Sri Sri Siksha Ashtakam

Krsnadasa Kaviraja Goswami has written this song “ceto-darpana-marjanam bhava-maha-davagni-nirvapanam”. The official name of this song is Sri Sri Sikshashtakam. These verses has been composed by Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. This song is taken from the book Caitanya Caritamrta (Section: Antya Lila Chapter 20 Verses 12, 16, 21, 29, 32, 36, 39 and 47).

TRANSLATION
1) Glory to the sri-krsna-sankirtana, which cleanses the heart of all the dust accumulated for years and extinguishes the fire of conditional life, of repeated birth and death. This sankirtana movement is the prime benediction for humanity at large because it spreads the rays of the benediction moon. It is the life of all transcendental knowledge. It increases the ocean of transcendental bliss, and it enables us to fully taste the nectar for which we are always anxious.

2) O my Lord, Your holy name alone can render all benediction to living beings, and thus You have hundreds and millions of names, like Krsna and Govinda. In these transcendental names You have invested all Your transcendental energies. There are not even hard and fast rules for chanting these names. O my Lord, out of kindness You enable us to easily approach You by Your holy names, but I am so unfortunate that I have no attraction for them.

3) One should chant the holy name of the Lord in a humble state of mind, thinking oneself lower than the straw in the street; one should be more tolerant than a tree, devoid of all sense of false prestige, and should be ready to offer all respect to others. In such a state of mind one can chant the holy name of the Lord constantly.

4) O almighty Lord, I have no desire to accumulate wealth, nor do I desire beautiful women nor do I want any number of followers. I only want Your causeless devotional service, birth after birth.

5) O son of Maharaja Nanda (Krsna), I am Your eternal servitor, yet somehow or other I have fallen into the ocean of birth and death. Please pick me up from this ocean of death and place me as one of the atoms at Your lotus feet.

6) O my Lord, when will my eyes be decorated with tears of love flowing constantly when I chant Your holy name? When will my voice choke up, and when will the hairs of my body stand on end at the recitation of Your name?

7) O Govinda! Feeling Your separations I am considering a moment to be like twelve years or more. Tears are flowing from my eyes like torrents of rain, and I am feeling all vacant in the world in Your absence.

8) I know no one but Krsna as my Lord, and He shall remain so even if He handles me roughly by His embrace or makes me brokenhearted by not being present before me. He is completely free to do anything and everything, for He is always my worshipful Lord, unconditionally

Prabhupada 0400 – Sri Sri Siksastakam Purport

Prabhupāda:

ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam bhava-mahā-dāvāgni-nirvāpaṇaṁ

śreyaḥ-kairava-candrikā-vitaraṇaṁ vidyā-vadhū-jīvanam

ānandāmbudhi-vardhanaṁ prati-padaṁ pūrṇāmṛtāsvādanaṁ

sarvātma-snapanaṁ paraṁ vijayate śrī-kṛṣṇa-saṅkīrtanam

Lord Caitanya gave us eight stanzas of His mission, what He wanted to do. They are explained in eight stanzas, and they are known as Śikṣāṣṭaka. Śikṣā means instruction, and āṣṭaka means eight. So in eight stanzas He has finished his instruction, and His next disciples, the Six Gosvāmīs, have explained them in volumes of books. So Lord Caitanya says the subject is paraṁ vijayate śrī-kṛṣṇa-saṇkīrtanam: all glories to the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra or Kṛṣṇa saṇkīrtan movement. All glories. All victory. How it is victory, all victory? That He explains, that ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam. If you chant this Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, then the dirty things which have accumulated in your heart due to material contamination will be cleared off. He gives the example that the heart is just like a mirror. If on the mirror there are heaps of dust accumulated, then one cannot see the real face by the reflection of the mirror. Therefore, it should be cleansed. So in our present conditional life, our heart is overloaded with so much dust accumulated due to our material association from time immemorial. So if we chant this Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, then the dust will be removed. Even not immediately, it will begin to be removed. And as soon as the mirror of the heart is cleansed of all dust, immediately one can see the face what he is. That face means real identification. By chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, one will understand that he is not this body. This is our misconception. The dust means this misconception, accepting this body or the mind as self. Actually, we are not this body or the mind. We are spirit soul. So as soon as we can understand that we are not these bodies, immediately bhava-mahā-dāvāgni-nirvāpaṇam. The blazing fire of material conditions, or the blazing fire of material miseries, immediately becomes dissipated. No more misery. Ahaṁ brahmāsmi. As it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā (BG 18.54). Immediately one understands his real identification as spirit soul, he becomes joyful. We are not joyful. Due to our material contact, we are always full of anxieties. By chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, we shall immediately come to the stage of joyful life. Bhava-mahā-dāvāgni-nirvāpaṇam. And this is called liberation. When one becomes joyful, free from all anxieties, that stage is actual liberation because every living creature, the spirit soul is by nature joyful. The whole struggle for existence is that he is searching after that joyful stage of life, but he missing the point. Therefore, in every effort for joyful life we are being defeated. This constant defeat can be overcome immediately by chanting this Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. That is the effect of this transcendental vibration. And after liberation, after being joyful, the material joys decreases. Whatever joy you want to enjoy, that decreases. Take, for example, for eating. If we want to eat some nice foodstuff, after eating a few morsels of food we do not like to take any more. That means here in the material world, whatever joy we accept, it will decrease. But spiritual joy, Lord Caitanya says ānandāmbudhi-vardhanam, the spiritual joy is just like ocean. But here in the material world, we have got experience that ocean does not increase. Ocean remains within its limit. But the ocean of spiritual joyfulness increases. Ānandāmbudhi-vardhanam. Śreyaḥ-kairava-candrikā-vitaraṇam. How it increases? He is giving the example like the moon, rising moon. As the waxing moon. As the moon from the day of new moon, new moon night, the first day it is just like a small curved line. But second day, third day it increases, gradually it increases. Similarly, the spiritual life, the spiritual joyful life increases like the moon rays day after day, day after day, till it reaches the full moon night, yes. So ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam bhava-mahā-dāvāgni-nirvāpaṇam, śreyaḥ-kairava-candrikā-vitaraṇam vidyā-vadhū-jīvanam. And the life then becomes full of knowledge because spiritual life means eternal life, full of bliss and full of knowledge. So we increase our volumes of joy because proportionately we increase the volume of our knowledge. Śreyaḥ-kairava-candrikā-vitaraṇaṁ vidyā-vadhū-jīvanam, ānandāmbudhi-vardhanaṁ. It is just like a ocean, but still it increases. Ānandāmbudhi-vardhanaṁ, sarvātma-snapanaṁ. It is so nice that once situated in this state of life, one thinks that “I am fully satisfied.” Sarvātma-snapanaṁ. Just like if one takes bath dipping into the water, he feels refreshed immediately. Similarly, this spiritual life increasing joys day after day makes one feeling that he is fully satisfied.