PREFACE - Whether we judge the intensity of a devotee's love for God by the frantic outbursts of emotion that reveal the inner working of his heart; whether we measure him by the range and depth of his spiritual realisation and the height of bliss perpetually experienced by him; or, whether we apply to him the test of shaping the minds and moulding the lives of his associates and followers by the magnetic influence of his personality , Sri Caitanya stands out as the brightest luminary of divine love on the spiritual firmament of the world. His bountiful distribution of the nectar of divine love to the rich and the poor, the young and the old, the good and the wicked, regardless of any barriers of caste and creed; his congregational chantings of the name of Lord, in which lakhs and lakhs of men joined at a time ; his triumphs of love over his enemies; and the chastening effect of the mere touch and presence of his personality, which turned the kings and the chiefs into ascetics and the cruelest and the most hardened of sinners into saints, and made even the fiercest of animals dance with the joy of divine love, are all unparalleled in history. The intensity devotional character of the personality of Sri Caitanya, however , has eclipsed his philosophy. His place has been among the devotees and the mystics rather than among the philosophers. But the devotional side of his personality itself suggests a corresponding philosophical side of his nature � a definite and perfect sense of Reality, which must account for the particular way in which his heart and soul reacted to it. It is a mistake to suppose that the predominance of emotions in the life of a devotee renders him incapable of serious philosophical thinking. On the contrary, his understanding is so developed and purified that his grasp of things is more intuitive than ratiocinative and his knowledge of reality is more intimate and complete. His emotions are the natural outcome of his close apprehension of Reality.