Radhashtami class – Appreciating the transcendence of the Radha-Krishna relationship
Class at ISKCON, Orlando, USA
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors. On the occasion of the sacred day of Shreemati Radharani’s appearance I seek the blessings of His Holiness Sri Vikram Maharaj that I can try to speak something about Shreemati Radharani So I’ll speak about this in three parts First I’ll talk about the significance of the position of Shreemati Radharani Then I’ll talk about some philosophical analysis that demonstrates or expands on that philosophical significance Then we’ll discuss some past times of Shreemati Radharani and how they relate with us in our life The world’s many theistic traditions talk about God and when they talk about God, they often talk about Him as an object of reverence object of devotion object to surrender to The Bhakti tradition of ancient India takes this understanding much further by giving us a vivid revelation of God God is not just one person alone existing somewhere high up there God exists with a whole community of those who love Him and those whom He loves and that revelation which comes in the Bhakti texts like the Bhagavad Gita, the Srimad Bhagavatam and other esoteric texts that gives us a very attractive understanding of God as a very loving and lovable person and whatever relationships we see in this world those relationships are present in their pure and perennial form with God in the spiritual world in the Bhagavad Gita in the 15th chapter first text Krishna describes Krishna says that there is an upside down banyan tree whose roots go up and whose branches go down normally where do we see such a tree which is upside down we can see it in a reflection so through this metaphorical words the Gita conveys that this world is like a reflection of another world this world is a reflection and another world which is the spiritual world so whatever relationships are present in this world just like if I see a reflected mango then that means if I see there must be a mango in the original which is being reflected here so the relationships that we see in this world they are present in their pure and perennial form in the spiritual world and Krishna has many devotees now God can be known by many names the Bhakti tradition gives him a most inclusive name reveals him to having a most inclusive name that is Krishna Krishna means Sarva Aakarshati Krishna one who attracts everyone that person is Krishna and how he attracts everyone and how he attracts how others are attracted to him that is revealed through the many leelas that he performs and the most intimate the most sweet the most intense leela the pastime that he performs is with his topmost devotees among them Radharani is the highest now before we understand the significance of Radharani’s appearance let us first understand the concept of leela leela is the special revelation about God’s activities that is found in the Bhakti tradition now the word leela literally means play or pastime and God himself has nothing to do he is not duty bound to do anything God does not have to do a 10 to 6 job to earn his living God is complete in himself om purnam adhah purnam and yet he shares love with his devotees so for example if there is a person who when people become young they feel incomplete without a life partner so they want to form a relationship so that they can gain a sense of completeness on the other hand if there is a person who is very wealthy and very charitable that person has a lot of food and that person gives food in charity now its not that the person is feeling any incompleteness but the completeness that they have they want to share with others and for that they form a relationship so relationship can be formed to try to avoid incompleteness or they can be formed to share completeness so Krishna as God is complete in himself and he does not need anyone he is atma ram self satisfied but for sharing love he forms a relationship with others and when he forms relationships he doesn’t want unilateral unidimensional relationships where he is God and everybody comes down and bows to him he wants close intimate relationships and for that purpose he arranges the occurrence of leela, now leela occurs through the energy of God called as yoga maya yoga maya is actually a very interesting concept the maya is most of you have heard the word maya is the illusory energy that puts us into illusion in contrast yoga is that which connects us with God yoga is that which takes us towards spiritual reality so maya is that which takes us away from God, yoga is that which takes us towards God so what is this yoga maya two coming together now yoga maya technically it is an oxymoron oxymoron is a figure of speech in which two contradictory ideas are brought together say for example if somebody says you know he is a courageous coward you can be somebody very courageous they can be cowardly, how can you have both so it is said that suicide is an act of courageous cowardice it requires courage to end one’s life but when one is ending one’s life because of frustration and inability to deal with life’s problem that is cowardice, so suicide is an act of courageous cowardice so at first glance an oxymoron doesn’t make sense but if you think deeply a deeper idea is conveyed over there so yoga maya is what yoga maya is maya means illusion yoga means connection with God so yoga maya is the illusion that deepens our connection with God normally illusion disconnects us from God but yoga maya is the illusion that deepens our connection with God and as it is by yoga maya’s arrangement that yashoda maya she thinks that Krishna is my son actually krishna is the lord of everyone he is the lord of everyone but it is because of yoga maya yashoda thinks that if i don’t feed krishna he will starve he may even die actually it is krishna who is the annadata for everyone but that is a yoga maya and when yoga maya is there there is intensification of love yashoda feels i have to take care of krishna and that intensifies her love and krishna wants this he doesn’t want everyone just to adore him so within this relationship krishna has a mother krishna has a father, krishna has a brother and like that krishna also has a consort and his consort is srimati radharani now srimati radharani is the topmost devotee of krishna in the amorous relationship with him in the conjugal relationship with him so before we understand the concept of leela further in terms of the relationship between radharani and krishna lets try to understand this leela further say yashoda maya gets angry with krishna she says i will tie you up i will punish you so how can she do that how can she do that if krishna is god how can she do that leela is like a play or we could call it a drama usually the word drama conveys something unreal but this is a supreme reality so now in the drama that is being performed that is leela krishna is the main hero and yogamaya is the director director is the person who directs you do like this so yogamaya directs everyone yogamaya directs yashoda to think that krishna is her son and yogamaya directs krishna to think my mother is angry with me she will beat me what will happen to me no i cannot be beaten he becomes scared so now normally the hero is directed by the director so the hero cannot act any way they want they have to act according to the directors so yogamaya directs krishna now if yogamaya is directing krishna then how is krishna god how is he in control at the start of the radharani’s only mention comes in the shimad bhagavatam indirectly in one past time that is the rasa leela that is chapter 29 to 33 of the 10th canto of shimad bhagavatam and that section begins with describing how krishna he takes shelter of yogamaya yogamaya that he takes shelter of yogamaya actually the whole world takes shelter of krishna he is the ashraya supreme shelter how can he take shelter of yogamaya so that taking shelter of yogamaya means that he is basically allowing himself to be directed by yogamaya so in that sense he is taking shelter but how is he in control if he is directed by yogamaya see a director basically directs a play or directs a movie whatever it is but the director directs according to the script that is written by a script writer so in krishna leela krishna is the hero yogamaya is the director but krishna is also the script writer so yogamaya directs krishna according to krishna’s will so in that sense krishna is not in control because he is being directed by yogamaya and he is also in control because yogamaya is directing him according to his own will so this is the mystery of krishna leela and in this krishna leela when krishna performs fast dance with his devotees the devotee performs the most intense fast dance that is radharani so now i have a friend who is from a traditional vaishnava background he told that you hare krishna’s you got it all wrong he said that when you refer to krishna you have no honorific no bhagwan, no honorific no honorific, no bhagwan krishna no sri krishna, you just say krishna and when you are referring to radha you have double honorific you have srimati and you have rani also so why like this? why do you have srimati, radharani and only krishna so actually krishna prabhupada founder acharya of this con he wanted us to approach god in a realistic as well as a reverential way so he the way he talked about krishna krishna is god but krishna is also an approachable friend the devotees who were with prabhupada they felt that krishna is a real living loving person who would help them if they try to serve and that eminent approachability of god in his manifestation as krishna that prabhupada conveyed by referring to krishna without any honorific now philosophically speaking prabhupada actually coined the english word practically speaking to convey the position of krishna that is the supreme personality of god and prabhupada did not compromise in conveying the position of krishna but in order to develop a relationship prabhupada emphasised krishna is a living loving person who will respond to our calls that’s why he would often refer to krishna just as krishna but whenever he was talking about philosophy he stressed krishna’s position very clearly now in contrast shri prabhupada referred to radha by the double honorific krishnamati radharani because radha’s position is often misunderstood many people think that the radha krishna relationship is just like a normal male female relationship sometimes a couple who is romantically involved they come to the temple they come to the altar and they see radha krishna and they think oh there is a couple there and here is a couple here now it’s not similar it’s a divine relationship it’s a spiritual relationship so actually to emphasise that radha is not just an ordinary woman prabhupada used the double honorific shrimati radharani she is the supreme goddess of fortune and she is the topmost devotee of krishna so when krishna performs pastimes with his devotees among all the devotees they all want to love and serve krishna krishna reciprocates by wanting to love and serve them love and take care of them so in this relationship between krishna and radharani krishna and his devotees the devotee who serves him the most intimately who is most sweetly is shrimati radharani now when we talk about god in the spiritual world so earlier i mentioned how this world is like a reflection of the spiritual world so whatever relationships are present in this world they are present in their pure and perennial form in the spiritual world so among all relationships in this world the male female relationship is the most intense it is the most consuming and where does this relationship come from its original form is in the spiritual world that is the relationship between the divine couple radha and krishna or we have sita and ram we have lakshmi and narayan the relationships in this world are reflections of those relationships and when krishna performs his pastime with shrimati radharani krishna’s body is spiritual radharani’s body is spiritual their loving relationship is also entirely spiritual and that is why when krishna in the shrimad bhagavatam describes the most intimate pastime with radha and krishna in the rasa leela that is chapters 29 to 33 at the end of it there is a very amazing verse that verse is vikrivitam javishno so the whole rasa leela is being described how krishna and radharani meet and they perform they dance together they sing together normally when people go and watch a romantic movie then their own desires for doing something similar are triggered they are heightened and often people go to heighten their own passionate desire when they watch such movies such scenes or movies whatever they are so some people might think the rasa leela is something similar but then the result of this is described here if somebody hears the rasa leela what will be the result javishno vikrivitam the play with vrajavadhubhir with the cowherd damsels of rindavan idam javishno this person don’t think himself as just an ordinary boy he is not just a boy he is vishnu he is the supreme god and these pastimes that krishna performs with the gopis shraddhanmito anushrunayat athavarnayedya shraddhanmito with shraddha with faith if someone hears them shrunayat athavarnayedya they hear or they speak this what will happen rudrogam asva apahinoti bhaktim param bhagwati pratilabhyakamam bhaktim param bhagwati one will get attraction to krishna once bhakti for krishna will increase and when the bhakti for krishna increases second consequence of it is that kamam selfish desire centred on lust rudrogam that is like a disease of the heart it makes us attached to this world apahinoti that will be destroyed achiren dheeraha very soon dheeraha and the person will become sober so the bhagwatam is saying that by hearing the raslila the attractions of this world the selfish desires the kama that will diminish and go away now normally speaking as I said if people hear male female interactions their kama increases but here the bhagwatam says by hearing this kama will decrease how does that make sense that can only make sense if this is something different from kama this is not kama so going back to the earlier example of a reflection in the reflection suppose a person sees a mango within the reflection and they think oh this mango looks so delicious I want to go and eat this mango I want to go and eat this mango and they go and try to eat it try to eat it and they just go in they don’t find any mango they jump into the river and they look where is the mango there is no mango and they go deep into the river say its shallow they just bang their head enjoy themselves wonder what is happening and then if someone lifts their head up don’t look there they say oh there is a tree over there there is a mango over there then the more they understand that the mango is up there they start climbing up and they lose interest in the reflection isn’t it because this is the reflection that is the reality so the male female attraction that is there in this world that is like the reflected mango and the relationship of the divine couple Radha and Krishna that is like the real mango so most people in this world they are attracted to this reflected mango the movies the novels they are all talking about how we can enjoy through the relationship of this world they talk about H E A happily ever after now if you see the Bhagavad Gita tells us D U K K H A L E M A S H A S H V A T A M this is exactly the opposite of happily ever after the movies tell us that you can just enjoy and live happily in this world and live happily forever but the Bhagavad Gita tells us this word D U K K H A L E M which is the opposite of happiness and A S H A S H V A T A M which is the opposite of ever after now the Bhagavad Gita is not a not a spoil sport it is not a party popper as they say it is not here to tell us that we cannot be happy in this world it is there to tell us how we can be happy in this world so the relationships of this world are a reflection that does not mean they are to be rejected or that they are false but they are to be connected with the reality I will come to that part a little later but suffice it to say that as soon as a person understands this is a real mango then they will not chase after the reflection so similarly when the Bhagavatam says that by hearing Krishna’s pastimes with the Gopis faithfully Sharananvitho Anushunayar Srila Prabhupada explains the word Anu Anu means systematically it means hearing in parampara hearing from proper spiritual authorities who know the subject so when we hear from these spiritual authorities properly then what happens we understand the relationship with Krishna that is like the real mango and the relationships in this world they are like the reflected mango and as soon as we understand this what will happen we will try to go towards the real mango and we will not stay so infatuated with the reflected mango same way it is saying over here if we hear the pastimes of Radha and Krishna then bhaktim param bhagvati pratilam bhaktim param bhagvati our attraction to Krishna to the real mango will increase and the attraction to the reflected mango this kama that will be dissipated apahino de it will be dissipated so the Krishna’s pastimes with the Gopis and especially Krishna’s pastimes with Radha Rani they demonstrate the summit of summit of love the love that we seek in this world that is found in its purest and fullest form in the relationship with Krishna and how do we actually define love love is often equated with sensuality sensual satisfaction but that is very peripheral the defining characteristic of love is selflessness the defining characteristic of love is selflessness and externally the love of Krishna and the Gopis Krishna and Radha that might seem like a mundane male-female interaction but this is characterised it is defined by the topmost selflessness so once Narada Muni was a great sage he wanted to find out who is the topmost devotee and he went to Krishna and he asked Krishna please tell me who is your topmost devotee Krishna said if I tell you, you won’t believe me he says you test for yourself how can I test Krishna said that I have got a headache I have got a headache what can I do for you when we love someone you want to relieve them if they are having any discomfort he says what can I do can I get some medicine for you he says yes I need a medicine but only one medicine will work for my headache what is that he says that is the dust of my devotees lotus feet I am in shock how is this possible he says go and ask my various devotees whether they will give their dust so Narada Muni goes to different devotees in different parts of the world Krishna has got a headache please give the dust of your they are all concerned when they hear that Krishna has a headache but when they hear that we should give the dust of our it is impossible how can you do that like if we go on the altar we are very very careful we touch Krishna not only with our hands but actually we will touch Krishna after washing our hands so Krishna is supremely sacred and we need to be pure when approaching him so actually there is a reverential way to deal with sacred objects and that centres on we don’t touch sacred objects with our feet so what to speak of something we touch our feet to Krishna all the devotees said no we cannot give the dust of our feet to Krishna put it on his head as a medicine for his headache that would be such a great offence Krishna is our worshipable lord if we commit such an offence we will go to hell then Narada Muni goes all around and he asks all different kinds of devotees, nobody is willing finally he thinks all these Gopis, I have heard they are also devotees of Krishna, he will go and ask them so he goes to them and he asks Krishna has got a headache Gopis are horrified Krishna has got a headache, he says what can we do what can we do how can we relieve the headache, he says Krishna leave the dust of your feet immediately the Gopis run to Jamuna they put their legs in the Jamuna water get it out and they move their head in the Vraja dust and their whole legs become filled with dust and they get a big cloth and they take the dust out and they put it all, he says take a big bag of dust so Narada Muni starts thinking these Gopis are illiterate they don’t know any philosophy so they are not understanding what they are doing so Narada Muni tells the Gopis do you know that Krishna is God and if you touch the dust the dust of your lotus feet touches Krishna’s head you will go to hell so the Gopis say we know that but for us the thought that Krishna is having a headache that is hell for us to relieve him of that headache for even one moment we are ready to go to hell forever now he says now stop wasting time go to Krishna immediately so Narada Muni sees this utter selflessness of Krishna’s love of the Gopis love for Krishna then he goes back when Krishna tells that you know if I had told you that Gopis are my top most devotees you would have thought there are so many sages there is so much you would not have believed but now you have understood that the selflessness means they are not concerned about anything except the service of Krishna except how we can please Krishna what can we do for Krishna that is the level of their love for Krishna and within this so I talked about yoga maya earlier the Gopis know at the back of their head Krishna is God God cannot get a headache God relieves everyone’s headaches God doesn’t get a headache but within leela for the intensification of love Krishna acts as if he has got a headache and the Gopis know that Krishna is God but because of their love that knowledge goes in the background so the Acharyas give the example in the day time also stars are there in the sky but because the sun is so bright that the stars cannot be seen so like that for the Gopis the stars are like the knowledge of Krishna’s supreme position but in the sky of their heart the sun of love for Krishna shines bright and because of that love for Krishna the awareness that Krishna is God goes into the background and they don’t focus on the reality that Krishna is God they think Krishna is our lord he is our master we want to serve him we want to do whatever we can for him so with this understanding we can appreciate that among all these Gopis the top most is Srimati Radhaani she is the supreme embodiment of selfless service attitude her only concern is how to love Krishna how to serve Krishna how to please Krishna and actually it is in such selfless service that we get the supreme happiness in material world to be selfless is to have less for the self in the material world if I become selfless I give some money in charity I have less money if I give some food then I have less food but in love it is not like that in love when we give the more to Krishna the more Krishna manifests in our heart the more we become enriched from within with Krishna’s presence and that brings the supreme satisfaction so we can come to God and we can tell God I have this problem please solve this problem that is one level of approaching God but that is a very utilitarian way where we basically have a transactional relationship with God but more pure and more fulfilling relationship is a relationship of selfless service Nrsila Prabhupada started this whole movement called International Society for Krishna Consciousness when I first heard about this society more than 20 years ago I just couldn’t make sense Krishna is spiritual consciousness is scientific what is Krishna Consciousness why do we need an international society for that just couldn’t figure it out but when I read Nrsila Prabhupada’s works and understood that we all have consciousness but our consciousness doesn’t have a home we build a home for our body where we get security where we get some comfort but our consciousness our heart is homeless our heart does not get shelter the biggest lacking in this world is the lacking of a satisfactory object of thought we are always thinking of things but the things that we think of often they agitate us they make us bored, frustrated they make us dissatisfied what we all need most is a satisfying object of thought if we had a satisfying object of thought we would be satisfied wherever we are and Krishna is a supremely satisfying object of thought the more we think about Krishna the more we will become naturally satisfied so what we need to do is develop the consciousness of Krishna the more we learn to think about Krishna the more satisfaction will become our natural state so our heart is longing for a home and that home is at Krishna’s lotus feet and Radharani demonstrates how to keep one’s heart always at Krishna’s lotus feet so when we learn to love and serve Krishna and practise Bhakti the top most example of Bhakti is Srimati Radharani and on the day of her appearance she is profusely merciful so when we pray to her for her mercy she blesses us with enormously increased attraction for Krishna and in that attraction for Krishna we become automatically satisfied so that’s how we can pray to Srimati Radharani on her appearance day please give me a draw of your devotion thank you very much Srimati Radharani Ki Jaa Srimati Radharani Ki Jaa Radha Ashtami Mahamood So Ki Jaa
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
Question, what exactly was the relationship of Radha with Krishna? Radha was Krishna's maternal aunt, mami. Is this not an illicit relationship? Is conflict an illicit relationship or sexual relationship? Krishna had a sexual relationship with Radha. Krishna is married to Rukmini, the daughter of King Rukmangad.
Radha was married to Krishna's uncle. Krishna, who abandons his lawfully wedded wife Rukmini, uses Radha's wife for another man and lives with her in sin without remorse. Here you cannot say just because Krishna is a supreme being, he justified in doing this.
In fact, if he is so almighty, he could have made Radha, like maybe sister of Krishna's uncle's wife, at least he would have been saved the blasphemous act of having sex with her maternal aunt. Answer, firstly, this idea that Radharani is Krishna's maternal aunt has no basis in scripture. The primary source for understanding the pastimes of Radha and Krishna are the Puranas.
The Srimad Bhagavatam or the Bhagavata Purana mentions about her briefly. The Brahma Purana, the Brahma Bhavata Purana, the Padma Purana talk about her quite extensively as does the Garga Sambhita. So these are the primary sources of knowledge for the Vedic tradition.
And there is no mention of this relationship at all. This idea of Radharani being the aunt of Krishna. And there may be future literatures which elaborate and expand the pastimes of Radha and Krishna as the great Acharyas have envisioned it.
So in the Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya, there is Rupa Goswami, Jiva Goswami, Sanatana Goswami, you have written books like Vaishnava Toshani, Bhakti Samritsana, Ujjwala Neelamani and Gopal Champu. Anandavan Champu is written by Karnapur. So in all these later books also there is no mention of this particular relationship.
So this relationship, this particular aspersion comes in only the 18th-19th century in Telugu literature. It is not there in the writings even of Tyagaraj, who is a famous Telugu Krishna devotee and poet. The earliest source that is there is from some East Indian poets writings whose translations are also questionable.
So therefore, actually speaking, there is neither scriptural nor traditional basis for this idea. By scripture I refer to the Puranas, by tradition I refer to the writings of the great poets. The great devotee poets who may have elaborated on the pastimes of the Lord.
So in general, Indians for several centuries, because first of Muslim rule which politically subordinated them and then later on the British rule, which not only politically but also intellectually subordinated them because the British rule apparently had modern rationality and scientific technology with them. So Indians suffer from a deep rooted national inferiority complex. And because of this, many pseudo-Indian scholars following the lead of colonial intellectuals who tried their best to portray the worst possible face of India to the world.
And not just to the world, even to Indians. They took the most distorted versions of the stories related with the Indian Gods and propagated them as if they were the highest gospel truths. And they placed them in front of western intellectuals as well as modernized so called Indian intellectuals and told them, this is your religion.
Do you believe this? And Indians who had, because of their English education and because of their western infatuation had cut themselves off from the tradition and from the traditional sources of knowledge could respond only with embarrassment and shame to these sort of portrayals. So somewhere in some obscure literature, something is mentioned only at one time and that is taken as the standard understanding. And then on top of that, something which is entirely transcendental, which is divine our ordinary moral standards are applied on them and then we make that as a tool for beating our own tradition.
It is a tragic ritual of intellectual self-torture. And it just reflects the deep-rooted national inferiority complex that we Indians have. So this is the history of this particular belief.
And now coming to understanding the relationship of Radha and Krishna. Firstly, Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. And when we want to understand the activities of God, we need to understand His position before understanding His activity.
Just as if an uneducated tribal who has never seen any sophisticated form of medicine or has never seen any surgery, comes to a hospital and then sees a person being taken to an operating theatre and then somebody else comes up and takes a knife and starts opening up the stomach of that person, this tribal will start screaming, you are killing him, you are killing him. And then if he looks around and sees the relatives of the other person who is being operated, he says, what are you doing sitting here just doing nothing? Your relative is getting killed by that person. And the relatives will just neglect that person.
And then later on the doctor comes out. And then this tribal points out that he is the person who attacked your relative, he is the person who is trying to kill her. And the relatives neglect him.
And not only do they go to the doctor and not only do they not harm the doctor, but they thank the doctor and pay the doctor. The tribal will start thinking that these people are just crazy. Their relative is being killed and they are paying the murderer.
What nonsense. So the whole problem arises because the tribal is looking at the action of a person without understanding the position of a person. So if such monstrous misunderstandings can happen in our worldly life with people who have some small temporary worldly qualifications, then how much more is it true for God? So first and foremost, if we want to understand the activities of Krishna, we need to understand the position of Krishna.
And the position of Krishna includes the position of His various devotees. So firstly, it is described that Krishna and Radharani are non-different. ek atma dui tanu dhari, anyonya vilasa nila kori So Krishna dasa Kaviraj Goswami describes that Radha and Krishna are one person.
One of the most fundamental philosophical points which is taught in the Vedic literature is that the Supreme Lord is Aptakam. He is complete. He is Poornam.
All His desires are fulfilled. He does not need anyone else for His own happiness. He is Atmaram.
He is self-satisfied. So then if He is self-satisfied, why would He have to do anything at all? He can just be living passively for the rest of eternity. He can be, but He performs activity not for getting anything from anyone, but for sharing what He has with others.
So there can be activity to fill one's sense of incompleteness. In this world, when a boy comes to his teenage years and attains puberty, or when a girl comes to her teenage years and attains puberty, both the boy and the girl feel incomplete. And then they try to form a relationship to attain some sort of completeness.
So in this world, relationships are formed primarily because one feels incomplete and one desires to attain completeness. And this is the only model of relationships that we know, model and motive of relationships, largely speaking. But for Krishna, who is God, He is entirely complete, and He doesn't need anything from anyone.
Then what is His motive for forming relationships? It is not to attain completeness, but to share completeness, to relish completeness. Just like a person who is extremely rich, he may go to some annakshetra, some place where charity is being given, and he may personally arrange for charity to be distributed over there. Now he, at least at a financial level, does not need to gain anything from there.
He actually is doing that just to share what he has with others. Now we can say that he gets some emotional sense of fulfillment by doing that. That's fine.
So actually there is no perfect analogy for Krishna in the material world. But what the Acharya explains is that Krishna is Himself complete, and He performs pastimes only to share His completeness. So Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami, in the Adi Nila of the Chaitanya Jatam Chapter 4, verse 56, describes Radha Krishna ek atma dui deha dhari, anyonye vilase rasa asvadan kari.
So Radha Krishna ek atma, they are one soul, dui deha dhari. It becomes two, dui deha dhari. That means that one soul expands into two forms.
Anyonye vilase rasa asvadan kari. For what? For vilase. With one another, anyonye, with reciprocation between them.
Rasa asvadan, they reciprocate rasa, they reciprocate love. So that one person has become two for the purpose of reciprocating love. So who is Radharani? Radharani is actually the energy of Krishna.
She is the Ladini Shakti of Krishna. So, if we understand from this perspective, then Radha and Krishna are actually non-different from each other. That's the same person.
And because He is the same person, therefore, there is no question of any sin being involved in it. The Srimad Bhagavatam gives the example of how if a person is dancing with his own shadows, the person is dancing, the shadows are dancing. So like that Krishna is dancing with his gopis.
So the position of Krishna, firstly if we understand that He is the Supreme Lord, He is complete in Himself, and He is not like a man of this world who needs a woman for his fulfillment. It is, you know, when a man tries to enjoy with a woman, let's say through marriage or outside marriage, whatever, then we cannot say that woman is my expansion, I have created that woman for my enjoyment. But Krishna is transcendental.
And it is He who has created everyone, not only everyone, specifically for Radharani, She is directly His own energy. So, now going forward from this point, that from the conceptual or philosophical point of view, they are one person occupying two souls. Historically, when they appeared in this world, there was a specific way in which they appeared.
So, in this world, Radharani and Krishna both appeared in Vrindavan, and from the traditional stories of Radharani, Radharani is younger to Krishna. In fact, in the spiritual realm, Radha and Krishna are both of an eternally fixed age. Krishna is 16 years old and Radharani is around 14, a little more than 14 years old.
So, there is no question of this strange idea of Radharani being the aunt of Krishna. Radharani is younger to Krishna, and there are elaborate stories about how Radharani would not open her eyes even after she was born, and only when Krishna as a small baby came to the house of Vishalhana Maharaj, the father of Radharani, Krishna looked into the swing where Radharani was lying down, and Krishna appeared at her face, and when Radharani realized that her Lord was right in front of her eyes, then she opened her eyes. But the first thing that she saw when she opened her eyes for the first time in the world was Krishna.
So, Radharani is younger to Krishna, so how can she possibly be his aunt in any way? So then, as Radharani and Krishna grew up, they had a natural attraction to each other, because they are eternally related with each other. Now, how did things happen here in the material world? Here in the material world, when Krishna manifested 5000 years ago, by the arrangement of the Lord, Radharani was married to someone else. So who was that someone else? That was Abhimanyu.
So, in one sense, we can argue that there was some sort of illicit relationship, but that is only a very superficial understanding. Because if we go deeper, who is this Abhimanyu? This Abhimanyu is a form of Krishna himself. The ashtadayas describe that this is the expansion of the shadow of Krishna.
Now, we may start saying, what is this? How can there be an expansion of a shadow? And how can there be a person who is an expansion of a shadow? And all this is mythology. If one wants to say that all this is mythology, then, except that the whole pastime of Krishna is mythology, then why talk about anything illicit at all? If we want to consider anything as mythology, then there is no need to bring in any morality within mythology. Now, if we are saying that, okay, this is mythology, it is fun to teach us some moral lessons, then that is our imposition of our own ideas on Krishna.
So, if we have to accept the scriptural version, then we have to accept it in total. We have to accept it in completeness. Otherwise, it is half-hand logic, which will not do us any good.
A person accepts just the tail part of an egg, because it lays eggs, and refuses to accept the front part, which has to be fed. Then the person cuts off the front part, and he stops getting the back part also. Similarly, if we want to accept the tradition, accept it in full.
If we don't want, if we want to be selective, then we are simply being deceptive. We are deceiving ourselves, and we are deceiving others. So, Krishna's abhimanyu is actually non-different from Krishna.
Now, you may still have questions, okay, even if it is non-different from Krishna, why did this whole thing have to happen, in this particular manner? So, Krishna, when he was in Vrindavan, he had a relationship with Radharani, and then later on he went out of Vrindavan, to Dwarka, and that was where he married Rukmini. And once he married Rukmini, there is this idea that Krishna abandoned Rukmini, and then went to Radharani, is absurd. There is no historical basis for this, there is no scriptural basis for this.
Actually, when Krishna went to Dwarka, as a king, he lived an exemplary life. As a king, he was with Rukmini, and then he never abandoned Rukmini. In fact, he was always there to protect her from all kinds of dangers.
And Rukmini and his other queens were very attached to him, at that particular time. And there was a very satisfying family relationship which he had with them. So, there is no question, first of all, of Krishna abandoning Rukmini ever.
Krishna's relationship with Radharani, as manifested in the past times here, in the world, was primarily before he married Rukmini. That was in his younger age. But why did this whole idea happen like that, that Radharani was married to somebody else? In this world, the most attractive and fascinating thing for most people is sex.
And within sex, illicit sex, extramarital, premarital relationships are what fascinate people, because there is the excitement of doing something forbidden. Of course, it is a dangerous excitement, and it is often a disastrous excitement. But still, that sense of excitement fascinates people.
So, now, first of all, where does male-female attraction originally come from? And why this fascination with doing something forbidden? So, all the religions of the world say that this male-female attraction is a source of bondage, and it has to be regulated. Some religions will say that through marriage it has to be regulated. Some religions will say that it has to be entirely abandoned throughout one's life, or at least at the later stages of one's life.
But the point is, all the religions of the world acknowledge this point, that the male-female attraction is a source of distraction from going towards God. Now, where does this male-female attraction come from? Most of the religions of the world have no answer to this question. Some of them say that it has just been created by Satan to distract people.
But where did Satan get the idea of creating it? And how did Satan plan the idea in the male mind that the female form is attractive, and in the female mind that the male form is attractive? There is no answer to this question at all in most of the religious traditions of the world. It's only in the Vedic and specifically the Vaishnav and the Gaudiya Vaishnav traditions that this answer is revealed in a systematic way. The male-female attraction exists originally in the spiritual world, and when the soul comes to the material world, the soul has come here with a desire to imitate Krishna.
And the Bhagavad Gita describes, वूद्धु मूलमधाषाकमश्वत्तं प्राहु रवेन In the 15th chapter, the first verse, it describes that this world is like a reflection of the spiritual world. And because it is a reflection, things here are temporary and distorted. If we have a tree on the banks of a river, when the tree is reflected in the river, if the river dries up, there will be no reflection.
Similarly, if the river becomes stormy, the reflection will become distorted. So, the reflection is based on the original, but it is temporary and it is distorted. So, when the soul comes to the material world with the desire to imitate Krishna, the imitation relationships that the soul forms in this world are temporary and distorted.
The malefic retraction may be very intense and overpowering, but it is temporary. It may end in this life itself because of misunderstandings and divorce, or it may end at the end of life when another partner passes away. And it is distorted.
Distorted because it is completely or largely based on selfishness in this world. If not on selfishness, it is at least based on misunderstanding that I am the body, whereas actually all of us are souls. So, because of this distorted conception of self-identity, of who I am, this relationship is a distorted reflection of the original.
But still, Vedic scriptures help us understand, why does this male-female attraction exist in the world? Because there is originally male-female attraction in the Absolute Truth. The same Absolute Truth has expanded itself as two, and there is attraction between the divine couple. And when we as souls come to this world, we want to imitate Krishna in this world.
And therefore, some souls are given the bodies of males, some souls are given the bodies of females, and they try to play out their desire to imitate Krishna. So all of us are here on our own God-projects. Our own project to imitate God and to try to usurp God's position and become God ourselves.
So we are all on our God-projects. But these are doomed projects. Because we are finite and our lifespans are finite, we can never be the supreme or enjoy life the supreme.
So, the fundamental understanding that is given by the Vedic literature is the revelation that God is not just an abstract, amorphous light, nor He is just a stern controller of the world. The Vedic scriptures, especially the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, explains that God is the enjoyer. That all of us want to enjoy, and where does our desire to enjoy come from? We are parts of God.
We are the children of God. So what we have in part, God has in full. So God not just exists and controls, but God also enjoys.
And God enjoys unlimitedly. Because He is unlimited, His enjoyment is unlimited. And how does He enjoy? He enjoys by relationships.
As I began in the class, God does not need to enjoy. He is not incomplete. But He is simply sharing and relishing His completeness in relationships.
But through that, He enjoys. So, Krishna originally enjoys with Radharani and with His other devotees in their relationships. And in this world, when we come, we want to imitate Krishna.
And through imitation, we only get complication and suffering. But Krishna, without any suffering, He enjoys unlimitedly, eternally. So, till now I answered the first point, that why is the male-female relationship there.
Now the second question which I had raised was, why is there this fascination in the material world with doing something forbidden, especially in the sexual realm? So, actually speaking, in this world, people want to enjoy. And marriage is a sort of anticlimax of the excitement of sexual relationships. Because before marriage, there is so much anticipation, and the mind hypes up one's excitement and hope for pleasure.
And later on, when one encounters the reality, one finds the reality is not what one had imagined it to be. So, in the male-female relationship, the excitement actually surpasses the enjoyment. Where does this particular idea come from? Of course, if the male and female go beyond the bodily aspect of the relationship and are able to bond emotionally, they find themselves compatible, then the relationship might go to a deeper level and there may be satisfaction after marriage also.
But in this world, the excitement of knowing somebody new and doing something new is far greater than the actual enjoyment that results. So, where does this particular idea come from? Krishna, in the spiritual world, is God who does not act like God. He simply reciprocates love with his devotees.
And for reciprocating love with his devotees, he gives them various roles according to their desires. So, there are Krishna's devotees who are his parents. Now, God, we know, conceptually is the father of everyone.
If God is the father of everyone, then how can anybody be his father or his mother? So, Krishna, in that sense, is performing a drama in the spiritual world. All his leelas, all his pastimes are like a drama. Now, the word drama has to be used cautiously because in this world, the word drama conveys a sense of falsehood, a sense of something being illusory and temporary.
But in Krishna's case, the drama goes on eternally. And because it is going on eternally and it involves God, it is the highest reality. So, Krishna performs pastimes in the spiritual world in which he doesn't act like God.
It's like there might be a billionaire who, when he has a family get-together, performs a drama and in the drama, that person, billionaire, becomes a beggar. And he starts saying, please give me some food, I have not eaten for three days. That person may well have eaten three times in the same day.
But, he subordinates and conceals his position as a billionaire so that he can experience the joy of the role that he is playing. Similarly, Krishna reciprocates to his devotees by taking on the role that they want him to take and by giving them the role that these devotees want to take. So, although he is God, he is the parent of everyone, he allows some devotee to become a parent.
And when he allows some devotee to become a parent, then, at that time, he takes the role of a perfect child. And this is the relationship which is there between Krishna and Mother Yashoda. So now, Krishna gets angry when Mother Yashoda does not give him his breast milk on time.
Why does he do that? He doesn't have to become angry, he doesn't need anybody's breast milk. In fact, he has put the milk in Yashodamayi's breast also, as well as in everyone else's, all mothers' breasts. He is the creator of everything.
But then, he wants to intensify the happiness that Yashodamayi is experiencing. And when Yashodamayi says, how much my child needs me, how much my child is craving for me, that increases her happiness. So now, the Yashoda and Krishna relationship is something which is modeled on the mother-child relationship in this world.
Or rather, the mother-child relationship in this world is modeled on that. And for us, we may find this similar to the mother-child relationship that we see in this world. And we may not find anything objectionable.
We may say, this is just playful, Krishna stealing butter, Krishna crying, Krishna demanding his mother's milk. So we may just find this playful. Now from Krishna's point of view, there is no difference in one sense between Yashodamayi and Radharani.
Both of them are His devotees. So Krishna allows His devotees to serve Him in different ways. Just as He allows Yashodamayi to serve Him as mother, He allows somebody else like Shraddha Madhumangal to become His friends.
And sometimes in wrestling, His friends defeat Him. And Krishna allows them to do that. Why? Because He wants them to experience the joy of friendship with God.
And He Himself wants to enjoy the relationship of friendship with His intimate devotees. So now, the essential relationship that Krishna has with His devotees is one of love. And that love is based on the feeling of the heart.
And along with the feeling of the heart, an appropriate form is given eternally to those devotees, so that they can reciprocate relationship with Him. In this world, we will see that among all relationships, we can have a wide variety of relationships, which the Vedic seers have classified into five broad categories. People would like to have fans.
You know, when some Bollywood star just walks around, people just pass through with open mouths and wide eyes, admiring them. So that is the reflection of the relationship of Shantaras, which Krishna has in the spiritual world. There are devotees who want to admire His beauty, His glory and beauty.
Then there is daasiyaras. In this world, people want to have servants, who will run around and do whatever they want. So in the spiritual world, there are devotees who serve Krishna as His servants, and who are going around doing everything that Krishna wants.
So many times, even before Krishna asks, they understand Krishna's wills. Similarly, there are His friends, there are His parents. So in this world, the most intense relationship is the relationship at the conjugal level, between the male and the female.
So a person not only wants to have fans and servants and friends and loving parents, but a person wants to have a loving, admiring spouse, and one wants to have an intense relationship with that. So this is a perverted reflection of the relationship that is there in the spiritual world. So just as Krishna's mother is first His devotee, and the devotee has been given the role of being the mother of Krishna, similarly, those devotees who are His topmost intense devotees, Krishna gives them the role of His consort.
So in one sense, the female form is best suited for offering affection and service to the male form. Of course, the dynamics of a male-female relationship are complicated, but in general, the female form, with the emotional disposition, and the sweet voice, and the overall affectionate nature, is best suited to offer service and affection to the male. So those devotees of Krishna, who are His most intense and affectionate devotees, are given by Krishna, eternally, the form as His female consorts.
So essentially, from Krishna's point of view, whether it is Yashodamayi, whether it is Radharani, or whether it is Naradhuni, they are all His devotees, and His primary relationship with them is as a devotee and the Lord. But according to how the devotee wants to serve the Lord, and according to how the Lord wants to reciprocate love with the devotee, the devotee is given a particular role, and the Lord takes a particular role. So the Lord becomes a young man, and He gives His devotee the role of a young woman.
So all this is happening at the spiritual transcendental level, and it is motivated purely by the desire to experience intense happiness. So just as Krishna, as God, has created everything, and He doesn't have to steal anything from anyone, but still Krishna steals butter. Now, Krishna stealing butter may seem a little naughty, but we may feel it is harmless.
But it actually illustrates the fundamental principle, that Krishna, why does He steal butter? Because the mischievous activity that He does, it intensifies the affection that Mother Yashoda feels for Him. Why is my child doing like this? Oh, my child is so naughty. My child does so many things like this.
So, just as Krishna may seem to transcend ordinary moral principles, that one should not steal from somebody else, but He steals butter. Why? Not because He is greedy for butter. There is abandoned butter available for Him in His own house, and it's not that the quality of butter at the other gopis' house is better.
No, actually, Nanda Maharaj is the king of Gokula, of Vrindavan, and the best cows are with Him, and the best butter is produced at His house. So, Krishna goes and steals butter just to intensify the loving relationship between Him and Mother Yashoda. Mother Yashoda feels greater concern.
Why is my child stealing like this? I have to discipline my child. And her whole maternal affection increases when she sees the naughty pranks of Krishna. So, similarly, the whole complex of Radha-Krishna relationships is there just for intensifying the mellow of the relationship.
So, in the spiritual world, actually Abhimanyu is non-different from Krishna. But in Abhimanyu, it is arranged that Radharani gets married to Abhimanyu, and after getting married to Abhimanyu, then both Radharani feels a sense of being checked in her relationship with Krishna. And then Radharani has to go out and struggle, and somehow arrange to meet Krishna, and Krishna has to meet Radharani.
So, that heightens the sense of excitement over there. And Abhimanyu and others, other relatives of Abhimanyu, they may sometimes play inimical roles to obstruct the meeting of Radha and Krishna. But they have to understand that they are all playing roles.
It's a drama to enhance the intensity of the emotions that are involved over there. So, Krishna is not doing anything wrong. Actually, the whole leela is set up to intensify the experience of emotions and heighten the reciprocation of love and happiness that is there.
We may say, but isn't this immoral? Even if somebody wants to enjoy, why should one set an example of immorality like this? First, before looking at immorality, understand the philosophical principle here, that God is the supreme enjoyer and he enjoys in the supreme possible way. We look at this that we may object to, why is Krishna enjoying illicit relationship like this? But if we look at our own minds, we will find that scheming to enjoy like this are the mind's primary fantasies. That means, we want to enjoy in these ways and we want to deprive God of the same enjoyment.
So, this is actually our envious mentality towards God. And we may not explicitly think of it or speak of it as envy, but the whole idea that we ascribe immorality on God and then we in our own fantasies want to do those same immoral things, this actually is a reflection of our missy psychology. So, firstly, from the philosophical point of view, there is nothing immoral.
Krishna is God and he is setting up a stage for the dramatic enhancement of the loving reciprocation with his devotees. And he sets it all up in a way that will lead to the greatest exchange of love and happiness. So, that's why this whole setting up is called in Sanskrit as Parakheeras.
So, Swakheeras is love within marriage and Parakheeras is love outside marriage. So, the Parakheeras is considered highest. So now, why does Krishna set up the whole thing? As I said, one is to heighten the excitement.
But beyond heightening the excitement, there is another purpose. The purpose is to demonstrate the principle of sacrificing everything for God. So, we have Prahlad Maharaj sacrificing his kingdom and he is daring to risk even his own life just for the sake of his devotion to Lord Vishnu.
And that is a glorious example. Similarly, there are other examples of great devotees who are ready to sacrifice everything for the sake of their devotion. So, for a woman in the Vedic culture, chastity is considered to be the greatest virtue.
And through this whole setting, Krishna illustrates that actually the highest value of a devotee is his or her devotion to God. And for that, the devotee is ready to sacrifice all other values. And the willingness to sacrifice all other values for the sake of devotion to God is the supreme opulence of a devotee.
In this world also, if the boy is a son of a wealthy man and he wants to marry somebody, he falls in love with some girl and the boy's parents oppose that marriage and the boy's parents tell that if you marry her, then we will dispossess you. I will reject you as my heir and you will not get any of my estate. And then the son says that I don't care for your estate.
I will give it all up for her sake. So, now if we see this in a movie, we will say, wow, so much love it is. Actually, this is just a perverted reflection.
The point is, for the sake of love, everything can be sacrificed. And the Vedic literature describes that love is the ultimate reality. Love is the highest value.
Love is the supreme goal of life. And this love, which is eternally enacted between the devotee and the Lord at the spiritual level, is demonstrated through the setting of apparently Ratharani being married to somebody else. So, now coming to the question of isn't this immoral? Firstly, Krishna himself talks about how the leader should set an example.
That the leader should act in ways that are exemplary for his followers. Now, Krishna, when he was in Vrindavan, he is simply exhibiting the spiritual world for everyone to see. He is not taking any leadership role.
Once he takes up a leadership role in Dwaraka, when he becomes a member of the royal family and is there in the royal court, although he never takes the position of a king, he does all the responsibilities of a king. So, actually if you see, Krishna is self-sacrificing. He allows king Ugrasen to be the king and he does the responsibilities.
When Dwaraka is attacked, it is he who is protecting Dwaraka. So, he actually, far from being an enjoyer, he, in the role of a king, is a sacrificer. He takes the anxiety but doesn't enjoy the facility to a large extent.
He is not the king, but he is actually taking up the anxiety of doing the service of the king. So, if you see, once he becomes the king, his activities are exemplary. So, he marries Rukmini and he lives with her dutifully.
And he protects her and he satisfies her. And in this way, once he is the king, he is exemplary. So, exemplary actions are there for us to be guided on the moral path.
So, morality is not to be minimized. Morality is not to be rejected. Morality is important for us to go on the right path.
And Krishna exemplifies that. To a large extent, Krishna and his incarnation as Ram also exemplifies that. But Krishna, even in Dwaraka, exemplifies morality to a large extent when he is playing the role of a leader.
But morality is like the rules of traffic. The rules of traffic are fine when one is on the expressway and one is coming home. But once one has come home, the home is a place of intimacy.
And suppose somebody has a big palace, there is no need primarily for the rules of traffic over there. So, like that, in this world, we need rules of morality because otherwise lust, anger, greed will make us do selfish things. By which we will exploit and abuse others.
And which will lead to bad karmic consequences for us. So, morality is there for us to protect ourselves from our lower selfish desires. But once we have become purified and once we have gotten rid of all these lower selfish desires.
So, once a devotee has become entirely pure and the Lord is entirely pure always. So, that's like we have crossed the journey by following the rules of traffic and have attained home. So, at that time, because there are no selfish desires either in the Lord or the devotee.
There is no motivation to abuse anyone, to exploit anyone. There is simply love as the motivation to serve, to reciprocate love and to be happy thereby. So, because of that, there is no need for morality.
So, Krishna exemplifies and teaches morality when he is playing the role of a leader. But beyond that, in the spiritual world as I said, Krishna doesn't act as God. Krishna acts as the lover of his devotees in whatever role the devotees want to be.
May act as a child, as a brother or as a lover for his Gopi friends or Radharani. So, essentially in that realm there is no need for morality. So, Krishna's Vrindavan pastimes are not there to teach us morality.
They are revealed to demonstrate to us the wonderful life of love that is available for us, that is inviting us in the spiritual world. And as far as morality is concerned, that Krishna has taught elsewhere. But here now he is revealing the intimate life of love that is ours if we just aspire for it.
And he is inviting us for that. So, in this way, this is the esoteric secret of Krishna's pastimes. And there is no question of immorality over here.
So, it's a long answer. I will quickly summarize what I spoke. I started first by talking about how we need to understand the position of a person, especially a powerful or respectful or knowledgeable person, before we can understand his action.
I took the example of a tribal and a surgeon. Similarly, we need to understand Krishna's position before we can understand his actions. And then the whole remaining answer was explaining Krishna's position.
So, in that I talked about how this world is a reflection of the spiritual world. And only in the Vedic Christian tradition is the explanation given of why the male-female interaction exists. Because it exists originally in the spiritual world.
And why does it exist in the spiritual world? Not like in the material world to overcome one's sense of incompleteness, but to share one's sense of completeness. And because it is there for sharing and relishing all the relationships in the world, they are set up, they are arranged like a drama in a way that will maximize the reciprocation of emotions and love within the drama. So, for some devotees who want to serve Krishna as mother, Krishna takes the role of a naughty, playful child and floods their heart with love.
The female form, the youthful female form, is best suited for offering affection and service. And that's why Krishna gives his topmost devotees the form of his female associates, his spouse. So, from the absolute philosophical level, I explained how Krishna and Radharani are non-different because it is the same absolute truth manifesting in two forms to reciprocate love.
But why the particular youthful female form? Because that offers the best possible service. So now, historically when these pastimes occurred, I mentioned that the idea of aunt is something which is very obscure reference that has been highlighted by those who were either inimical to Vedic culture or were embarrassed by Vedic culture. And that is far from the understanding which is given in the seminal scriptures and in the primary source of the tradition.
They depict Radharani as younger to Krishna and there is no question of Radharani being the aunt of Krishna. So historically, why was it arranged that Radharani was married to apparently somebody else? Firstly, it was not somebody else, it was Krishna only. But why was it arranged like that? To heighten the excitement and the fulfillment that comes in the relationship between them.
And then we discussed about how, isn't this immoral? So how morality is a light and we need morality because we have selfish desires. But Krishna does not need morality because he has no selfish desires to exploit anyone else. And the ultimate proof that these pastimes are not mundane is that many of those who are attracted to these pastimes actually become free from lust or actually have their lust significantly minimized.
There are great saints, Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself who took strict vows of sannyas. And there is Shudra Dev Goswami who wrote the Bhagavatam and there were six Goswamis of Vrindavan who themselves were impeccable renunciates. And even now, Sri Prabhupada presented Krishna consciousness to all the world and there are many people who became renunciates.
And if Krishna himself by lusty and doing something illicit, how would those who would chant Krishna's name become free from lust? Now there may have been some people who had some difficulty in following the regulatory principles and that is because of the deficiency in individual practice. But overall, anybody who chants Hare Krishna and remembers Krishna will find material desires subsiding and himself or herself becoming purified of lust. So if Krishna were lusty and engaging in lusty activities, how could remembrance of him purify one of lust? If Krishna's activities are like the illicit activities that are shown in soap operas, then how would they purify anyone? So the fact is that they are not illicit activities.
Normal illicit activities would provoke our lust first and even Radha Krishna's activities may provoke lust if we do not understand the position of Krishna and Radha Hari before understanding the action. That is the misunderstanding that may come up. And it has happened to some people who have used Radha Krishna as a justification or rationalization for their own illicit indulgences.
And people use it in Holi to get close to their neighbors' wives and do all sorts of things like that. But as devotees who understand the position of Krishna, in ISKCON we have Holi for Radha Krishna. We don't have Holi for devotees who are sadhakas.
So then how is it that the devotees of Krishna who are chanting Hare Krishna and remembering Krishna and they adore and worship the pastimes of Radha Krishna, how do they become purified of the male-female attraction and infatuation? That is because now they understand that Radha Krishna pastimes are like the original. They are the substance. They are the reality and the male-female relationship in this world are the reflection.
So the reflection, when we understand the reflection to be the reflection, when we understand the reality to be the reality, then we understand that I am never going to, if there is a mango tree and a mango fruit, I am never going to get the mango in the reflection. So we stop chasing after the reflection and then we start aspiring for the reality. And so when we stop chasing for the reflection, then that's how devotees give up their material desires and they start chasing after, looking for the real mangoes.
They start purifying themselves so that they can enter into the pastimes of Radha and Krishna. So therefore, actually speaking, when we understand this philosophical perspective, if we do not understand the philosophical perspective, then we will mistake even the reality to be reflection. And we will keep chasing after the reflection.
So there are people who imitate Krishna, the Ras Neela. Srila Prabhupada would say this is not Ras Neela, this is Rascal Neela. And what would happen is that when they try to imitate, they just, many men, women, they imitate Radha Krishna, and the women get pregnant and then they have to do abortion.
And in the Bhagavatam or anywhere else, there is no description of any such ghastly thing like abortion. It's a Leela over there and no one becomes pregnant over there. So the whole thing is in a different dimension.
So if we mistake the reality to be a reflection, we will only increase our sufferings. But if you understand the reality to be a reality, and you understand the reflection to be a reflection, then we will actually become detached from worldly infatuations and experience greater fulfillment in our remembrance of Krishna and our relationship with Krishna. So this is the ultimate reason why Krishna reveals the Vrindavan pastimes.
To get us detached from worldly relationships and to get us attached to spiritual relationships. So to tell us that this is the reflection and this is the reality. So you are mistaking the reflection to be the reality.
Stop making that mistake. Turn towards the reality and give up your infatuation to the reflection and you will become truly happy by that. So in this way, just as what the mango that is at the top of the mango tree, in the reflection will appear at the bottom.
So the parakiya bhav, the relationship between Radha and Krishna outside of marriage is the loftiest expression of loving surrender. It is not immoral, it is trans-moral. Immoral means that which is below morality.
Trans-moral means that which is above morality. So the Gopis and Radharani, she is non-different from Krishna. She is the personification of the highest morality.
But here she acts beyond morality, not because of any selfish desires, but because of a love that goes beyond morality. So when Krishna reveals his pastimes with Radharani, that which is the topmost in the spiritual world may appear as the lowest. Certainly illicit relationships in this world are abominable and they should be abandoned.
But the relationship with Radha and Krishna reveals to us originally why is it that we have this male-female attraction and what should we do with it. That we should redirect it so that it can be purified and we can enter into the spiritual world to be eternally happy with Krishna's pastimes. That is the ultimate purpose of this revelation of the complex, subtle and intense relationship between Radha and Krishna.
Thank you.