya's ecstasies are without parallel in Indic religious literature, it seems to me that rather than believing the accounts and with the lack (?) of similar such examples occurring in the ecstatic lives of other mystics, a more prudent explanation or interpretation might be that those stories are literary exaggerations, ornaments, confabulations? The "biographies" are hagiographies, after all.

Interesting things to consider, no doubt. I remain intrigued by the human experience of Caitanya.

Sure so the question is, has there ever been another mystic that had a symptom of disjointed bones, or is that a symptom that only occurs for those attaining Vraja Bhakti in the "authorized" lineage of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and the 6 Goswamis?

In the other thread I quoted St John of the Cross to show that 'disjointed bones' were not exclusive to Caitanya. An other example of this is St Teresa of Ávila. She wrote very conscientiously about her experiences because she was writing to her confessor.

She wrote in her Vida:

"... this is the habitual state of my soul, nowadays. Whenever I am not busy with something, it is plunged into these death-like yearnings; and I am afraid when I feel them coming on, because I know that I shall not die. But once I am in them, I long to suffer like this for the rest of my life, although the pain is so extreme as to be nearly unbearable. Sometimes my pulse almost ceases to beat at all, as I have been told by the sisters who sometimes see me in this state, and so understand better now. My bones are all disjointed and my hands are so rigid that sometimes I cannot clasp them together. Even next day I feel a pain in my wrists and over my whole body, as if my bones were still out of joint."


This kind of autobiography is quite reliable compared to the hagiographies in the Bhaktamala, Bhaktavijay or the CC. I have not found mention of disjointed bones in the autobiographical writings of for instance Tulsidas Goswami, Mirabai, Tukaram.


Another related point is the differences in the types of ecstasy. Montague Summers in his Physical Phenomena of Mysticism 1950 makes a distinction between several types of ecstasy; diabolic, natural and divine, quoting St. Thomas who says that ecstasy is an abstraction which arises from one of three causes,
from a physical cause, which is natural ecstasy;
from the working of Satan, which is diabolic ecstasy;
from the supreme power of God, which is Divine Ecstasy, and, as I understand it, true Ecstasy in the real sense of the word.

I wont go into the diabolic but the learned tell us that a natural ecstasy results from natural causes, whereas Catalepsy (or Catochus, Catoche, as the disease was called) is in some sense a natural ecstasy, since persons seized thereby are deprived of all movement, and there is a total suspension of any sensation or consciousness. Perhaps Caitanya?

It is said that if heaviness of the limbs, torpor, a mental sluggishness, a paleness of the face, which may be drawn and sad, and depression generally, are the after effects of the ecstasy, it is certainly natural. Under the same heading come those distortions of the limbs, the hideous grimacing and writhing features, with foaming and frothing at the mouth, which might correspond to the desciptions of the Antya Lila.

Dom Schram lists seven signs which denote that this preternormal state is a natural ecstasy. It may, then

(1) be the consequence of some disease of debility.
(2) If the natural ecstasy recurs at fixed and regular intervals.
(3) If after the ecstasy, the subject is found to be weak and suffering pain.
(4) If the mind appears confused, and the subject is bewildered and perplexed.
(5) If the ecstasy originates from concentration upon some thing not of the divine order, but of them earth, earthly.
(6) Natural ecstasy may be induced by an extremity of fear.
(7) In certain cases music will produce a form of rapture, which is natural ecstasy.


St. John of the Cross so keenly appreciated the danger of ecstasy, unless it be certainly from God, that he refrained from desiring it, besides he was too busy to be ecstatic.

In contrast there is the Divine Ecstasy which takes place with the greatest tranquillity of the whole man, who is placid and calm, both exteriorly and interiorly. He who is rapt in a divine ecstasy speaks only of heavenly things, which mightily move the bystanders to the love of God; on returning to himself he appears humble, and even, as it were, daunted and abashed. Overflowing with heavenly delights and consolations, his face is cheerful and glad, whilst in his heart there is ineffable peace and security.

The true receptive attitude towards God brings joy, tranquillity, peace of mind, interior happiness and calm. This seems not to be descibed in the Antya Lila.



This is one the major reasons I'm an ex-GV.

This is a good point. Why on earth should the symptoms of ecstasy be related only to God? Could it not come from more evil sources?

I wonder if someone like Hitler could develop ecstasy during one of his rallies. Perhaps ecstasy is even an adrenaline related thing.

Though we never hear of someone being in an ecstasy that is more evil related, do we?

So maybe it is more likely to be involved in ecstatic symptoms which are related to God or Goddess type of worship. A supreme entity who takes care of us with love. It may be that St. John was aware of non-Christian related ecstasies which he considered demonic, but in reality, they were probably benevolent forms of ecstasy coming from non-Christian religion.

Like the ecstasies of those filthy witches and pagans dancing through the night with the Devil.

Burning's too good for 'em.

Sarcasm noted. Yes various pagan, shaman, wicca etc, religious systems might have some forms of ecstatic rapture in their worship. The only thing that I might slightly agree with when some proselytizers might try to position faiths like Chrisitan or Vaishnava or Buddhist above other religions, is that these religions have a very profound and illustrated doctrine on surrender and service to others. I don't mean to down all faiths outside of these, but I notice a difference. So by this I don't say that some religions are hierarchically superior, but I wonder if these aspects of surrender and service are qualities that might yield the symptoms and activites that are noticed as a type of ecstasy?

My sarcasm is awful at times - excuse my unpleasantness.

Yes, you make a fair point regarding 'the higher' religions (let's not forget the likes of the Jains or the Sikhs either).

Much as I admire St John and St Teresa, I was trying to make the point - though, perhaps clumsily - that the Catholic Church (the holy key-keepers of authentic, authorised ecstacy) spread through the obliteration of all idealogical opposition.

One can hardly expect of them an honest and balanced appraisal of 'the phenomenon of ecstacy'.

Some kind of reverse Déjà vu?

Yes, the Jains, the Sikhs are I suppose there can be more. Even certain pagan tribes may have done their share of altruistic work. The Hopi are accredited to performing healing rituals for 'mother earth' which spawned the idea in hippie America to have a 'rainbow gathering,' to continue the tradition.

Its an unfortunate fact that the Catholic Church has done bounds of destruction of culture and traditions worldwide. But I believe they have luckily had some practioners that were able to transcend a bit. Wasn't St. Francis a Catholic? And Hildegard von Bingen, the female mystic.

It tells me that doctrines may be right on, doctrinally, but application of doctrine may be way off, culturally. For instance, Europeans have given Christianity a bad name, but in countries like India and Nepal, they often seem quite sincere. Some cultures are more innocent and less aggressive than others?

One usually doesn't speak of one's own experiences in this field. And in most cases the discussion would become very brief. And when described, like on this forum two weeks ago by Zach, some people react in such dismissive way that some people would never want to write about personal experiences again. Although in some other threads it went better.

What is discussed here (and in the other thread) were some physical symptoms as disjointed bones. These symptoms as descibed in some Indian hagiographies seem exaggerated when compared to western autobiographical material. The disjointed bones were put, I think, in a better perspective and relegated to natural ecstasies.

This might seem insulting to a GV but this particular relegation does not exclude the possibility that there were also instances of Divine Ecstasy in the life of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

I agree with Aranesque that time-travel would help in a study such as this.





I think that the above is an example of Divine Ecstasy, several other saints as Tukaram and St Francis have also attested to the ability to talk to the animals and sooth wild animals (although the dancing elephants might be a little over the top again).

Over the top? On what basis? Because they are big and stupid? I have heard they have a significantly higher intelligence than some other animals. Did I hear more than dogs once? I don't know.

My point is that if a saint has a vibe that animals pick up on, any animal big or small might be receptive to the vibe. Or, they might have been fed hash brownies so that they could dance in the background and this painting could be completed.

That, I imagine, would depend on the GV; as for myself (1) I believe my contention regarding symptomology still stands (this instance included).

And (2) I should like to clarify that I am not (strictly speaking) 'pure' in my GV; certainly not as much as some would like me to be.

Anyway - just a quick note: There's a guy wants to meet me down the local bar tonight; says he has a time-machine for sale. I'm determined to settle this thing once and for all.

Pick you up around 1am GMT.

Can't it just be that the individual experiencing disjointedness here is double jointed, and so he can't control himself during some type of ecstatic fit of some sort?

One fellow I know is a devout Catholic. He loves Saint Francis of Assisi above all the other saints, martyrs and other such personalities. The walls of his house are adorned with framed prints of Saint Francis, some of which depict Francis communing in ecstatic bliss with the wild animals in the forest. This fellow also loves animals more than just about anything. He loves them fried, baked, roasted, boiled, grilled, microwaved, and cooked hungi style. He is careful not to imitate advanced personalities as it might be offensive.

I don't know what double jointed means, but I find what that much more plausible than that the person is "God", or something like that. Particularly if you have loose joints, and sit and meditate whole day, or something similar, and then get a fit of ecstasy and dance around, I could imagine that the joints then would get easily dislocated, and that it would hurt a lot and make the joints rigid due to swelling.

But you know I don't think St. Francis was a vegetarian at all. Does he have a reputation as such? I saw a movie about his life in Italian language, and he went up to a pig and said, "Brother pig, thank you so much for giving up your life to feed us all," and then he cut his throat.

Yeah, I know. It just doesn't seem to be good manners to eat your friends.

As a footnote to this footnote I would like to add the quoted quote of Sachs in Fiona Maddocks' Hildegard of Bingen; the Woman of her Age:

"Invested with this sense of ecstasy, burning with profound theophorous and philosophical significance, Hildegard's visions were instrumental in directing her towards a life of holiness and mysticism. They provide a unique example of the manner in which a physiological event, banal, hateful or meaningless to the vast majority of people, can become, in a privileged consciousness, the substrate of a supreme ecstatic inspiration."


Perhaps her kundalini was being awakened, its release is often accompanied by excrutiating pain in the spine and thereby producing all sorts of physical symptoms, but eventually also leading to powers of clairvoyance.
Although Hildegard never complained of headaches her symptoms can still be called migraine as Sachs points out it might be a mistake to define migraine in such narrow terms.


As a footnote to my remark that St Francis' stigmata might belong to "natural ecstacy" this picture that shows that another interpretation is also possible:

But to his credit, I would say that I think he was sort of revering those animals he killed for food, and honoring their existence for providing him sustenance. But clearly, I think he was not advocating vegetarianism just because he advocated loving animals.

I wouldn't feel disheartened. Neural pathologies are individual and, thus, different.

Excellent post (#13) Gerard, I may need to get back to it at some point. In response to Kalki, I did some preliminary Googling and came across this interesting article: A Reappraisal of Teresa of Avila's Supposed Hysteria, before realising that I have a copy of Teresa's autobiography somewhere and haven't read it yet.

Among other things, that article makes me wonder what exactly are we speaking of when we talk about disjointed bones? Are we talking of dislocations? Double-jointed? In comparing these incidents with the reportage of Mahaprabhu's, it is probable that somewhere or other there is considerable exaggeration.

Disappointingly I looked through my copy of Late Medieval Mysticism which details the experiences of Bernard of Clairvaux, Francis of Assisi, Ramon Lull, Richard Rolle, Bonaventure, Henry Suso, Catherine of Siena, Nicholas of Cusa, Catherine of Genoa etc. I could only find one mention of bones, in the the section dealing with Bonaventure and where he speaks of ecstasy so deep that resembles fatality: "My soul hath chosen strangling and my bones death". So not much there.

For the record, here's what the CC says about Mahaprabhu (CC 3/Antya.17). If somebody has better translations such as those by Dimock or RG Nath, please feel free to post them in:

This one has always been a mystery to me. I thought of it as a reference to how it may have felt to him -- losing control of one's limbs, perhaps. But the description above clearly refers to what it looked like. Pumpkin!!!

I am totally puzzled.

The most likely thing is that someone had vivid imagination. And/or that there was an esoteric context that made just this kind of appearance charged with meaning (for example, an earlier divinity assuming just this bodily form). Daru Brahman?

Maybe it is east meets west. That we believe that everything is factual, like a journalist have described the situation.
But then, what journalists describe is not completely factual either.

There are historical instances where journalists have described a situation, but that the situation in itself was a setup by a propaganda department. Then what that journalist saw was considered "the truth". But was it?
Maybe it was actually just propaganda, which somehow became "the truth"?
The propaganda department wanted to bury the truth, so that no one would know it anymore.

In today's internet world we can read journalists with a different ideological motive report the same situation, and then we can somehow guess what actually happened, or rather what we ourselves would have seen if we were there. Much better than the single-sourced propaganda.

Caitanya's "pastimes" are very much single source, and furthermore reported by persons with a certain ideological expectation. You have been in ISKCON, and can certainly understand that when you were there, you would report a situation differently than today. You were ideologically obliged to report the situation in a certain way there, but today you are not. Or maybe in your work, you are still ideological obliged to report in a certain way, just in another way?

So what really happened during Caitanya's time? What did he really do and say?
We can never know.
It is something that happened in the past, and it can only be interpreted.

We can either believe that Caitanya's limps was retracting in his body, and then try to manufacture a medical explanation to how that could happen, or we can believe it was a colourful description, or we can believe that in the religious way of seeing, in those days, it could be seen as that.

Have you ever looked at something, and then taken a photograph of the very same thing, and found that what you see with your eyes is not the same as what the camera saw, and wondered how that could be?

You know this right here says a lot about the miracles occurring from most religious movements. We can see in today's society, when a contemporary saint is displaying miracles, there is hardly any proof whatsoever.

Take Sai Baba and his golden eggs. The media has already videoed him duping the audience with sleight of hand, yet people believe it due to the propaganda machine. It would terribly break the faith of followers if they admitted that it was all fake. Somehow, I think Sai Baba must have been thinking that he did more good than harm when he pulled stunts for the masses.

I agree. This was the reason for my earlier questions; are similar things experienced by other 'mystics', even from other religions? Is Caitanya the only one who is said to have experienced this? Are there any medical conditions where sufferers exhibit such symptoms? The fact that the answer to these is invariably 'no' or 'not likely' leads me to think that it is certainly a case of vivid imagination and even considerable exaggeration. Very early in my readings of ISKCON literature I came across a verse from CC (which I have not been able to find again) to the effect of: "Caitanya went full and deeply plumbed the depths of Radha's ecstasies. No one else is able to plumb the depths of Radha's ecstasies such as he has done." Is it possible that a sentiment like this was behind the creation of the pumpkin/tortoise descriptions of his ecstasies, a way of saying, 'Look, this is the proof that Caitanya is Super Advanced, he does things that no one else can"?

Ever since I read Richard Nixon: A Psychobiography, I became fascinated with the idea of such psychobiographies and toyed with the idea of doing something similar for other personalities. Caitanya remains intriguing to me and one of these days I'd love to sift through all the texts and come up with a realistic picture of who he was and what kind of a man he was, but just the thought of having to pore through all those pages looking for hints and having to separate the "guff" that comes with religious literatures, such as how he is Krishna's incarnation and every act of his is divine and so on, in a bid to find the true Caitanya. It would be nice to have a verse form of Caitanya-mangala, for instance, just for the fact that it contains things that the CC and CB don't, such as intimations of his physical (sexual) relations with Vishnupriya and many more things. I have the ISKCON-published one translated by Mahanidhi Swami (I think?) but it is a prose translation. Other texts too; the intention would be to obtain as many salient facts as possible about Caitanya and then use these to construct a coherent psychobiological framework that explains his experiences. Gaudiya texts over the centuries have provided much wealth in this regard!


You've got a point there. Considering that Caitanya stayed in Puri and garnered many followers, even those like the sons of Advaitacharya who rebelled and followed their own ideas, it's certainly possible to account for the Orissan influence and the identifications with Darubrahman. And speaking of Puri, isn't there supposed to be a corner of the temple where there are Caitanya's footprints ecstatically 'melted' into the stone (?) floor, and also some fingerprints on one of the pillars? Are these just hoaxes or is there something to this?

The normal western way of understanding things is to go from the gross to the subtle. That is, that the subtle is a creating of the gross. The computer program is an expansion of the computer hardware into the subtle. To think that without the computer hardware the computer software has no existance. That way of thinking get a little bit stretched at times, but still appears to be the general picture.

But what if we turn things around, and go from the subtle to the gross, which is the hindu philosophy way. Where does that leave us? Things appear the same, but philosophy goes the other way. The computers is an expansion of the computer program., not the other way around. (And if we look at anything that can run Java, but Java remains unchanged, that might have some validity)

I think that some modern neo-GV believe that there is a kind of separate physical existence, of some kind of way, which is called "vaikuntha". And there there is a physical Krishna, in some kind of "spiritual" way and a similarly physical Radha. And then from there the reasoning goes to Caitanya, who somehow is the only one able to feel the same as that physical Radha and Krishna. Somewhere there, in that reasoning, I get lost, and yet I think that it is how some think.

If we instead of thinking the "only one way" of God, that only Caitanya is able to experience that single one way of emotion, thinking about multiple ways, and Caitanya is the only one able to experience that particular mood of the divine, then we get to another point. No one can feel the same mood as Caitanya, because it is his. It is his own personal mood, and therefore it is not duplicatable. Therefore, in other religions, mystics feel their own moods, but not identical to Caitanya's. There is no need to find the true "only" mood, since there is no such. this is hyper individualism with the opposite being the Borg collective merge of consciousness. Many appear to expect that when you have a mystic feeling of God, it should all be the same. But what if it is completely individual, that no two persons feel God in exactly the same way?

I am not sure I got the reasoning clear her. Probably not. But anyway, it is fun even to write something even if others maybe don't grasp it.

I was considering how it is possible to gain an insight into the mind of Caitanya. Here's the section immediately after the description of that tortoise incident:


Aside from the GV traditionalist viewpoint of the above as an indication of Caitanya's own tasting of the mañjarī-bhāva that is offered by his tradition, I think it is pertinent that it shows how Caitanya was not always and only tasting the ecstasies of Radha as doctrine holds, and that the fact that he sees Radha and Krishna as separate personalities to interact with coupled with his perception of as a separate observer and witness suggests there is much more to the stories. We can simplify the above into separate elements: (1) he could hear Krishna's flute-playing - (2) he saw Krishna attract Radha with his flute-playing into a quiet corner where they could kiss (or whatever) - (3) he could hear the tinkling of Krishna's ornaments - (4) he could hear their laughter and joking banter with the gopis.

At my blog I sometimes comment on interesting research papers that catch my interest. Couple of years ago I came across one such paper by Dimitrios Kapogiannis where he reported on a study that analysed religious thinking in normal brains, normal here meaning non-ecstatic. Ordinary religious joes who to church once a week and so on. The findings were thought-provoking: it was revealed that religious thinking uses the same brain areas that process similar thought processes on 'mundane' levels. For example, if you feel that you would like to go to Heaven and check the place out, that type of thinking uses the same brain areas you would use if you were contemplating a holiday in Spain or something. When you read spiritual/scriptural literature that is meaningful in all sorts of ways, it is really just the same as reading a good novel. And so on and on. It turns out that we use the same brain areas when thinking both of spiritual and material matters, showing that religious thinking itself is just the same as mundane thinking and that there is nothing intrinsically special or 'transcendental' about it. It is also important research because it was representative of a shift in psychological research into religion and spirituality away from the "God Spot" ideas of before. Earlier research was suggestive of a God Spot in the brain that was responsible for all forms of religious cognition, but current and ongoing research continue to reveal and highlight the complexities of these thought processes and that they employ more neural resources than we thought. If anyone would like to read my rather technical review of Kapo's paper, here it is: No More God Spot?

My understanding of Kapo's research was that it was validated and built upon in more recent research by Sam Harris and others. Remember that the findings apply to 'normals'; Caitanya wasn't a normal, but an ecstatic. Is there reason to believe that normals think and process things differently than ecstatics? I'm not aware of any research on it but you don't have to be an expert to know there'll be some significant differences! A casual reading of CC shows that Caitanya's thought processes were highly erratic and irrational at the best of times, and it got worse (or some would say better) as time went on. If he had heard a wandering minstrel play the flute, the music would have reminded him of Krishna and he would lose consciousness or have a hallucination on the spot. It doesn't mean, however, that Caitanya wasn't capable of basic cognition; his auditory cortex was obviously processing those sensory inputs quite finely, and it is only the associations in his mind that linked flute-playing with Krishna that started to take over and make him lose control of his emotions and/or conscious awareness of his environment. Looking again at the simple 4-point itemisation of the CC section above, we can see them in a slightly different way: (1) his auditory cortex processed Krishna's flute-playing, music that he must have heard in his life - (2) observing Krishna's courting strategies bring up romantic associations he may have seen/experienced in his own life; emotions, memory, personality - (3) again the auditory cortex can process the tinkling of ornaments, sounds that he would be familiar with - (4) observing banter brings up known and shared associations of humour, frivolity, companionship etc. that all interact. Don't they look different now? Applying Kapo's findings only shows and confirms what we already knew about Caitanya - mundane things that he saw and heard immediately put him (or inspired him) into an ecstatic state. And I think it is for that reason also that there is so much discussion of uddīpana-vibhāvas and suchlike in Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu.

So with current research it is possible to get an insight into Caitanya's mind and ecstasy.

That is what I have been objecting about. That many think that "Vaikuntha" is a place you can travel to. This because they think about it just as you say - a place, like a holiday in Spain. Probably many religious people think like that. You have to think about it in another way to get the "transcendental" out of it. Most people would ask how? That is the crux, you have to learn to think in another way.

So you should instead take a trained mystic experiencing a mystic vision, and compare that to a normal person thinking about heaven.

The brain is a tool. Like a knife, for example. With the knife you can cut different things, potatoes, pieces of meat, or to stab someone. But the knife remains the same. It is not that the knife becomes different for stabbing, relative for potatoes. But the purpose of the knife is different. So even though unchanging, depending on what we use it for, we can change its purpose.

The same with the brain. It is unchanging, but we can change its purpose. It is a philosophical thing. If you stare at the knife, you can not divine the purpose behind it, and the same thing if you stare on the brain.

The big question here is if you can train the brain so that it functions differently?
Can you do something, chant mantras, or whatever, that makes the brain work in another way?
That is the mystic's belief, and such a person says - yes, you can.

Beside this, for example an autistic person has a brain that functions differently from a neurotypical brain. So if you have a NT brain you can never really experience how an autistic person experiences things. This example just to show that there are different ways the brain can function and that it changes our experience.

Well it may depend on what you are calling the brain. I consider the brain to be not much different than another organ, except that it has central network as its main features which control other organs and limbs and so forth. I don't think that a brain does the thinking. I consider that the mind does the thinking.

The mind does seem to change moment by moment. It is not so stationary as the knife is. You can use a knife for different reasons depending on your intention. It doesn't follow that you use your mind for different reasons for different intentions if we accept that the mind is not a non-changing particle. It is changing so it is only that our actions may be conducted according to the intention, which is in fact decided by the mind. But the mind is not the thing being used for different intentions.

I would say that the mind's intentions can change from time to time as well, depending on the decision it makes which may be influenced by previous decisions. Oh, I incidentally, I just realized that the knife you speak of is used for different reasons, depending on the mind using it.

It depends on what model we use for the brain and thinking.

I grossly divide the "brain" in three hierarchical layers.
hardware - firmware - software
Hardware is the neural cells.
Firmware then the interconnections between them
and software is the software that this brain computer is using.

This view is partly connected with GV philosophy, in that the "mind" is following the soul to another body. Or in other words, you can extract the software from one brain and boot it up in another. And yet you need to relearn the use the bodily functions, and thus they sit in the firmware of organic neural interconnects.

Should we take this analogy a little bit further, then the "soul" is the user.
And then "ahankara" is like microsoft vs. linux, the operating system that tells you what kind of beast you are.

This is just a model for understanding. I don't say it is like this.

But this analogy still puts some parameters on what is possible and how.

In religious movements somehow there is often the belief that "God" can change all the rules, and make "wonders". But on the contrary, if we look at stories from religions, it appears that "God" is a rule follower. He does not break his own rules, but rather makes "miracles" within them. So therefore we maybe should not expect complete rule-bending miracles. And personally, if I hear something like that - that someone gets a candy out of thin air - I immediately find it most plausible that it is a fake.
Or making fire with mantras - fake.

But this model works for the concept - subjective reality.
There is a long way from sensory input to the "user" in the model, and is the long path really 100% reliable?
And then, even if we get input, how do we know that as we percieve it?
We can discuss with each other, and make a kind of consensus on our perception, but as we know from physics, the reality of matter is not at all how we perceive it. What we perceive as solids is mostly an illusion, and it more like energy fields in empty space. So we already scientifically know that what we see is illusory. I guess scientists would say that the ultimate reality is mathematic formula, or something. At least it has a kind of deep logic behind it.

So tortoise, limbs into the body?
Technically speaking, if you know how to manipulate the reality behind, it might be possible to do anything you want. But as "God" created the rules, and is not prone to break them, I don't really believe this happened. I rather believe it is a matter of subjective reality. That once you are not bound to the reality coming from the senses, you are able to see another reality, and I think it is there this thing may be found. That somehow they saw a tortoise superimposed on Caitanya, and therefore the account. As reality is anyway illusory as we see it (reality is atoms, or quarks, or not even that), it is a little bit hard to say what is real and what is not real, what happened and did not happen. The only way we have to go with is that if we perceive it through the long path through the senses, it appears one way, and our consensus is that it is reality.

I may have a somewhat more mundane view of these CC events.
Firstly, Brainiac, why would one even take it for granted that the descriptions of Caitanya's mental states are dependable reports of things that actually happened? I find it risky to start trying to understand the workings of Caitanya's mind, without having first established how accurate the reports are. Therefore, before even looking at the details and wondering how such bodily transformations are possible, there needs to be an assessment of the reliability of the stories described by the hagiographer(s).

Secondly, I have a dim memory of some deity, maybe even Caitanya, who is described in the Caitanya-Bhagavat or in the CC as displaying ecstasies in the moods of all Vishnu incarnations. The hagiographers had rich fantasies to write up all sorts of stories. And especially when it was something that could be systematized, something that can be enumerated. If I was still in it for writing Indology papers, I would probably want to write a paper about the nerdish proclivity of Brahmins to enumerate things: 26 qualities of a devotee, 4 tattvas, 11 elements, 3 gunas, six highway robbers, eightfold path (nine times more feisty). There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of such enumerated lists in the Puranas, Samhitas, Tantras, Nirnayas, Sutras, Agamas, and Ratna-Koshas. And of course they are always presented by some venerable Rishis or deities. Shiva is telling Parvati, "Listen my doe-eyed, superbly breasted, thin-waisted cuddle cushion, there are 18 varieties of flavors that ignite a woman's passion." And blah. This is so scientific, it's awesome! Ten incarnations, ten ecstasies. And then all these hagiographers were of course snatching and copying each others ideas. Or just improving on it. If one hagiographer had mentioned a novel, never seen before ecstasy of Caitanya, you could be sure another writer would have even better details and much more on the story. It's like designing apps for mobile devices. Reality doesn't matter. Never did.

So I would just be a little cautious with launching a probe into a brain that might not have existed, or if it existed, may not have experienced the events described by the hagiographers.

Yes, for example the varahavesha experience. Caitanya changing into Varaha. But Murari Gupta relates how he and Caitanya once entered Murari's temple. Caitanya became very emotional and wept incessantly. He twice said that he was being attacked by a great boar. Then he got down on all fours; his eyes became red and round; he grunted like a boar; and them seized a jug in his teeth.
When asked to identify who he was, Murari at first confessed his inability to do so because he only saw Caitanya on all fours on the ground and then Murari Gupta, remembering a passage in the Gita, said that he did know his identity.

With such descriptions I also get the impression that these stories very clearly aim at establishing that Caitanya is, essentially, Vishnu or Krishna. The story is told to substantiate a theological claim: Caitanya is God, and he revealed this to his best devotees by transforming into well-known avatars. The message being: Hey, dear devotee of my holy feet, do you get it already? I am that very Lord Boar who is held in high esteem and to whom the Puranas sing incessant praise!

If I can allow myself to indulge in some mundane conspiracy theorizing here...
I am leaving aside what Caitanya himself experienced or did not experience. But it seems that there is a consensus, even in the hagiographical accounts, that with time he became increasingly "otherworldly", behaving in erratic ways outwardly speaking. He started out as a bright young brahmin and an inspired, charismatic religious leader. But later down the road he seemed to be less and less in contact with the outward reality. He lived in Puri and his associates / disciples had taken over running the movement, and caring for Caitanya himself, rescuing him from some of his ecstasies (such as banging his head against the wall or drowning), and acting as interpreters.

I cannot know what was really happening with him, but my reductionist mind posits some sort of change in his mind / brain, one that kept progressing and resulted in bizarre behaviors. Some of which appeared more like those of an animal than a human.

I propose that his closest disciples were faced with a challenge. They had deep faith in the transcendent dimension of Caitanya's behavior. But there was no obvious template for it. No clear "authorized" description of a spiritual attainment that fit well. But he was a spiritual leader, a model, seen as God incarnate. There was a movement. So what were his caretakers supposed to do? They struggled to find a framework to interpret things, to themselves and to the broader circles of devotees. They thought of Vishnu's incarnations, some of which are in animal form.

Makes me wonder about his passing away. Supposedly he went up on Tota Gopinatha's altar and disappeared, merging into the deity. Methinks this is a smart way to explain someone's death when you have no body to show. Maybe he slipped away from his caretakers and disappeared, drowned or hurt himself in some other way, leading to his death? Maybe it was a violent seizure from which he never recovered, ending up in a vegetative state? Or maybe someone killed him in some kind of accident?

I don't know what their post-death procedures were at the time, but wouldn't they normally display and worship acarya's body before interring him? Wouldn't they want to have a place, a samadhi? It seems they either had no body, or the body wasn't "presentable".

Exactly. That last post I wrote is not something I would ever voice out loud in professional circles, or even write about so casually on my blog for example. It was just an example of how I try to join the dots when I think of such things in idle spare time. That's why I mentioned that at some point in the (hopefully distant) future I'd like to sit down with the texts and sift through the guff they contain and try to extract a semblance of the real Caitanya. It seems obvious even now that Caitanya was a mortal, his emotional moods etc. grossly exaggerated by his "biographers".

Come to think of it, I did actually want to write an article on the psychology of mañjarī-bhāva itself a while back. I got stuck after a couple of introductory paragraphs . How complex the subject is, and how unbelievable too!


Are there more such examples contained in Deb Narayan Acharyya's book?

Several theories abound: His increasing fame as a religious leader irritated the Puri Pandas so they got him murdered. Others say his stubbed his toe on a stone or something, caught fever and died. And then there is the Tota Gopinath story. The murder theory also says he is secretly buried underneath the floor in the Puri temple room.

Some time ago I downloaded whatever I could find from the JSTOR archives when my ATHENS login was still operational and there was at least one interesting academic paper by Tony K. Stewart that was all about the death. I never got around to reading it but I burned it on DVD somewhere. I'll try to dig it up and see what we can do with it, and the other papers too.

Hey, that's interesting! I would love to see the paper if you can (and have time to) dig it out!
Mystery thickens...

Not really, I think this was the clearest example.

Perhaps interesting to note is that in Caitanya's time there were already people who thought CM was suffering of epilepsy (vayu vyadhi). Srivasa came to see him and after examing him declared that the symptoms were not of epilepsy but of prema-lakshana in an extreme form (Caitanya Bhagavata II, 105-115).