34. Darsana of Jagannatha Swami As He Is

Darsana of Jagannatha Swami As He Is:

By great fortune one can enter a sanctified temple and see (darsana) the Supreme Lord presiding in His most merciful and beautiful form of the deity. But who is the seer or who is seen? Can I see God with my material vision? For a moment or minute I look upon the deity of Krsna and then absorb myself in the world around me. From the sastra and the lives of the saints, we learn that pure devotees like Srila Prabhupada can stand "for hours on end" heartly beholding their dear Radha-Govinda. 

Srila Krsnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami says that a pure devotee spends his entire day seeing his worshipable deity of Giridhari Syama and singing His names.

sarva-dina karena 

vaisnava nama-sankirtana

svacchande karena 

jagannatha darasana 

A pure Vaisnava will perform nama-sankirtana and spend the whole day freely gazing upon his beloved Lord Jagannatha. (Cc. 3.6.219)

"Whenever Gauranga Mahaprabhu took darsana of Jagannath, He directly saw Vrajendranandana, the son of Nanda maharaja, jagannathe dekhe, saksat vrajendra-nandana. Becoming fully absorbed in seeing Jagannatha Swami, Mahaprabhu entered a deep state of gopi-bhava, and then here, there and everywhere He looked, He saw Muralivadana, pressing the flute to His lips." (Cc. 3.14.32-33)

These verses show that Lord Jagannath mercifully appears in a form corresponding to one's meditation on Him. Some see in Jagannatha Swami the form of Vrajendranandana Krsna and some see Ganesha, Nrsimha or Vamana, but according to the Vedas neither will take another birth. 

And if someone in illusion thinks of the objects of the senses, he sees those objects, not Krsna; he sees a doll made of wood. The article that follows wonderfully explains the true meaning of darsana, and how to see the spiritual reality beyond the mundane cover.

"If we concentrate our attention on the outward form of a thing, neglecting its inner substance, then we shall find that we are looking in the wrong place. When Mahaprabhu looked at the deity of Jagannatha deva, apparently it seemed that His aim was fixed on the same thing we see when we look at the deity. To our vision, however, the deity of Jagannath is only a doll made of wood. And yet when Gauranga Mahaprabhu fixed His eye there, He shed tears of joy which flowed in an incessant current. Where is Gauranga's vision of reality connected? What we see as a wooden doll, Lord Gauranga sees in a completely different way. And just by looking at that, an incessant current of tears pours from Mahaprabhu's eyes. Where is His connection with reality located? Sri Caitanyadeva is viewing things from the opposite side, from the subjective world.