Discovering Sri Chaitanya, his personality and teachings, has been a surprising revelation to many outside India over the last few decades. Thoughtful people, those concerned with the plight of our world, seekers of truth and a spiritual path, and people simply looking for personal happiness, have been surprised to discover such profound truth in such an unexpected place. After all, who has heard of Lord Chaitanya!
Yet, for 500 years Lord Chaitanya has been acknowledged as the spiritual leader for our age by many of India’s most respected philosophers.
In the fifteenth century, Sri Chaitanya created a spiritual revolution in India , attracting followers from all levels of society. Kings, government ministers, scholars, poets, people of all religions and people of none, the rich, the poor, were moved to take part in his extraordinary movement: sankirtana—the congregational chanting of Krishna’s holy names.
Out of this rich, joyful experience came an outpouring of cultural expression— poetry, drama and song—which continues to this day.
Sri Chaitanya combined transcendental knowledge, the essence of the ancient Vedic scriptures, with a practical, yet dynamic process for self-realisation: the simple chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra. Over the past thirty years, thousands of people from all over the world, have delighted in this un-guessed at solution to the perplexities and dullness of materialistic life.
There have been many biographies of Sri Chaitanya - some written by his contemporaries, and others by disciples of his contemporaries. The most famous is the Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, by Srila Krsnadas Kaviraja.
