CLAIM:

The 5th verse of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu´s “Siksastakam” clearly proves that the jiva soul fell down from Goloka Vrindavana.

ayi nanda-tanuja kiṅkaraṁ
patitāṁ māṁ viṣame bhavāmbudhau
kṛpayā tava pāda paṅkaja
sthita dhūlīsadṛśaṁ vicintaya

O Son of Mahārāja Nanda (Kṛṣṇa)! I have fallen into the terrible ocean of material existence. Please consider me to be a speck of dust attached to Your lotus feet!

REFUTATION:

To begin with, I would like to say that I thought very long about writing this blog because the claim is utterly ridiculous and straight-on offensive towards Sriman Mahaprabhu.

But it came to my knowledge that quite a few sadhakas have doubts about this and some even asked me about the claim´s authority.

Rest assured. This verse spoken by Sriman Mahaprabhu has NOTHING to do with FALL-VADA at all. Nada. Zero. Zilch….

It has EVERYTHING to do with HUMILITY and the recognition of our situation here in this world.

In this verse, Sriman Mahaprabhu perfectly describes in utmost humility the situation of the conditioned jiva soul [nitya baddha] here in this world.

Our situation is a “fallen” situation, not a “having fallen down”-situation.

“Fallen” here describes a situation which is a degraded one, a situation not “befitting” the spiritual soul whose nature is spiritual and not material. We don´t belong here.

He compares our material existence to a terrible ocean and he says that He fell into that ocean. This is  wonderful poetry.
To be in a drowning situation in a vast ocean, we must fall into it.
The example is a material one, albeit a perfect description of our miserable condition.

Sriman Mahaprabhu was not standing on a cliff and then jumped into this ocean.
If one “falls in love”, does one have to fall down on the floor?

It means that from beginningless time, the conditioned jiva soul [nitya baddha] is helplessly drifting along in the ocean of material existence.

It is a wonderful example of being caught up in the cycle of repeated birth and death.
It has nothing to do whatsoever with “falling down from the spiritual sky”.

It is utterly super-far-out-ridiculous to claim that Sriman Mahaprabhu advocated the fall-theory here in this verse.

The Six Goswamis have been ordered to spread the siddhanta of Gaudiya Vaishnavism far and wide, and the fountainhead, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, advocated that we fell down from Goloka Vrindavana?

Please. Time to get REAL.

Sriman Mahaprabhu was the heart and soul of the Six Goswamis and of all our purva acaryas. He fully endowed them with His mercy to write their books.

In all the writings of the Goswamis, the siddhanta of a possible fall-down from the spiritual world is NON-EXISTENT.

Au contraire.

Srila Jiva Goswami dedicates a full Anuccheda in his Bhagavat Sandarbha [63] to the subject matter:

No One Falls from Vaikuṇṭha – No one falls down from that abode (tato’skhalanam)

In his Paramatma Sandarbha ( Anuccheda 44) he writes:

tad evam ananta eva jīvākhya taṭasthaḥ śaktayaḥ. tatra tāsāṁ varga dvayaṁ. eko vargaḥ anādita eva bhagavad unmukhaḥ anyas tu anādita eva bhagavat parāṅmukhaḥ svabhāvataḥ tadīya jñāna bhāvāt tadīya jñānābhāvāc ca:

“There are innumerable spirit souls and they are the marginal potency of God. There are two classes of them: one class is favorable to God from beginningless time, and the other class is turned away from God from beginningless time. The first class is naturally full of knowledge and the other is without knowledge.”

Can it be ANY clearer?

The following is an excerpt from the commentary on Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī’s Tattva Sandarbha, Anuccheda 32, by Satyanarayana Dasa Babaji.

The subject is the individual self (the jīva), which is distinct, conscious and subject to ignorance, and its involvement with Bhagavān’s deluding potency, māyā.

According to Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, māyā’s conditioning of the jīva has no beginning; it is anādi. Although statements such as, “she covers the real nature of the jīva” seemingly imply a beginning, in fact there is no beginning to the jīva’s bondage. Śrī Kṛṣṇa confirms this:

prakṛtiṁ puruṣaṁ caiva viddhy anādi ubhav api
vikaramś ca guṇāṁś caiva viddhi prakṛti-sambhavān

Primordial nature and the living beings should both be understood to be beginningless. Their transformations and the guṇas of nature are phenomenal arisings out of primordial nature. (Gītā 13.20) 

Commenting on this verse, both Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura and Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa confirm that the conditioning of the jīva is beginningless. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura states: 

māya-jīvayor api mac-chaktitvena anāditvāt tayoḥ saṁśleṣo’py anādir iti bhāvaḥ

“[Śrī Bhagavān says,] ‘Because both māyā and the jīva are My potencies, they both are beginningless. Thus, their conjunction is also without beginning.’ This is the sense of Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s words.”

Here Viśvanātha is employing the nyāya principle that the qualities or potencies of anādi substances are also anādi. Naturally, a beginningless substance or entity cannot have a prior state of existence, for it could not be said to be beginningless. In this case the subjects—primordial nature and the jīvas—are understood as anādi, and thus their shared quality of apparent separation from Kṛṣṇa, is also anādi. 

In fact, in the beginning of his comment on the Gītā verse, Visvanātha says, “In this verse, Śrī Kṛṣṇa is answering two questions—why or how did the conjunction of the jīva and māyā occur? And when did it occur?” He says that both of these are answered by the word anādi. In regard to the first question, anādi implies, na vidyate ādi kāraṇam yayoḥ, “the conjunction of māyā and the jīva is without prior cause” [and hence there is in fact no “why” as to how it occurred]. The answer to the second question – when? – is also anādi: it has no beginning and hence it did not occur at any moment in time.

Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa, commenting on this same verse writes, evaṁ mitho vivikta-svabhāvayor anādyoḥ prakṛti-jīvayoḥ saṁsargasyānādi-kālikatvam: “In this way, the conjunction between primordial nature and the living being, who have distinct natures and are both beginningless, relates to a period of time that is without beginning.” He uses the adjectival compound anādikālikatvam, “a period of time without beginning”, to qualify the phrase prakṛti-jīvayoḥ saṁsargas, the conjunction of the jīva with prakṛti.

From this we understand that the jīvas and primordial nature are both eternal, although sometimes manifest and sometimes wound up within Mahāviṣṇu. Being eternal they are beginningless, and the nature of their conjunction is also beginningless. Just as there was no prior state of existence for material nature, there was also no prior condition of existence for the bound jīvas. The common example given is that of a spider, which expands its energy in the form of its web and sometimes withdraws the web back into its body. Similarly, primordial nature and the bound jīvas are manifested and unmanifested in a cycle that is anādi, beginningless. Beginningless karmic imprinting and patterning is the nature of the bondage of the beginningless jīva.

So, after reading the words of Srila Jiva Goswami, the claim that Sriman Mahaprabhu advocates a fall-down from the spiritual world seems even MORE ridiculous.