Raasa LeelA of Krishna with Gopis of Brindavan: 4 of 4.

[Guest guest]

Namaste.

 

At the end of it all, Krishna reappears. The Gopis are agog

with excitement. It was as if their lives returned to them

(“tanvaH prANaM iva AgataM” X-32-3). All the varieties of

human emotions that can arise at such an event are

described here without inhibitions. It is a no-holds-barred

description. At the end of it all, Krishna, whose seat is

in the hearts of great yogis, now sits encircled by these

gopis on an elevated sand dune on the bank of Kalindi, lit

up splendidly by the abundant autumnal moonlight and starts

talking with them in very intimate terms. It is said that

each gopi had the feet of the Lord on her lap.

 

Mark this statement. Here starts the full sway of the mAyA

of the Lord. There were at least a hundred gopis. In fact

the numbers that are mentioned in the Bhagavatam will make

our heads reel. Anyway there were several of them. If each

one had the feet of the Lord on her lap, and if each one

was having the feeling that the Lord was talking to herself

with His feet on her lap, the Lord must have replicated

himself as many times as there were gopis there. This point

is mentioned when the actual Raas Leela starts, but even

here the magic of the mAyA has started!

 

Now Krishna starts talking. In fact they have raised an

important question for Him to answer. Some people

reciprocate the affection only of those who are

affectionate toward them, while others show affection even

to those who are indifferent or inimical. And yet others

will not show affection toward anyone. Dear Krishna, please

properly explain this matter to us.(X-32-16), say the

Gopis. And He explains very patiently, in shlokas 17 to 22:

 

So-called friends who show affection for each other only to

benefit themselves are actually selfish. They have no true

friendship, nor are they following the true principles of

religion. Indeed, if they did not expect benefit for

themselves, they would not reciprocate. Some people are

genuinely merciful or, like parents, naturally

affectionate. Such persons, who devotedly serve even those

who fail to reciprocate with them, are following the true,

faultless path of religion, and they are true well-wishers.

Some people, being spiritually self-satisfied, do not

reciprocate others' affection because they want to avoid

entanglement in mundane dealings. Other persons do not

reciprocate simply out of envy or arrogance. And still

others fail to reciprocate because they are materially

satisfied and thus uninterested in new material

opportunities.

 

I do understand that simply for My sake you had rejected

the authority of worldly opinion, of the Vedas and of your

relatives. But I acted as I did only to increase your

attachment to Me. Even when I removed Myself from your

sight by suddenly disappearing, I never stopped loving you.

 

Therefore, My beloved gopîs, please do not harbor any bad

feelings toward Me, your beloved. I will not be able to

repay My debt for your spotless service, even within a

lifetime of Brahmâ.

(na pâraye 'ham niravadya-samyujâm

sva-sâdhu-krityam vibudhâyushâpi vah) X-32-22

 

Your connection with Me is beyond reproach. You have

worshiped Me, cutting off all domestic ties, which are

difficult to break. Therefore please let your own glorious

deeds be your compensation.

 

This passage speaks volumes about the love of the gopis

towards Krishna and how he acknowledged it. It is the

charter that gives the universally glorified sanctity to

the spotless Krishna-Bhakti of the Gopis. Great devotees

are not great because they call themselves so (if at all),

but because the Lord calls them great!

 

And now begins the Raas LeelA, the most enchanting of all

His leelAs. They all linked their arms together and thought

they were encircling Him. But actually between each pair of

gopis there was a Krishna. Each Gopi felt the left hand of

Krishna on her right shoulder and the right hand of Krishna

on her left shoulder. She was thinking therefore that

Krishna was dancing in front of her, facing her with His

hands on her shoulders. But what was happening was that she

had one Krishna on her left and another Krishna on her

right! The yogeshvara that Krishna was, he had enveloped

the entire assembly of Gopis in His mAyA and their minds

were not their own now. They thought whatever He wanted

them to think! But they all enjoyed an eternal bliss in

the play of Raas LeelA! There were actually three such

plays. One in water (‘jala-kRIDA), one in the woods

(‘vana-kRIDA’) and one on open ground (‘sthala-kRIDA’). The

night itself got extended because the elements had all

halted. Heaven and Nature watched this magnificent divine

romantic dance of the several Krishnas with the several

Gopis. And the beauty of it all was, that, back home, in

every house of the gopis, the gopi’s husband did not miss

his wife; as far as he knew she was there with him!. The

whole world was in trance, as it were! That was the

greatness of the Raas dance!

 

Well, let us come down to terra firma. When this whole

thing had been narrated by Suka, King Parikshit asks the

most relevant question: “Well, let me take it that Krishna

had nothing to achieve, because He is always

self-fulfilled. But what he did does not appear to be

ethical, from any worldly angle. Why, then, did he do

that? Should He not set the right example?” (X-33 – 27 to

29).

 

Note that Parikshit’s question is not the question we

ourselves raised at the beginning of this article. We said

that we shall not be discussing this issue if it had the

assumption that Krishna was an ordinary human being. King

Parikshit postulates his acceptance of the divinity of

Krishna. But his question is: Why does the Lord set a bad

example for mankind?

 

And Suka answers: (X – 33 -30 to 38): The status of

Ishvara is not harmed by any apparently audacious

transgression of morality we may see in Him, for He is just

like fire, that devours everything fed into it and remains

unpolluted. We ordinary people should never imitate the

behavior of such ruling personalities, even mentally. If

out of foolishness an ordinary person does imitate such

behaviour, he will simply destroy himself, just as a person

who is not Rudra would destroy himself if he tried to drink

an ocean of poison. It is the words of Ishvara which we

should follow, not those of His actions which are

inconsistent with those words.

When these great persons who are free from false ego act

piously in this world, they have no selfish motives to

fulfill, and even when they act in apparent contradiction

to the laws of piety, they are not subject to sinful

reactions. How, then, could the Lord of all created beings

have any connection with the piety and impiety that affect

His subject creatures?

 

Material activities never entangle even the devotees of the

Supreme Lord, who are fully satisfied by serving the dust

of His lotus feet. Nor do material activities entangle

those intelligent sages who have freed themselves from the

bondage of all fruitive reactions by the fact that they

have disassociated themselves with their body, mind

intellect. Then, how could there be any question of

bondage for the Lord Himself, who assumes His

transcendental forms according to His own sweet will?

 

The Actionlessness of the Lord is well-known from his

statements in the Gita:

 

By Me was created the four varNas, in accordance with their

GuNas and karma. Know Me as its doer and know Me also as

the imperishable non-doer. (Gita IV-13)

 

Those works do not bind Me. I sit, indifferent as it were,

unattached to those actions. (Gita IX – 9)

 

In fact Actionlessness is a central concept in the

understanding of the actions of a man of wisdom

(brahma-jnAni). The nAhaM kartA (I-am-not-the-doer)

attitude is the core of all of Krishna’s advice to Arjuna.

For more on this, go to

http://www.geocities.com/profvk/livehappily_11.html

 

He who lives as the sAkshhI (overseeing witness) within the

gopîs and their husbands, and indeed within all embodied

living beings, assumes forms in this world to enjoy

transcendental pastimes. When the Lord assumes a humanlike

body to show mercy to His devotees, He engages in such

pastimes as will attract those who hear about them to

become dedicated to Him.

 

For us, devotees of Krishna, we are told by Suyka himself,

that those who listen to these stories of this great Raas

LeelA of Krishna, will not only become great devotees of

the Lord, but would be able to conquer the ingrained lust

in the human psyche!

 

LokAs samastAs sukhino bhavantu.

 

Raadhe Krishna! It is said that Raadha was given a promise

by the Lord that for all time to come, Her name (Radha’s)

would be taken first before His own (Krishna’s) is taken!!

Raadhe Krishna!!!

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Note: All the four articles are available on the web

starting from the following page:

http://www.geocities.com/profvk/gohitvip/Raslilapage1.html

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PraNAms to all devotees of Krishna.

profvk

 

 

 

 

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Prof. V. Krishnamurthy

My website on Science and Spirituality is http://www.geocities.com/profvk/

You can access my book on Gems from the Ocean of Hindu Thought Vision and

Practice, and my father R. Visvanatha Sastri's manuscripts from the site.

Also see my webpages on Live Happily, the Gita Way at

http://www.geocities.com/profvk/gohitvip/contentsbeach11.html