Rūpa Gosvāmī, Sanātana Gosvāmī were ministers in the government of Nawab Hussain Shah, most opulent. So naturally the minister must have association with big, big zamindars, lords, aristocratic family. But about them it is said, when they joined Caitanya Mahāprabhu's movement, resigning from their ministership, so that is described by Śrīnivāsa Ācārya, tyaktvā tūrṇam aśeṣa-maṇḍala-pati-śreṇīṁ.
Maṇḍala-pati means big, big zamindars, aristocrats. So tyaktvā, gave up their association. Just like we flatter here. If we can mix with a very big, rich man, we consider very fortunate. But these Gosvāmīs, they gave up, tyaktvā tūrṇam aśeṣa, not only one, two. Because they were ministers, everyone is coming to flatter him, all big, big zamindars. But he gave up that association. Tyaktvā tūrṇam aśeṣa-maṇḍala-pati-śreṇīṁ sadā tuccha-vat. Tuccha means very insignificant. Then what they became? Bhūtvā dīna-gaṇeśakau karuṇayā kaupīna-kanthāśritau. Dīna-gaṇeśakau, just to show favor to the poor souls, dīna-gaṇeśakau. Gaṇa. Gaṇa means people in general. So just to show them favor, accepted the life of a mendicant. Tyaktvā tūrṇam aśeṣa-maṇḍala-pati-śreṇīṁ sadā tuccha-vat bhūtvā dīna-gaṇeśakau karuṇayā kaupīna-kanthāśritau. Kaupīna-kanthā. That is the last stage of sannyāsa, paramahaṁsa stage: a loincloth and an underwear, kaupīna-kanthāśritau.
So, but we have got practical experience that if somebody from very exalted post becomes a renouncer, he cannot tolerate that. We have seen it. In Calcutta there was a big man, you have heard, Mr. C. R. Das, Gandhi's lieutenant. He gave up his practice. In those days he was . . . fifty years ago he was earning fifty thousand rupees. So that is not joke. So he became mendicant. All Gandhi's followers, they became mendicant. Without becoming mendicant, you cannot do any welfare activities. That is the Vedic process, sannyāsa. So, but he could not live. After giving up his job as a lawyer, he could not live for more than one year. Because he was living very opulently and all of a sudden he became a mendicant, he could not tolerate. That we have seen.
But here we see that the Gosvāmīs, they were also very big men, ministers, but how they lived? Tyaktvā tūrṇam aśeṣa-maṇḍala-pati-śreṇīṁ sadā tuccha-vat bhūtvā dīna-gaṇeśakau karuṇayā kaupīna-kanthāśritau, gopī-bhāva-rasāmṛtābdhi-laharī. Gopī-bhāva. They were living simply by thinking of the ecstatic love of gopīs. Gopī-bhāvāmṛta. That is compared with an ocean. As the ocean is beautiful, constant flowing of waves, similarly, the ocean of bliss of the gopīs relationship with Kṛṣṇa, these Gosvāmīs were always absorbed in that. Gopī-bhāva-rasāmṛtābdhi-laharī-kallola-magnau muhur vande rūpa-sanātanau raghu-yugau śrī-jīva-gopālakau. So Kṛṣṇa's opulence, Kṛṣṇa's dealings with the gopīs, they are not ordinary things.