Krishna Lila Varnanam Part 2

(1) When madhurya-rasa becomes excessively liquified, then love pours like rain during the rainy season. Then the gopis, who are most dear to Hari and fully absorbed in His thought, become maddened while chanting His glories. (2) Being overwhelmed by the sound of Krishna's flute, the gopis of Vraja worshiped goddess Yogamaya with a desire to attain Krishna. The appearance of the truth of Vaikuntha in the pure consciousness of the living entities of this world is called Vraja. The word vraja means “to go.” It is impossible to elevate oneself in this material world by rejecting maya, therefore one should take shelter of favorable material items and try to search for the indescribable truth. For this reason living entities who have attained the mood of gopis take shelter of the great goddess Yogamaya to help them attain the Lord's pastimes in the spiritual world. (3 – 4) Those persons who have an intense desire to serve Krishna have no secrets amongst themselves or with others. In order to teach this principle to the devotees, Krishna stole the clothes of the gopis. A heart that is situated in pure goodness is the proper abode for attachment to the Lord. He exposed the gopis' love for Him by stealing away their clothes. (5) While tending the cows near Mathura, Sri Krishna begged food grains from the brahmanas who were engaged in sacrifice. Being proud of their caste, those brahmanas considered that performing sacrifices was the highest principle and therefore did not give Krishna any food. (6) The reason for this is that high-caste brahmanas are so-called followers of the Vedas, and therefore they cannot realize the subtle purport of the Vedas. They follow the process of insignificant fruitive activities and become materialistic, or they study the science of self-realization and speculative knowledge and become absorbed in impersonalism. Such brahmanasprefer to simply remain controlled by the scriptural injunctions or previous ancestors by formally carrying out their instructions. They are unable to understand that attachment to the Lord is the primary purpose of all scriptures, so how can they become servants of Krishna? We should not misunderstand from this that all brahmanas are mundane fruitive workers or followers of speculative knowledge. Many great personalities appeared in brahmana families and attained the topmost position of devotional service. Therefore the purport of this verse is thatasslike brahmanas who formally carry out the rules and regulations are averse to Krishna, but swanlike brahmanas are servants of Krishna and thus worshipable by all. (7) The wives of the asslike brahmanas represent people who are subordinate to those with undeveloped faith. Being under the control of the sweetness of Krishna, who is the Supersoul, they went to the forest and offered themselves to Him. Those who have undeveloped faith are called mundane devotees. (8) By this incident the equality of all living entities is ascertained. There is no consideration of caste in pleasing Krishna, rather caste consciousness sometimes becomes an obstacle in the development of love. (9) In order to maintain social order, the Aryans divided society into four castes and four social orders. If the social system is protected, then people's spiritual lives are nourished by good association and discussion. Therefore the varnasrama system should be accepted in all respects. By this arrangement there is a possibility of gradually attaining love for Krishna. The main purpose for this arrangement is the cultivation of spiritual life, or love for Krishna. Even if one attains perfection without following this process, still it should not be disregarded. At this point one should understand that after attaining perfection, this process naturally becomes unimportant. There is no fault in the rejection of the relatively less important process of varnasramaby those who have attained perfection in the form of love for Krishna. Therefore the conclusion is that faults and qualities can be attributed only in respect to the qualification of the performer. (10) Lord Yajnesvara is the predominating Lord of the activities for protecting the social order. His representative amongst the living entities is Indra. Such activities are of two varieties—constitutional and conditional. Those regular activities which are meant for maintaining one's life are called constitutional. Any activities other than these are conditional. If we consider, we can understand that all fruitive activities fall under the category of either constitutional or conditional. Therefore activities performed either with material desire or without material desire fall under the categories of constitutional or conditional activities. Lord Krishna forbade His devotees from performing any activities other than those meant for maintaining their lives. WhenIndra, the lord of fruitive activities, saw Lord Krishna arrange to neglect the activities meant to nourish the world, he created a great disturbance. The Lord protected the devotees from flood and supplied their needs by accepting Govardhana, the expanding shelter of sober persons, as an umbrella. (11) If the activities that nourish the world are neglected for the cultivation of Krishna consciousness, the devotees of Krishna should not feel anxiety. (12) No one can destroy one whom Krishna wants to protect. The strength of regulations cannot influence such persons. What to speak of the bondage of regulations, nothing other than the bondage of love for the Lord can bind the devotees. (13) In Sri Vrndavana, the land of faith, the Yamuna, the personification of spiritual liquid, flows. Nanda Maharaja was merged in that water, and the Lord delivered him as part of His pastimes. (14) Thereafter, Lord Krishna mercifully displayed the truth and opulence of Vaikuntha to the cowherd men. This shows that Krishna's sweetness is so prominent that His opulences become covered by its presence. (15) The Lord, who is very dear to the eternally perfect living entities and their followers, performed His rasa-lila, which is the culmination of ecstatic love. (16) After the most merciful Lord increased the amorous love of the gopis by suddenly disappearing from them, He began to dance in the circle of the rasa-lila. (17 – 18) In this material world, which is created by maya, there is a principle constellation named Dhruva. All the suns along with their planets continually circle around Dhruva by its power of attraction. The main consideration is that there is an energy known as attraction in all material atoms. By the strength of this energy, atoms are attracted to each other and they thus create a globular planet. When these planets are attracted to a larger globular planet, they begin to move around it. This is the invariable law of this material world. Maya is the basis of the material world and only a reflection of the spiritual world. This has already been explained previously while discussing the energies of the Lord. By their eternal constitution, in the form of love, the sparklike conscious living entities in the spiritual world are attracted to one another, and they imitate one with more elevated consciousness. Those more elevated conscious persons with their subordinate conscious associates constantly move in the rasa-lila circle of Krishna, who is the superconscious supreme Dhruva. Therefore the great rasa-lilapastimes are eternally manifest in the realm of Vaikuntha. In the spiritual world the ever-existing attachment extends love up to mahabhava, and in the material world the reflection extends as an inconceivable material attraction that creates variegated nature. In order to illustrate subtle truths by gross examples we say that in the material world the sun along with the planets are constantly moving around the Dhruva constellation by the strength of its attraction, just as all pure living entities eternally circle around Krishna by the strength His attraction. (19) In the transcendental rasa-lila pastimes, Sri Krishna is the only enjoyer and all others are enjoyed. The conclusion is that the sunlike personality of the spiritual world, Lord Sri Krishna, is the only male and the living entities are all female. All the relationships of the spiritual world are based on pure love, one therefore finds the enjoyer is male and the enjoyed are female. The males and females of the material world are perverted reflections of the enjoyer and enjoyed of the spiritual world. If one searches through all dictionaries one will not find the words to properly describe the spiritual pastimes of the supremely conscious Lord and His associates. Hence the descriptions of the man and woman of the material world are used here as an appropriate indication. There is no necessity or suggestion of obscene thoughts in this regard. If we reject these activities as obscene, then we miss the opportunity to discuss that supreme pastime. We are able to describe the truths of Vaikuntha by describing mundane emotions as the reflections of spiritual emotions. There is no other alternative in this regard. For example: Krishna is merciful. But to show how Krishna is merciful, one has to give the example of certain persons who are merciful. There is no way of expressing this quality other than by giving a well-known example. Therefore swanlike persons should give up shyness and obscene considerations and then hear, read, and think about the transcendental topics of the rasa-lila without anxiety. (20) The topmost expression of the rasa-lila is that Srimati Radhika, who is the personification of hladini, who manifests the sweetness of Krishna, and who is supremely worshipable by the living entities, is surrounded by the sakhis, who are personifications of various emotions, and beautifully situated in the rasa dance. (21) After the rasa-lila dance, the water sports in the spiritual waters of the Yamuna naturally take place. (22) When Maharaja Nanda, who is personified happiness, was swallowed by the snake, who personifies merging with the Supreme, Krishna, the protector of the devotees, rescued him from danger. Sankhacuda was the personification of fame, because he considered fame as his life and soul. He was killed while trying to create disturbances in Vraja. (23) When Krishna, the enemy of Kamsa, decided to go to Mathura, the horse demon Keshi, who personifies the vanity of political ambition, was killed. (24) Akrura, the catalyst of future events, took Krishna and Balarama to Mathura, where the two Lords first killed the wrestlers and then Kamsa. (25) After the atheist Kamsa was killed, his father, Ugrasena, the personification of freedom, was installed on the throne by Krishna. (26) The two wives of Kamsa, Asti and Prapti, described the killing of their husband to Jarasandha, the personification of fruitive activities. (27) Hearing their description, the King of Magadha gathered a huge army and attacked Mathura seventeen times, but was defeated each time. (28) When Jarasandha again attacked Mathura, the Lord went to His abode of Dvaraka. The main purport is that there are ten types of purificatory activities, such as funeral rites, along with four castes and four orders of life, which brings the total to eighteen. Among these, when the eighteenth, or sannyasa, captures the abode of knowledge, then due to the desire for liberation the Lord disappears. (29) During Krishna's residence in Mathura, He left for gurukula, where He very easily studied all the scriptures. He brought the dead sons of His guru back to life and offered them to His guru. (30) There is no need for Krishna, who is independently perfect, to endeavor for an education, but when one resides in Mathura, the abode of knowledge, one's knowledge gradually expands. This was illustrated in this pastime. (31) Those who enjoy the fruits of their activities are called lusty. Such peoples' attachment for Krishna is contaminated with impurities, but if they cultivate attachment to Krishna for a long time, then pure devotion arises. (32) While residing in Mathura, Krishna had a seemingly mundane affair with Kubja. Although there were lusty desires in the heart of Kubja, those desires were ultimately transformed into pure love. Thereafter Krishna sent Uddhava to Gokula to teach him that the loving sentiments of the residents of Vraja are the highest of all. (33) In the smritis it is stated that the Pandavas were like the branches of religion and the Kauravas were like branches of irreligion. Therefore Lord Krishna was the friend and protector of the Pandavas. (34) The Lord sent Akrura to Hastinapura as an ambassador to establish religious principles and deliver the sinful persons.