Gaura-Nitai
The tallest deities on the altar, Caitanya (to the right) and Nityananda (to the left), are the main deities. They are love personified and they offer their love to us without condition. By always extending a warm invitation to us, they make it easy for us to connect to them. Their energy and evolutionary message are extremely relevant. They are perfectly suited to the needs of our times and they always know the best way to inspire and nurture our energetic transformation into harmonically whole spiritual beings. They are the catalyst for our evolution and are intimately involved in the affairs of the temple. They allow us to take whatever time or experience we require to gradually integrate our physical, emotional, intellectual and energetic capacities into a complete spiritual being, balanced and awake to the reality of who we are and our environment. They do not encourage us to dream of the promise of future entrance into other forms of reality, neither do they challenge us to accept any other culture or time-bound thought process. They encourage us to be what we are, as we are, in the present moment, for it is in this moment that we shall connect to them. We can experience a mystical relationship with Gaura and Nitai when we accept them, give our love to them, and create an us-ness where our love meets theirs. When we experience such divine love, it becomes obvious that our previous actions throughout our many lives have simply been ineffective endeavors to experience this taste.
Lord Caitanya is unique within the variegated forms of the supreme divinity for he has all the benefic aspects of existence perfectly melded within one magnificent being of love. He is not a "he" in the traditional sense, for he is the combination of Radha and Krishna, the supreme Female and Male -- the primordial supreme divinity -- in one unique personality. When you connect to him with a harmonic awareness of the energy he offers you, it becomes easier to balance your personal male and female energies and thus come closer to spiritual wholeness.
In the last few millenniums, people have unfortunately defined god in terms of the male gender and gradually god has turned into the archetypical male with qualities that suggested within the worshiper dominance, intolerance, opulence, and righteousness. By neglecting the nurturing feminine aspect of the supreme, spirituality has become less nourishing and more of a chore. Therefore, re-establishing the balanced vision of the supreme as the perfect union of the male and female energies is a major step towards transforming the anger, frustration, and violence of the world today. Seen in this way, Lord Caitanya (called Gaura due to his golden color created by the combination of the darker color of Krishna with the whitish color of Radha) becomes a perfect harmonizing and integrating deity for man. Nitai acts as his relation, his expansion, his support, and offers to us direct connection to his love. Nitai allows us to contact all that is good and powerful within ourselves and strengthens that goodness by giving us confidence, stability, and courage. Together they are a wonderful team and connecting to their combined love is a powerful experience. Next —> Radha and Krishna