Damodarashtakam Verse 03 – How Krishna reveals his sweetness to those who are absorbed in his greatness

So here in the Damodar Leela the Leela itself is described in the two verses Satyavit Muni is not so much talking about narrating the Leela in his trance he's meditating on the beauty and the glory of the Leela and here now he starts his analysis he's given some analytical sections earlier also how the Lord is bound only by love but now he goes more into a sweet and relishable analysis so he says Iti Druk Swa Leela Bhair Swa Leela by one's own pastimes Iti Druk Druk means to see or to make visible Iti Druk so Iti Druk can refer to this particular pastime of the Lord of himself becoming bound by Mother Yashoda or it can refer to in general childhood pastimes which is performing Gokula so Gokule Brajmanam was earlier Iti Druk so in this way actually this pastime is extraordinary but even the other pastimes where Krishna steals and Krishna hides and Krishna does all sorts of extraordinary things they are incomprehensible not just for the material intellect but even for the even for the religiously minded intellect now when the Europeans came to India and in their religion they had a conception of God who was high and mighty a God who sits in the clouds and who sends down thunder boils on the sinful and sends them down to hell to burn in the fires of perdition forever so with this conception of God they came to India and then they saw these beautiful images or beautiful depictions in the temple carvings and other places of this sweet little boy who had butter on his mouth and one hand was in a butter pot and they said what is this who is doing what is he doing this is God and he is stealing butter they just got intellectually short circuited just couldn't comprehend the idea God is a small boy how is that possible and if God is a small baby why does he have to steal and if he has to steal anything why butter what is so special about butter so actually the activities within Leela can be understood only by Prema by Bhakti without an emotional vision it can just be incomprehensible it can make it seem entirely insensible also absurd the past tense can seem but when we see with the eyes of love we see even in this world a person may be a prime minister or a president but when the president goes home at that time he doesn't like all intimate family members to call him prime minister he would like them to address him by pet name and deal with him purely based on affection that's how it is with the supreme lord so the lord doesn't delight in the display of his godhood but delights in the reciprocation of love and why does he have to steal anything he doesn't have to steal anything but when he plays the role of a child he plays that role to perfection and in that perfection he acts as a mischievous child because that mischief gives his parents and his devotees in the parental rasa the substance for their eminently relishable discussions and not just for those devotees but for all devotees specifically because he acts as a child and his devotees relish it enormously and why does he have to steal butter actually butter represents just as milk is churned then gradually it becomes butter so like that when our heart is churned then it becomes soft like butter soft soft and relishable so butter is that butter represents the efforts that the devotees are putting in to serve him and when the devotees put in that effort to serve him prepare something for him he can take it straight for them but he steals it just to increase the excitement of the past times so kunda is like a pond so we have Radha kunda we have Shyam kunda extremely exalted places in Vrindavan so there are many kundas but here is a special kunda we refer to Ananda kunda the pond of happiness so what is the lord doing by this by displaying such past times he is flooding and drowning his associates in streams and ponds and floods of happiness swaghosham nimajantam akhyapayantam swaghosham he is declaring about himself he is revealing about his own intimate sweet personal nature nimajantam akhyapayantam akhyapayantam nimajantam flooding drowning akhyapayantam what is intimate relationship and what is that revelation that he is giving tadiyeshita geshu bhaktlerji tattvam tadiyeshita geshu that those people who think of him in gyan in a exalted mood of his greatness tadiyeshita geshu so those who are aware of his greatness in his form there is Vishnu where is the controller of all controllers and he is appeased by gigantic and majestic fire sacrifices so he is telling them yeshita geshu that I am conquered bhaktlerji tattvam I am conquered by bhakti and by nothing else bhaktlerji tattvam alternatively Sanatana Goswami gives another sweeter explanation of this he says tadiya ishta geshu so he says that those who know the greatness of his devotees he reveals himself he reveals his sweetness to those who acknowledge the greatness of his devotees so actually the viraja pastimes cannot be understood without understanding the greatness of the virajavasis the whole world prays to God the virajavasis pray for God the virajavasis pray for God they do not think of God as God they think God is just eminently lovable cowherd among us and they think God is Narayan and because we are praying to Narayan so Krishna is being protected so those who understand the greatness of his devotees to them his sweetness is revealed he is conquered by nothing except bhakti and in our life also most of us especially those who were born in a Hindu culture or in India in general we have knew about Krishna but Krishna was just a mythological or a historical character just one small one part of our of the cultural landscape we understood him as the all attractive supreme lord when we came to know about his devotees and through his devotees they reveal his greatness to us so those who understand the glory of his devotees he reveals his sweetness to them and he says to them hundreds of times these are superlatives they express again and again and again I offer obeisances with love again so just by remembering how the devotees love the lord and how the lord love the devotees love comes up in the heart of those who meditate on him also with love hundreds of times I offer obeisances so Sanatana Goswami explains that this offering of obeisances hundreds of times is not in a mood of awe and reverence although in awe and reverence also we say I offer obeisances again and again in the eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna says that I offer obeisances he says he wants to offer obeisances in the vishwaroopa but where will he offer obeisances vishwaroopa is everywhere is everywhere so I offer obeisances from front from behind from everywhere and hundreds of times I offer obeisances so in awe and greatness one can offer obeisances but here Satyabhat Muni is offering obeisances out of spontaneous love obeisances is not experience is not expression of reverence it's an expression of appreciation of the pure devotion and resulting emergence of pure devotion in the heart that's why puna premata so that one day is not out of aishwarya the one day is out of prema to such a lord I offer obeisances again and again and again so just as love is arising in the heart of Satyabhat Muni on meditating on the lord's sweet pastime similarly we can pray that oh lord let devotion arise even in my heart.