As Parvati is the chaste wife of Lord Shiva how could she have come personally to tempt Haridas Thakura?
From: Shravan
I have some doubt in understanding the role of mother Parvathi. It is said that Maya herself personally came to test Haridas thakur. How can we understand this ? Parvathi is the chaste wife of Lord Shiva and practically mother of all living entities in material world. How can I understand that she goes personally to allure someone else ?
I have some doubt in understanding the role of Mother Parvati. It is said that Maya herself personally came to test Vaidasa Thakur.
How can we understand this? Parvati is the chaste wife of Lord Shiva and practically mother of all living entities in the material world. How can I understand that she goes personally to allure someone else? Actually, this is a pastime arranged to glorify the exalted devotee of the Lord. That is Haridasa Thakur.
Therefore, in this situation, the emphasis on the statement from the Chetan Charita Amrit and the associated literature that Parvati Devi herself came is to indicate, to emphasize the point that actually Maya with her whole potency, in her complete energy came to try to tempt Haridasa Thakur. So here personally is used in the sense that she came, she did not send any representative. She came with her full potency.
She herself came. Just like Ravana might send some demon to kill some lesser enemy. But when he understood the power of Lord Ram, then he himself came to fight.
So he personally came to fight. So that personally is used in that sense. And we have to understand that as far as she being the chaste wife of Lord Shiva and still acting as a temptress of someone, we have to understand that that is her service.
When she personally goes to tempt someone, that doesn’t mean that she becomes unchaste to Lord Shiva. Because we have to understand that Maya, the word Maya has multiple senses. Senses are meanings.
And Maya as the ultimate presiding goddess, who is Parvati Devi, she is forever chaste to her Lord Shiva. But at the same time, when we say Maya allures us or allures any conditioned soul, or sometimes she tries to allure liberated souls, because that is her service to the Lord to test the strength of purpose of the souls in this world, whether they really want to serve Krishna or whether they want to disturb Krishna by their own demands. So for that purpose, she assumed the role of a temptress.
And just as Krishna, when he comes to the material world, he may come in contact with matter, but he doesn’t become contaminated by matter. He still remains transcendental. So similarly, when Maya acts as a temptress of any living being in this world, that role of doing that as a function, as a service, as a part of the cosmic order, that doesn’t contaminate her.
So just as doing something through her representatives doesn’t contaminate her. Similarly, if at all in a particular situation she comes personally, here personally doesn’t mean that she’s unchaste to Lord Shiva. It essentially means that she has come with her full potency.
That means there is no higher test that can or needs to be offered if a person passes this test. And then Haridas Thakur passes that test in flying colors, thereby indicating that she is, that Haridas Thakur was truly absorbed in Krishna and could not be distracted by Maya. So even when she comes to test, she doesn’t become unchaste because she herself is only doing this as a service on behalf of the Supreme Lord.
And she herself remains pure because she would not get, because in a particular case, she knew that Haridas Thakur would not succumb to the temptation. And her coming there was primarily to demonstrate to the world the glory of Haridas Thakur’s pure devotion to the Supreme Lord.