PURPORT

Sri Ramananda Raya externally appeared to be a grhastha who was under the influence of the external, material energy, not a self-controlled brahmacari, vanaprastha or sannyasi. Grhasthas (householders) who are under the influence of the external energy accept householder life for the purpose of sense enjoyment, but a transcendentally situated Vaisnava is not subjected to the influence of the senses by the Lord's material rule of the six kinds of bodily change (kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, and matsarya), even when he plays the part of a grhastha. Thus although Srila Ramananda Raya acted as a grhastha and was accepted as an ordinary pounds-and-shillings man, he was always absorbed in the transcendental pastimes of Lord Krsna. Therefore his mind was spiritually situated, and he was interested only in the subject of Krsna. Ramananda Raya was not among the Mayavadi impersonalists or materialistic logicians who are opposed to the principles of Lord Krsna's transcendental pastimes. He was already spiritually situated in the order of renounced life; therefore he was able to turn sand into gold by spiritual potency, or, in other words, to elevate a person from a material to a spiritual position.