Bhagavatam-daily 255 – 11.12.12 – Krishna uses impersonalist imagery to convey devotional glory

Thank you. So, in this verse, Krishna is continuing to describe the glory of the love of the gopis.
And actually, there is a double metaphor. Krishna gives one metaphor and for that metaphor, we use a second metaphor to convey the glory of the love of the gopis. So, he states over here that these gopis were so attached to Krishna, their consciousness was so absorbed in Krishna that they completely lost awareness of their bodies, of their surroundings and they were completely absorbed in Krishna and that’s how when Krishna played his flute calling the gopis at that time, the Bhagavatam describes how some of the gopis were dressing themselves and they forgot, they were so captivated by Krishna’s call manifested through the playing of the flute, that they just hastily dressed themselves and ran out.
So, they even put some of the clothing in properly. The upper part came below and the below part came up like that. So, forgetting to dress properly happens only when one is so internally absorbed that one is not even aware of what one’s dress is.
There is the story of Archimedes, when he got the Eureka moment, when he understood how to detect the extent of alloy in gold, which was the task the king had given to him. So, he was thinking about it and suddenly got the idea while he was bathing in his bathing tub and he was so excited that he just jumped out of his tub and charged out to the king’s court and only when he reached there and started bursting out his idea of how the composition of ornament, how much gold and how much alloy that could be detected and bursting it out to the king and then he saw everyone giving him strange looks and then he looked at himself and noticed he was unclothed. He had been so excited that he just charged out in that excitement without even putting any clothes on himself.
So, here if even something that is intellectually inspiring can bring such absorption, then what to speak of something that is devotionally absorbing. After all, Krishna says that everything attractive manifests the spark of his splendor. So, if one idea can captivate so much as to bring such unconscious, utter unconsciousness of one’s own self, one’s own bodily state of dress or undress, so we can imagine when one is absorbed in Krishna, one has great love for Krishna, how much will be the absorption.
So, the Gopis, they charged out to Krishna and that was just one occasion when their love was dramatically demonstrated but on other occasions also they would be immensely absorbed in Krishna and to convey the extent, the magnitude of this absorption, Krishna gives the example here of a yogi who is trying to go beyond worldly forms and worldly dualities to meditate on and merge in the non-differentiated absolute. So, when those yogis become very absorbed in their trance, then they lose awareness of everything and they just become completely absorbed in Brahman. So, they are not aware of their own bodies, their own selves, they are just absorbed in Brahman.
So, like that Krishna is saying the Gopis are absorbed in me and now to demonstrate how the yogis are absorbed in Krishna, which is an example in Brahman, which is an example given to illustrate how the Gopis are absorbed in Krishna. A third example given in the verse or a third point is made, a third level comparison is made. First is the basic of Gopis and Krishna, second is the yogis and the absolute truth and third is the river and the ocean.
The river and the ocean, this is a river rushes to and enters into the ocean. Now, sometimes this example is given for merging, this is a river merges into ocean. Similarly, the soul merges into Brahman, but that is not the exact import of this metaphor because we see that what happens between the river and the ocean is not that the river loses identity, rather the river keeps coming and uniting with the tributary, keeps coming to the river or the river keeps coming towards the ocean.
So, normally in the conception of merging, there is the notion of the dissolution of one’s identity after attaining perfection, that is the impersonal conception, but it is clear that the Gopis did not merge that way. The Gopis were absorbed in love for Krishna, the Bhagavatam, while describing their intense devotion conveys to us the essential point that what others, what in the Bhagavatam’s audience, they are not only devotees, there are impersonalists also and impersonalists often use the merging into the ocean metaphor quite frequently to describe the perfection that they achieve and among spiritual circles, the idea of merging is often considered to be exalted achievement, especially among non-personalist spiritualists. So, the Bhagavatam uses that terminology and that frame of discussion to convey the exaltedness of the love of the Gopis for Krishna rather than for those who may not be able to understand, Krishna’s love, if it is presented directly to them, what here it is done is that using impersonalist imagery, impersonalist sounding imagery, devotional glory is conveyed.
So, the point is that the same message has to be presented at different times according to the way people can understand and become attracted to it. So, here Krishna is speaking to Uddhava and the whole mood of the Uddhava Gita is the mood of renunciation and detachment and that attracts even the impersonalists and Krishna is not just giving a message of renunciation, he is giving a message of devotion but he is phrasing the message of devotion in the context of renunciation and using the imagery of impersonalism so that even those who think that renunciation and impersonal realization are exalted, they can also gain appreciation of the path of devotion and especially of appreciation for the topmost devotees, the Gopis. Thank you.