Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Narada Bhakti Sutra 23

tad-vihinam jaranam iva

SYNONYMS

tat -- of it (awareness of the Lord's greatness); vihinam -- devoid; jaranam -- of illicit lovers; iva -- like.

TRANSLATION

On the other hand, displays of devotion without knowledge of God's greatness are no better than the affairs of illicit lovers.

PURPORT

The gopis' loving exchanges with Krsna have nothing to do with mundane passion, but because they resemble lusty activities in the material world, those with impure minds mistake them for such. Srila Prabhupada was therefore always very cautious in presenting Lord Krsna's rasa-lila. Lord Caitanya was also very cautious in discussing such topics. Although He was always merged in gopi-bhava, He discussed Krsna's loving affairs with the gopis only with a few intimate disciples. For the mass of people, Lord Caitanya distributed love of God by propagating the congregational chanting of the holy name.

Srila Prabhupada would sometimes tell a story to show how most people mistake the transcendental loving affairs of Radha and Krsna as mundane dealings between an ordinary boy and girl. Once there was a fire in a barn, and one of the cows almost died of fright. Afterward, whenever that cow saw the color red, she would think a fire was burning and become panic-stricken. Similarly, as soon as an ordinary man or woman sees a picture of Radha and Krsna, he or she immediately thinks Their relationship is just like that between an ordinary boyfriend and girlfriend or husband and wife. Unfortunately, professional reciters of the Bhagavatam promote this misconception by jumping into Lord Krsna's conjugal pastimes in the Tenth Canto, although neither they nor their audience are fit to hear them. The authorized approach to the Bhagavatam is to first carefully read the first nine cantos, which establish the greatness of the Supreme Lord, His universal form, His material and spiritual energies, His creation of the cosmos, His incarnations, and so on. Reading the first two cantos is like contemplating the lotus feet of the Lord, and as one gradually progresses, one looks upon the Lord's various bodily limbs, until finally one sees His smiling face in the Tenth Canto's account of His pastimes with the gopis.

If Krsna's pastimes with the gopis' were lusty affairs, neither pure brahmacaris like Narada and Sukadeva nor liberated sages like Uddhava and Vyasadeva would have praised them so highly. Such great devotees are free from all mundane passion; so how could they be interested in Radha and Krsna if Their love were a worldly sex affair?

From the Srimad-Bhagavatam we learn that all the gopis had spiritual bodies. This is another proof that Krsna's pastimes with the gopis are supramundane. When Krsna played His flute in Vrndavana on the full-moon night of the autumn season, the gopis went to Him in their spiritual bodies. Many of these gopis are eternal companions of Krsna, and when He exhibits His transcendental pastimes within the material world, they come with Him. But some of the gopis who joined Krsna's pastimes within this material world came from the status of ordinary human beings. By always thinking of Krsna as their beloved, they became purified of all material contamination and elevated to the same status as the eternally liberated gopis. Srila Prabhupada writes, "All the gopis who concentrated their minds on Krsna in the spirit of paramour love became fully uncontaminated from all the fruitive reactions of material nature, and some of them immediately gave up their material bodies developed under the three modes of material nature" (Krsna, p. 242). Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura explains in his commentary on the Srimad-Bhagavatam that here "giving up the material body" does not mean dying but rather purification of all material contamination and attainment of a purely spiritual body.

When Sukadeva Gosvami began reciting Krsna's rasa-lila pastimes, Maharaja Pariksit raised a doubt similar to that addressed in this sutra. He asked, "How could the gopis attain liberation by thinking of a paramour?" Sukadeva replied that even if one thinks that the gopis were motivated by lust, any association with Krsna will purify one of all material desires. Because He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, even someone like Sisupala, who was absorbed in thinking of Krsna out of envy, gained salvation. As Srila Prabhupada explains in Krsna (p. 245):

The conclusion is that if one somehow or other becomes attached to Krsna or attracted to Him, either because of His beauty, quality, opulence, fame, strength, renunciation, or knowledge, or even through lust, anger, or fear, or through affection or friendship, then one's salvation and freedom from material contamination are assured.

The society girl Kubja is an example of how even lusty attraction to Krsna frees one from material contamination. She approached Krsna with lusty desire, but her lust was relieved just by smelling the fragrance of Krsna's lotus feet.

While the word kama (lust) is used to describe the gopis' feelings toward Krsna, in their case it is actually a transcendental emotion. The gopis wanted Krsna to be their husband, but there was no possibility of His marrying all of them in the usual sense. So they married regular husbands (though some were unmarried at the time of the rasa dance) but retained their love for Krsna. Therefore Krsna's loving relationship with the gopis is known as parakiya-rasa (paramour love). But whereas in the material world the relationship of a married woman with a paramour is abominable, in the spiritual world it is the most exalted relationship one can have with Krsna. Just as a tree reflected in the water appears upside down, so that which is topmost in the spiritual world -- Krsna's loving dealings with the gopis -- becomes abominable when reflected in the material world as illicit sexual affairs. When people imitate Krsna's rasa dance with the gopis, they enjoy only the perverted reflection of the transcendental parakiya-rasa. Srila Prabhupada writes in Krsna (p. 240), "It is stated in the Srimad-Bhagavatam that one should not imitate this parakiya-rasa even in dream or imagination. Those who do so drink the most deadly poison."

Another characteristic of mundane paramour love is that it is unsteady. As soon as one's sex pleasure is disrupted, one seeks out a new partner. The Srimad-Bhagavatam predicts that in the Age of Kali marriage will become degraded to a mere convenience for sex pleasure and will break apart as soon as that pleasure abates. But once one revives one's loving relationship with Krsna, that relationship will remain steady and ever fresh.

The gopis' love for Krsna is within Sri Krsna's hladini-sakti, or internal pleasure potency. When Sri Krsna wants to enjoy, He associates with the gopis, not with women of the material world. This is another indication of the gopis' superexcellent spiritual position. In Krsna's exchanges with the gopis through the hladini-sakti, there is unlimited and unending ecstasy; this pleasure is far different from the quickly satiated lusts of sexual affairs, which are soon followed by painful entanglements and karmic reactions.

Even after Sukadeva Gosvami had explained the spiritual nature of the love that Krsna and the gopis exchanged during the rasa dance, Maharaja Pariksit questioned Sukadeva as to why Krsna would act in a way that would make ordinary people see Him as immoral. Sukadeva replied that because Lord Krsna is the supreme isvara, or controller, He is independent of all social and religious principles. This is simply more evidence of His greatness. As the supreme isvara, Lord Krsna may sometimes violate His own instructions with impunity, but that is possible only for the supreme controller, not for us. Since no one can imitate such astounding activities of Lord Krsna's

as creating the universe or lifting Govardhana Hill, no one should try to imitate His rasa dance, either. To further clear up all doubts about Krsna and the gopis, one may read Chapter Thirty-two of Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

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Copyright (c) The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International, Inc.
His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder Acarya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness
Satsvarupa dasa Goswami
Gopiparanadhana dasa Adhikari