Radhashtami meditation 1 – Appreciating the sacrificing spirit of Sita and Radharani

[Talk at ISKCON, Towaco, USA]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
thank you for coming today evening Janmashtami has just got over and tomorrow there’s a big festival it’s not so easy to come especially on a weekday evening since tomorrow is Radhashtami so i’ll speak today on the topic of appreciating the mood of Radharani by comparing the moods of Radharani and Sita Devi so one underlying theme which i will talk is that the essence of love is sacrifice people the word love is very very common love means people say attraction i feel very attracted to this person or love means warmth oh this person cares for me so much attraction means i find this person so attractive or i feel that this person cares for me so like that love can have many different meanings and there is there is the aspect of attraction there is the attraction aspect of feeling cared for but the essence of love is sacrifice and if love is to be sustained if love is to be nourished then sacrifice is what enables us to take that love further and deeper and this is what both these great personalities Radha and Sita demonstrate so we will look at some incidents in their lives and we’ll look at especially the relationship that defines them their relationship with their lord so broadly speaking if we compare Krishna and Ram Ram Ram’s character embodies dharma in a relatively straightforward way Krishna embodies dharma in a much more complicated way now in general people can find something objectionable about Ram but overall his character is exemplary about Krishna there are so many things especially in the Mahabharata and everything it can be very confusing so both of them embody dharma but in different ways and this increase in complexity of what they embody is also reflected in the increase in complexity of their relationship with their consort so for example if we consider the relationship of Sita and Ram if we consider a traditional society where primarily most marriages were arranged so then it is their marriage was like that Krishna and Ram and Sita they at least in their manifestation in this world apparently didn’t know each other and it is when Ram entered into Ayodhya from Ayodhya he went to the forest with Vishwamitra and Vishwamitra took him to Mithila Mithila Purajana Mohaka Rama Videha Manasaranjaka Rama so there it was that Sita saw Ram for the first time and Ram saw Sita for the first time so that was their meeting and there in that meeting or after that not a meeting actually just beholding each other then after that in the Swayamvar it was that Ram not only raised the bow and strung the bow but broke the bow so nowadays in corporate world they talk about you shouldn’t just meet expectations you should exceed expectations so Ram demonstrates that exceeding expectations so totally that it is like you don’t just meet a standard you break the standard itself so and then Ram gallantly wins the hand of Sita Arpit Sita Varmalika Rama she offered her Varmala now if you consider the relationship of Krishna and Sita Krishna and Radha Radha it’s much more complex say they live first of all Sita and Ram live in two different kingdoms whereas Radha and Krishna live more or less in the same community it is a it is small different villages different towns you could say but it is broadly the same community and it is that right from the beginning Radharani is of course at that time she is not Radharani she is Radha she is a small baby um so her the first thing she saw is Krishna it is she refused to open her eyes she refused to do anything and her parents were wondering what has happened to her and now there’s a new baby in the house everybody comes in wants to see so they invited Mandya Maharaj also to come Vrishabhan and Kirtan and when Krishna came over there Krishna crawled over Krishna was also not very old at that time so Krishna crawled over and he peered into the crib where Radha was there and as soon as she knew that Krishna was looking over there so then she opened her eyes so she wanted to begin her journey in life with the sight of the Lord and at one level both these relationships they are transcendental pure exalted so exalted that we can’t even in many ways conceive the purity and level of that relationship but in some other ways you can also say that these relationships they represent how we as souls would like to should aspire to relate with our Lord so and by the saints they say that actually I do not want even I do not want to even see people in whose heart Krishna is not manifest Krishna is present in everyone’s hearts but people who are godless then I don’t even want to see them a devotee wants to simply behold the form of the Lord dhrishti satam darshane sthubhavat tanunam the Nalakumar and Manikari the Kuver Kumaras they after they are delivered by Krishna they offer this prayer my dear Lord in this world we are not as fortunate that we can see the Lord directly it’s very rare to have the darshan of the Lord directly but you say let us behold the form of your devotees and seeing your devotees is non-different from seeing you so Radharani right from her childhood or not even childhood infancy her attraction to Krishna is manifest and then as they start growing up actually the dream of everyone in Vrindavan is that Radha and Krishna be united everything in this world in some way or the other in a purer form is present in the spiritual world so in practically every community after people go beyond a particular age now one common pastime for people is matchmaking oh pair this boy with this girl pair this girl with this boy and at one level it can be distracting at another level it can be intrusive at one level it can just lead to a lot of gossip but that is present in its purest form in the spiritual world where the longing of everyone there is that Radha and Krishna be united and that’s what the Brajwasis dream he is the he is such a sweet wonderful boy and she’s just sweet wonderful girl and they grow up and Acharya has described that their relationship as I said the relationship begins from childhood from not in childhood infancy itself and our Gaudiya Acharya has described how Radha is present everywhere in Krishna’s pastimes so for example when Krishna is in the clutches of Kalia and it appears as if he’s almost dead and seeing him motionless near death it is all the Brajwasis who have become petrified they are near death and yet Krishna stays just like that and now the Bhagavatam is is gently indicative pointing towards Radharani the Bhagavatam doesn’t directly talk about Radharani because there are different answers explanations but Shukadeva Goswami is afraid that he’ll get so overwhelmed with ecstasy on remembering Radharani that he won’t be able to serve he won’t be able to speak even if we are going to speak about something which is very emotional the summit of pure emotion but even to speak about pure emotion we need some control over emotion it’s ironic that Bhakti is all about emotion but if we are to give the experience of Bhakti to others then we have to rein in our emotions so he just points to Radharani he doesn’t mention it but what he points toward our Acharya has explicated they elaborate it they reveal the hidden nuggets over there so they explain that actually so it is in the in the Bhagavatam it is said that Krishna was in the clutches of Kalia for some time and then he broke free and then he started dancing on Kalia so our Acharya has explained that Krishna was waiting he was going to do his first public dance performance and he wanted his beloved to see it so the news that Krishna was in the clutches of Kalia it spread rapidly but still Barsana was some distance away so for the residents of Barsana to come running to there it took some time and then once Radha came over there Krishna said now let the show begin and Krishna started dancing over there so that way our Acharya described that Radha is present everywhere in Krishna Leela in fact they also say that in the Damodar Leela we say that it is the two fingers were shot that one finger was Yashoda’s endeavour the other was Krishna’s mercy that’s true our Acharya also explained that Krishna waited for a particular point and eventually he was tied by Yashoda so what was that point that point was that when this news spread again that Krishna was tied everybody from nearby came around and the neighbours all brought their ropes but they were all shot finally Radha came over and Radha untied her ribbon and gave it to Yashoda and when that ribbon was added to the rope Krishna said now I’ll be conquered by the love so Radha is like the invisible presence in all the beautiful pastimes of Krishna and in this way we see there is a special we could say sweetness in the pastimes of Radha and Krishna because it’s a simple small village whereas Ayodhya also has a sweetness but there is reality over there there’s magnificence there is Aishwarya very prominently present so Sita grows up very conscious that she is a princess that’s okay she’s very conscious that she’s the princess and she has to act in accordance with the dignity of the position of a princess Radharani also has her sweet dignity but she is a village girl that there’s no description of Sita ever going out to do any work but Radha she is living in a village and in a village although they are rich in natural opulence but still it works so the Gopis would go to sell Tadhyadikam they would go and sell curd but Radha was the leader of the Gopis when they were about to sell you have to say in traditional village settings or something like that people would say they want to sell something oh we’ve got some curd we’ve got some curd we’ve got some fruits we’ve got some sweets who wants to buy it so the Gopis it is described that they want to call out that oh we’ve got curd we’ve got butter but they’re so absorbed in Krishna that instead of speaking about curd and milk they would say Govinda Damodara Madhaveti kindly repeat Govinda Damodara Madhaveti so their hearts are filled with so much love for Krishna that that love would overflow so in psychology there is something called as a Freudian slip of the tongue that means slip of the tongue is where we speak something that we didn’t intend to speak but now sometimes it is just an accident and we speak something entirely different from what we wanted to speak but a Freudian slip of the tongue is where something which we had hidden in our heart suddenly comes out and we didn’t want to say it so the slip of tongue is not something which is just mistaken something which is intentionally to be hidden it comes out so so similarly here although they want to do some work but they just can’t so Radha she at one level she has that she’s the consort of Krishna but it’s it’s a pastoral paradise Vrindavan and in that just like Krishna goes out to work Krishna he goes out to graze the cows he goes out to graze the cows and similarly he goes out Radha also goes out she goes out to sell the cow products the gifts that the cow is given they try to give those to the world and it is when Krishna and Radha go out both then they have many sweet meetings they have rendezvous in this forest where where Krishna often does many mischievous things and sometimes you meet someone and say we we know person A and we know person B and then we may think maybe person A and person we don’t know each other so we try to we introduce them say actually we know each other we go back a long time we know each other for decades so like that now Radha and Krishna they go back for a long time and in their meetings in the forest at different times Krishna and Radha they all tried they have a game of loving one-upsmanship that means Radha tries to outwit Krishna and Krishna tries to outwit Radha so Rupa Goswami has composed a very beautiful series of prayers called Radha Krishna Ashtakam so therein he says how Krishna and Radha are saturated with each other and this saturation this complete absorption of their consciousness in each other it manifests in different ways so that because that reverence is somewhat lesser so in the Ramayana the Ramayana also has a sweetness but Sita has that mood of reverence toward Ram there is of course in love sometimes there is sparring you you speak something which is teasing the other person and I speak something which we speak one person teases the other person the other person teases the first person so there’s a devotee who very wonderful devotee he has a very wry sense of humour recently I gave a class and then after that he came to me he said your class was brilliant so normally I ask what did you like about the class so he said everything except what you spoke everything except what you spoke so that was basically he was trying to be sweetly sarcastic then after that there were some children whom he was asking what do you like in Krishna consciousness so I said can I answer everything except you so sometimes when there is a close affection if there is no affection and then somebody speaks like this what is going on you would consider it an insult how dare you speak with everything but when there is affection then even even apparently insulting words add to the love so context determines everything if somebody says I liked everything except the class except what you spoke normally you would say what kind of can you speak like this but in affection if affection is the foundation then the richness of the relationship requires various flavours if it’s only I appreciate you and you appreciate me yes there is sweetness in that but it is I try to tease you and then you tease me and then there is the loving one-upsmanship in that and that is the flavour that Krishna relishes with Radha and Krishna longs for it sometimes in our childhood say if our mother had cooked some very sweet delicacy and then we loved it in our childhood and then we grow up and maybe our mother is far away or she’s no more and then we want we want to have the delicacy and then whoever cooks that they may cook the same item but they may not get the same flavour the same taste so if there is something which we had cherished in the childhood we long for it constantly when can I get it so Krishna gets that flavour in his relationship with Radha where there is spice there is sweetness has its own taste but spice has its own taste also so sweetness means oh you are so wonderful and you say I am so wonderful but spice comes when there is sarcasm there are taunts there is insult so Krishna he gets that in his relationship with Radha and he longs for it constantly and that’s what he tries to get in his relationship with Rukmini with Rukmini he tries to taunt her so what is he doing over here Gopal in Gopal Champu Krishna consoles the Vrajivasis by sending a message that is for the Vrajivasis enduring and for the Dwarkavasis infuriating so what is that message the Vrajivasis are always hoping that Krishna will come back and when will Krishna come back when when when that is the constant longing of their hearts and especially when Krishna gets married then normally if somebody gets married that means they’re going to settle over there and then they may they’ll lose hope will Krishna ever come back then there’s nothing and especially if somebody gets married and they have the family responsibilities there their professional responsibilities then then the likelihood of their coming back becomes very low just like many of many of us are Indians over here so many we have emigrated over here so if our parents might have some hope to come back there of course many parents will have the hope I want to come here that is also different but they have a hope but if the children get married and they settle over here then the likelihood that they will come becomes very low so similarly when Krishna gets married now Krishna is the centre of the heart and the lives of the Vrajivasis and that marriage is such a thing you cannot keep secret and especially for Krishna you know I cannot keep this hidden from the Vrajivasis but at the same time he knows that there will be heart broken so then Krishna sends a message to the Gopis and he says actually for the purpose of forming alliances to protect the Yadus I have to get married but I married these princesses simply because they remind me of you they remind me of you but I am longing for you and I will come back to you soon so now we may say this is not this is this is what is Krishna doing over here is he that he’s actually not caring for the Dwarkavasis for the Dwarka queens no he cares for the Dwarka Mahishis also definitely but the point is when there is a comparison in Rasa’s between Dwarka and Vrindavan the Gauri Acharya described how Vrindavan’s Rasa is much much higher so the point I’m making over here is that Krishna wants even when he’s relating with Rukmini he’s remembering his relationship with Radha and he’s longing for that and thus when he has the sweet interactions he’s trying to provoke Rukmini and he tries to provoke Rukmini now Rukmini doesn’t understand if somebody who has been very serious and grave suddenly they start joking and they start asking what happened to you now who are you where did this person where did the original person go and who is the substitute who looks like him but who is he so Rukmini just can’t process what’s happening but what is Krishna trying to do Krishna is actually trying to get the same flavour of the sweet relationship that he had with Radha Rani and as they grow up this loving sparring becomes more and more now the whole setting of of Vrindavan is the setting of love but I started by talking about how love requires sacrifice without sacrifice love is neither tested nor tasted you can say there is love but love is tested is the real love and what is the depth of that love that is tasted when sacrifice is called for so in both Krishna Leela and Ram Leela both Krishna and Radha and Ram and Sita both of them have to go through sacrifices but the nature of the sacrifices are significantly different in Ram Leela the sacrifice through which Sita’s love for Ram is demonstrated is that she who has grown up always as a princess suddenly has to not has to chooses to go to the forest so she actually Ram comes with the full intention of dissuading her and in fact Ram gives a whole speech where he is in one sense trying to scare Sita so that she will not go to forest but in spite of that she determinedly goes to the forest and this willingness to share the pains not just the joys but the pains of one’s loved one that is the test of her love she sacrifices her royalty for her loyalty sacrifices her royalty the royal opulence that she has for her loyalty to her husband that’s great sacrifice it’s extraordinary it’s and it’s very very difficult to do something like that now Radha’s sacrifice is is is of an almost entirely different category the whole principle of Krishna Leela is that generally if we consider there is the there is the bad and the good this is the duality and if we want to go towards God we have to give up the bad there are anti-devotional activities there are sinful activities uh those we have to be given up and giving up the bad is also difficult so giving up the bad for God is also a sacrifice but a God so if we have this duality of good and bad we might say God is on the side of good and we give the bad and go towards good but actually God transcends this category of bad and good and to go toward God we not only have to give up the bad but we also have to give up the good and that’s why we see the Bhagavad Gita Krishna initially says dharma samsthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge he says i descend to establish dharma that’s four eight but after that in 1866 towards the end he says sarva dharman parityajya mam ekam sharanam raja so now dharma is good like there is one i was at one programme uh where there’s gita recitations of contest uh gita gita jayanti and then the children were reciting the gita and when they recited the gita they recited this verse as sarva dharman parityajya mam ekam sharanam raja so they made it to adharma i think how can Krishna tell us to give dharma give up dharma actually saying adharma so there’s a mistake over there it’s not a mistake actually so Krishna is saying yes i come to establish dharma but ultimately to attain bhakti you have to give up even dharma so to give up the bad to come to the good is good but to go to God we have to not only give up the bad but we may have to even give up the good and what is the good that is to be given up that Radharani demonstrates through her life and that is Sita at least has the honour of being a duly wedded wife and within that within that relationship that honourable relationship she exhibits extremes of sacrifice and uh honourable dharmic relationship is good it’s important for the stability of society for the continuance of humanity but in the Radha’s case the setting and Vrindavan is arranged in such a way that she for Krishna’s sake has to sacrifice even the honour of being an honourable wife now that is an excruciatingly difficult sacrifice so for especially in a traditional society for a woman her honour was very important for a man also his honour was important in terms of his word of honour but now for the setting of Vrindavan is such that even the good has to be given up for God and Radharani demonstrates that but this the Gopis are praying to Krishna in the Gopi Gita that Krishna you come deep into this forest and you’ve given up everything you’ve given up all our family members to come to you because you called us we gave up everything and of course the Bhagavatam is careful that while transcending dharma it doesn’t trample on dharma that it doesn’t dismiss dharma or deride dharma so at one level when the act of demonstrating the Gopi’s love for Krishna is talked about the Bhagavatam describes that actually they left everyone and all their family members were opposing but still they came to Krishna and in that kind of society when they left they didn’t even know whether they would be ever accepted back and they were literally leaving everything for Krishna’s sake so the Gopi actually demonstrated Sarva Dharmaan Parityaj and among the Gopis Radharani is the top most so Radharani sacrifices that she gives up even the good for God of course she doesn’t give it up why not because at a deeper level what happens is that while Radharani goes the Gopis go and they have wonderful Rasleela and actually even in the Rasleela how at one level Radharani is celebrated as the top most lover of Krishna as the one with the top most love for Krishna but Anandavan Champu is a beautiful book written by Kavi Karnapur and therein he analyses the whole of the Rasleela to demonstrate that actually the Rasleela shows Radharani not just as the greatest lover but as the greatest sacrificer if you get time I’ll discuss that later but at this point I’m talking about this tension between transcending Dharma and respecting Dharma so when so what happens is there is the bad there is the good and there is God so now for the sake of God good has to be given up but when most people give up good they may not rise towards God they will descend toward the bad so for most people maintaining the dignity of the good is very important the dignity of the good is very important to be maintained and the Bhagavatam does that and how the Bhagavatam does that is it describes that after the Rasleela when all the Gopis come back none of their family members resent their having gone away because it is said Yogamaya factions forms in the Gopis who were there with their family members and thus they thought yes this Gopis wanted to go and they tried to go but he stopped them and they stopped so that means Dharma is also honoured Dharma so the good is honoured but at the same time the good is also transcended so in that sense Radharani never loses her reputation but she doesn’t know this is going to happen when she goes out she’s ready to give up everything for Krishna and in this to give up the good so there is as I said there is immoral there’s bad which is below morality there is immoral there is moral and then there is trans-moral the trans-moral is that which is above morality however for those who are not very discerning the trans-moral and the immoral can appear very similar in fact that they may think that the trans-moral is actually nothing but the immoral and they may think that okay why is something trans-moral being celebrated and worshipped like that and that is a common criticism of the Bhagavatam by sceptical people that it seems to celebrate immorality but the Bhagavatam is itself conscious of this this potential for criticism and the Bhagavatam commentators have cautioned us that don’t think of this to be ordinary why is it not ordinary because this is demonstrating the highest love now to understand the magnitude of the sacrifice let’s look at other incidents which demonstrate the love of Krishna for Radha and Radha for Krishna if we consider the love of Sita and Ram they are constant in the forest also they are together and Lakshman is there to attend to them and Lakshman facilitates so that they can always be together and they have very sweet intimate pastimes together at the same time in their relationship there is of course the traumatic separation when Ravan abducts her and there’s also eventually another separation when Sita is sent away by Ram and all those demonstrate sacrifice in different ways that will not be able to go into today but here the principle of sacrifice first to understand that something is immoral is not immoral but trans-moral we need to understand how there is a principle of sacrifice the whole idea of morality is to bring us out of selfishness every one of us tends to be at one level selfish see children they are small children they are innocent but if you want to look at it positively they are sweet and innocent but if you want to look at negatively they are so self-centred they may not be conscious that they are self-centred but anytime they have any need they will start crying sometimes you see small babies and sometimes you are amazed you know that’s that size of the most advanced loudspeaker cannot make as much noise as a baby can make there’s so much energy they have their throat sometimes so now they are not even conscious of anything and they may cry suddenly in the midnight there is guy suddenly in the middle of a serious discussion and now they’re not they may be crying because they’re in pain or they may be crying because they need attention whatever but they are very self-centred one sign of growing is that we learn how to socialise socialise means that we learn how to behave in different settings and that means we become conscious of those settings that means you’re not driven only by our emotions so moral codes of any kind they are basically meant to bring us out of our self-consciousness me and my desires and my emotions and my pleasures i have to become conscious of something more than that so beyond that is as our consciousness goes upward we learn to follow codes but then you have to go further than that just like say somebody’s learning karate or judo or whatever then there are some standard defences which they need to learn this happens do this do this do this do this or if you consider cricket you know there are standard ways in which okay you get a get a ball here you’re battling this you get a ball on the body you do like this get a ball over here there’s some standard strokes so a good player needs to learn all the standard strokes a good good batsman or a good martial arts need to know all the standard moves all the good moves but beyond being good is being great and a great player knows all the standard moves and can do them expertly but the great player does something unexpected and that’s how say this this way the opponent is attacking and the opponent knows when i attack this way he’ll defend this way and that’s what this normal normal well-trained player would do but a great player that’s something entirely unexpected that’s what makes them rise them from the good to the great so good habits have to be learned before they have to be transcended similarly morality has to be learned before it has to be transcended and to understand the Gopi’s transcendental morality or that they are transmoral we need to look at the principle of sacrifice so their sacrifice melts Krishna’s heart and how is it that when Krishna now when Krishna is in the Rasleela at that time he disappears the Gopis are devastated how can Krishna disappear like this and then start searching searching everywhere for Krishna and then Krishna decides to appear in the form of Vishnu now Vishnu and Krishna share the same similar complexion broadly speaking and from a distance when the Gopis see they’re delighted oh it’s Krishna and they run toward Krishna and then they see it is Vishnu now normally for the yogis it is the deepest aspiration to have a little darshan of Krishna but when the Gopis see Krishna they’re disappointed they’re unbearably disappointed it’s like somebody comes say running to meet us and then say oh it’s you so they ask oh Krishna the Vishnu they offer their pranams to Vishnu and then they ask can you did you see Krishna can you tell me where is Krishna so then now Vishnu is also it’s Krishna is playing as Vishnu so he’s so excited he is so delighted to see the love of the Gopis that he also becomes overwhelmed and then he points his fingers he can’t speak because his speech will give him away so he points and he points and the Gopis thank him and run and now well normally when the Gopis are searching for Krishna you would think that Radharani is the first in searching for Krishna but in this case Radharani is the last and why she is the last because she’s searching everywhere he’s searching there thinking we should not miss Radha we should not miss Krishna she’s searching everywhere and then different people if we have lost something we search at one place and sometimes we search second time we search third time so Radharani is the most meticulous searcher is Krishna hiding anywhere is Krishna anywhere so she searches and then she comes there and then she asks with such fervent desperate love where is Krishna and when Krishna hears this he point with his two hands with his fingers his forearms he tries to point but what happens is Radha’s love is so great that Krishna’s two arms disappear Krishna’s two arms just disappear there are different mystical powers by which those with those powers can assume different forms but they need a certain level of self-awareness a certain level of consciousness by which they can maintain that form it’s just like somebody’s playing a fancy test competition say they put on a big moustache or a big beard or a big wig now they need to not get over excited they get over excited then what happens is maybe their wig falls away so it’s not that simple but they have to for to maintain a form there has to be certain level of self-consciousness and that’s why when the demons are about to die whichever form they may have taken up that form disappears and their original form comes up Putana has come in a form of a beautiful damsel then she becomes this ghastly witch so the same principle applies over here so when Krishna sees Radha Krishna forgets his Krishna consciousness or we could say Krishna forgets not his Krishna consciousness but his Vishnu consciousness of course is Krishna with a plan to be Vishnu so it is Krishna consciousness as per his Krishna consciousness he wants to be Vishnu but he forgets that so what happens is that love melts Krishna’s not only his heart internally but his form externally and then that same Radha who is calling out where is Krishna she says Krishna right in front of him beloved is in front of her eyes and then her eyes drain the beautiful form of Krishna so here is one glimpse of Radha’s love for Krishna that now Krishna knows the love of Radharani for Krishna for him of course even he doesn’t know fully but he knows but he wants the world to know and because he wants the world to know what does he do he enacts the past time where he pretends to have a headache now actually he’s not just pretending in a sense he has that headache he is in pain and Narasimha Narbuni is concerned hey what happened what can I do for you so he says there’s only one medicine tell me what is it I’ll get it from anywhere he says I need the dust on the feet of my devotees and Narbuni this how can I do this the Narbuni is so humble he doesn’t think I am a devotee and I can give my dust he thinks that okay who’s a devotee and he goes around and asks the various devotees and nobody is ready till finally he comes to the Gopis and among the Gopis again it is Radharani who is most prominent and they take as much dust as you want and go immediately and now at this point Narbuni starts thinking hey what’s going on maybe these Gopis don’t understand what they’re doing he says do you understand that if the dust of your feet touches Vishnu’s head then you will go to hell and the Brajwasis say the Gopis say that if you thought that Krishna has a headache is itself hell for us if Krishna can get relief from his headache that is what will get us out of hell and if to get Krishna to give Krishna relief for even one moment if we have to go to hell forever we are ready to do that so what Sita does the forest is not hell but forest is a terrible place so what Sita does for Ram’s sake the Gopis are also ready to do for Krishna’s sake not just do that but do much more and just as in a normal level if we don’t understand the context somebody giving their dust to God it’s almost like you are not kicking but what is on the foot you are giving it doesn’t make sense so here if we understand the context we understand it is a sacrifice it’s a glorious sacrifice but even this at first glance will seem offensive so we can say this is this is there is some somebody who doesn’t know the position of God I was once giving a class recently and I said that how the Brajwasis don’t accept Krishna as God and then one person in the audience he said I also don’t accept Krishna as God now there is a big difference there is not accepting Krishna because as God because of transcendence and there is not accepting Krishna as God because of ignorance and the two are opposite so somebody doesn’t know the proper way of worshipping the Lord and then they do something like this let their foot touch a sacred image or let the dust from their foot go there that means it’s a horrible it will terrible thing to do so that is below the rules the Gopis want to give the dust that’s above the rules they’re doing something they are following the rules and they are doing something more than what the rules require so just as in this case what the Gopis are doing can be seen as wrong but it is transcendentally extraordinarily right but in this case because there is no sensual connotation we don’t see that as yeah this is great sacrifice but actually the same thing is what Gopis demonstrate when they are ready to leave everything to go for Krishna’s sake so at one level which we see what is this is wrong how can they leave like this but actually what they are doing is they are doing something which is extraordinary they know the rules but their purpose goes beyond the rules so the Gopis are demonstrating how one should give up the good for God and among those Gopis Radha is the top so Sita she gives up the royal comforts for doing her duty loyally and that’s glorious now Radha gives up the reputation of loyalty for her devotion to the Lord and as that sacrifice is far far greater and as it is that it is Krishna who himself wants to know what is the love of Radha Rani for me what is the love that she has what what makes her do something like this and to know that he himself decides to come as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and that same mood of sacrifice that the Radha Rani demonstrates in her relationship with Krishna that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his followers in the renounced order demonstrate for their service to Krishna the Goswamis had enormous wealth position followers but they gave it up for Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu he was a brilliant scholar with many many followers living in a place where scholarship was hugely valued and he gave it up for Krishna so generally there are two conceptions of success the Brahminical conception of success is based on knowledge the Kshatriya conception of success is based on power and wealth so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his followers they had both of these successes and they gave both all of it up for Krishna and for us that same principle of sacrifice how we can live it in our lives is demonstrated we can’t directly imitate the Gopis of Vrindavan but we can follow in their footsteps by following the footsteps of those who manifest or how they manifest in God Lila that mode of sacrifice in trying to serve the Lord is the essence of what Radha Rani is and if we can get even a drop of that sacrificing spirit then our devotion will blossom and it is when we get the opportunity to sacrifice our devotion is tested but then devotion is not just tested it is also tasted when we actually learn to sacrifice when we give ourselves in a mood of service to Krishna then our consciousness gets absorbed more and more and what we may be called to sacrifice we don’t know sometimes we may have to sacrifice our physical comforts for Krishna’s sakes sometimes we may have to sacrifice our you could say our intellectual comforts in terms of our plan of how to serve Krishna and we may have to take up something else some other way to serve Krishna sometimes we may have to sacrifice our relational comforts that means there is a certain group of devotees with whom we are serving and it’s wonderful but then sometimes our service requires us to do something else Prabhupada writes in Lila Amrit in the first Janmashtami in America he said that all my God brothers must be celebrating Janmashtami everybody will be filled with the Krishna my atmosphere in Vrindavan I am all alone over here and at that time nobody around him even knew about Krishna so much so Prabhupada felt deeply lonely he was with Krishna but still so Prabhupada had to sacrifice that so what we may have to sacrifice we don’t know but if we strive to according to our capacity then we will strengthen and deepen our devotion and we can pray to Srimati Radharani that she bless us with a drop of her sacrificing spirit so that when life challenges us when our services challenge us we may be true to those challenges and by her mercy we can get a glimpse of the infinite love that she is relishing and that she is offering to Krishna. So I’ll quickly summarise I spoke on the topic of how Radharani we compared the love of the moods of Sita and Radha to understand how the essence of love is sacrifice it is not just attraction it is not just feeling warmth and belonging it is offering of ourselves in love and broadly speaking both Ram and Krishna demonstrate Dharma but Krishna demonstrate Dharma in much more complex ways the subtleties and complexities of life that Krishna demonstrates are also demonstrated in his relationship with his consort so Sita and Ram meet in a in an arranged marriage kind of setting and then in a royal swayamvara Sita’s hand is won by Ram in the case of Krishna and Radha they know they go long a long way back Radha’s first sight is Krishna and in all Krishna’s important pastimes Radha is often a invisible but vital presence not that Krishna waits to dance on Kalia till Radha comes Krishna doesn’t let himself get tied till the Radha provides a ribbon from her and while Sita and Ram have a very respectful relationship Radha spars with Krishna and Krishna longs for that sparring that intimate love is seen not just through sweet appreciation of each other but love is also seen through spice spices barbs taunts but in love so Krishna longs for that even when he’s out of Vrindavan and that’s what he seeks even with Rukmini so as Sita sacrifices her royalty for her loyalty gives up royal to go to the forest but she has the honour of a duly wedded wife whereas Radha the whole setting of Vrindavan is arranged so that she gives up her reputation of loyalty for offering herself to Krishna so the Bhagavatam demonstrates this tension of transcending dharma at the same time maintaining dharma that the it appears as if the gopis didn’t go so I talked about the immoral moral and trans moral so for the sake of God the bad has to be given up but for the sake of God even the good has to be given up just like say in karate or in cricket the the standard ways of playing have to be learned for a person to play to become good but for the player to become great they have to learn how to respond non-standard ways not because they don’t know the standard habits but they can do better than the standard habits so how to play expertly in the standard way that is what good is demonstrated by good but the gopis demonstrate something beyond that and that there because it’s a it’s a male-female relationship sometime relationship so it might appear immoral but it is trans moral and to understand this I talked about how when the gopis offer the dust of their feet to Krishna the gopis love melts Krishna’s heart and it melts Krishna’s arms which has two extra arms but Krishna wants to demonstrate this love to everyone and thus he asks for the dust so just as the uninformed person might touch touch do something like that and that will be offensive but the gopis do it it appears as if they don’t it is something which they don’t know the rules but they know the rules and they know much more than that the purpose of the rules so their sacrifice is so great that Krishna himself wants to know what is that love to make them sacrifice and thus he comes as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his followers demonstrate the same sacrificing spirit in a more accessible way for us so if we can also develop that spirit of sacrifice then our love will be tested and tasted through the sacrifices we can do in our life of service to Krishna.
Thank you very much. Do we have time for any questions? Yes, I have a few questions. So I think that the gopis are willing to sacrifice their reputation so you’re willing to go to hell for Krishna.
So we see that the gopis are willing to do anything for Krishna. What do we see in Radharani’s behaviour that is that surpasses that of the gopis so much? Come for tomorrow’s class in CNJ. I’ll answer over there.
What is special about Radharani’s love which transcends all the gopis love? Basically it is that even when she is with Krishna she is thinking of Krishna but she is also thinking of the gopis. I’ll just tell one point from this beautiful points like we know when in the Raas Leela when it said the gopis become proud and then Krishna disappears from them. He goes with Radharani and Radharani becomes proud and then Krishna disappears from her also but actually it is all a competition of selflessness that the gopis are all with Krishna and the gopis feel that actually none of our love compares with Radha’s love for Krishna.
Although they all love Krishna but they know Radha’s love is far far greater. So they think that yes we want to be with Krishna but Radha deserves specially to be with Krishna and thus they act as if they are proud and Krishna goes away with Radharani and once Radharani understands that oh Krishna is with me alone she’s she’s so happy to be singled out for that special attention but in the next moment she thinks hey what am I doing if my sake is like Lalita and Vishaka they would be heartbroken to be without Krishna and if they don’t have Krishna how can I be happy and it is out of concern for them that she says that Krishna I’m very tired I can’t I’m very tired I can’t walk any further and then Krishna seems to get angry Krishna says now because this is a forest I cannot get a palanquin for you so sit on my back and I’ll carry you and then Krishna says this in an angry tone and he disappears and then he disappears Radharani is devastated what happened she had no desire to offend Krishna she only wanted to avoid the distress that her friends were going through now Krishna understands that but Krishna wants all the Sakhis also to know that Radha was thinking about them and thus Krishna disappears even from them so the speciality of Radharani is that she she loves Krishna deeply but she also loves those who love Krishna deeply and thus she doesn’t want to be alone happy with Krishna she wants and she wants to be happy with Krishna but she wants others to also be with Krishna so that is one pastime which demonstrates how Radharani is not not delighting in solitary ecstasy I alone everybody she wants that although she is special now from a philosophical perspective Radharani is Ladini Shakti that means that whatever devotion whoever has it all comes from Radharani so the Sakhis their devotion also comes from Radharani even Yashoda’s devotion comes from Radharani because Radharani is not just one person Radharani is the Radharani is the source of all devotion so basically there are two conceptions of masculine divinity similarly there are two conceptions of feminine divinity masculine divinity means like Krishna so at one level Krishna is the best of all beings we talk about how different beings have different qualities and Krishna has 64 qualities so Krishna is the best of all beings but Krishna is not just the best of all beings Krishna is the basis of all being also nothing can exist without him whatever quality he has so it is that Krishna has 64 and say maybe Vishnu has 60 and Brahma has 50 but it is not that Brahma’s 50 qualities are separate from Krishna 64 it is his qualities also come from Krishna only so that means the masculine divinity is seen in two ways one is he is the best of all being but other is the basis of all being also whoever has any qualities they all come from Krishna so similarly Radharani’s conception also these two ways that she is the best of all devotees she has the best of all devotion but she is also the basis of all devotion whoever has any devotion also comes from Radharani so that’s why her devotion is supreme okay I didn’t want to go into the full story but the idea was she thought that if I say I won’t I can’t walk any further then we thought Krishna will sit down over here we’ll sit down and the other gopis are searching for us they’ll find us so otherwise if you just go deep into the forest we’ll go so deep that other gopis will not be able to find us so she was she wanted to slow Krishna down so that the other gopis will find her yes There is the past time of chastity and Vrindavan that is so bad I think I am just going to commit suicide because then Krishna manifests this past time of carrying water in a pot that has a thousand holes in it that’s a whole past time but Radharani does sometimes complain about that here’s my question you very wonderfully as you do all the time you apply these higher principles to how you know to our struggles in devotional service so my question is about sacrifice for Krishna so we see in Prabhupada’s life that sometimes he had a plan and Krishna didn’t allow that plan to happen sometimes he just accepts it like in Jhansi you know he wanted this he had this building in the League of Nations and then the governor’s wife wanted the building so he didn’t fight it so much okay but when the same thing happened in Bombay he fought like anything so my question is when something happens to us we have a plan to serve Krishna and if it doesn’t happen how do we know oh this isn’t Krishna’s plan well no I should fight Krishna wants me to fight to get it done how can we understand how to act in those circumstances Krishna so when our plan is not working how do we know when to stick to the plan and keep fighting for Krishna or when to let go of the plan and and just accept it Just very quickly, Jyotananda wants to ask Prabhupada, how do I know how often to try and do something before I give up and Prabhupada says try three times and you give up. Try three times okay So broadly it is purpose that gives perspective so there is basically there is a path and there is a purpose the word Niyamagraha has two different meanings Niyamagraha one meaning is that you insist on the rule so much that you forget the purpose the other meaning is that you just you just neglect the rule and the purpose both so we could say that there is a purpose and there is a path to the purpose now on any path there will be challenges so we need to face those challenges and we need to be willing to face those challenges and that is how we walk on the path toward the purpose but sometimes when we are walking on that path toward the purpose we may find that this path is just not leading me to the purpose then we may have to find another path so the attachment to the path should never become more than the attachment to the purpose and it is when the attachment to the path starts blinding us to the purpose this is what I have to do at all costs no matter what happens that is when it becomes a problem so we may ourselves maybe discuss and decide this much this is what I want to do this is what the extent to which I will endeavour and within this endeavour if it works good it is often it is when we when we limit our challenges then we can challenge our limits we are trying to take too many challenges then we cannot face anything we limit our challenges this battle I cannot fight right now this battle is what I am going to fight right now so when we limit our challenges then we can challenge our limits so we need to be calmly do some introspection to see how much to endeavour Prabhupada was determined in purpose but he was quite discerning in his practise what to take forward so sometimes it is good to talk with devotees who are like-minded but who are also outside maybe they can give some perspective then then we can learn it is difficult but there is we need to pray to Krishna to consult some senior Vaishnavas and then set some kind of limit maybe it will be a time frame or result something we have to put okay I am going to give this much time for this and if it works good if it does not then it is not that I am giving up but rather I may have to give up this path it is not it is not an easy decision any other questions well okay how can we see Sita in relationship with Radharani generally there is in scripture when one particular character is to be glorified everyone else becomes like a agent or instrument for the glorification of that character so for example when in the seventh canto Prahlad’s devotion is being glorified then it is described even Lakshmi cannot pacify Narasimha Deva she doesn’t even try to pacify Narasimha Deva and say actually in the and none of them can pacify then it’s Prahlad who pacifies now is it that Prahlad’s devotion is greater than Lakshmi Devi’s well that’s difficult to say Lakshmi Devi is in the Madurai eras so but in that particular past time everything is aligned so that the glory of Prahlad is demonstrated now even Narada Muni is said to be bowing down to Hiranyakashipur Prahlad doesn’t bow down to him how can Narada Muni bow down Narada Muni is not afraid of death or anything but in that situation to highlight the absolute dominance of Hiranyakashipur and then the extraordinariness extraordinariness of Prahlad’s resistance the whole setting is arranged like that so similarly when we are meditating on Radhashtami about Radharani’s glories then we may use some other reference points to illustrate the glory of Radharani and even Sita’s devotion Sita’s sacrifice might can be seen or shown to be lesser than Radha’s but we could take some other frame of reference and we can even glorify Sita’s devotion and in the Brihadbhagavata Amrita there is a very endearing transcendental subjectivity that means that when the Gopakumar goes to Ayodhya and he sees over there that he’s initially delighted to be in Ayodhya first he’s delighted to be in Vaikuntha then he goes to Ayodhya and wherever he goes in Vaikuntha the Vaikunthavasis think that Vishnu is the ultimate divinity and I think Vishnu is the source of Krishna in Ayodhya they think that Ram is the source of Krishna and Brihadbhagavata Amrita doesn’t say actually they are wrong it is for them that is the ultimate reality so there is nowadays there is the idea of postmodernism where everything is made relative so even that has its pure form where it’s not that everything is relative but the relativity based on affection is not a sign of lack of knowledge but it is sign of love that transcends knowledge so similarly in this frame of analysis when we are doing we see that Sita sacrifices for Krishna for Ram and her love is glorious because she stays faithful to Ram while going to the forest she stays chaste to Ram even when she’s abducted and threatened and she stays faithful to him even when based on just an based apparently an unsubstantiated accusation Ram sends her away so her in one sense her love is also glorious because you know because she is the queen so everything that happens to her is far greater public knowledge it’s what happens to Radha at least at that time in Vrindavan, Vrindavan is a small village Krishna kept his connection with Vrindavan low profile and he says intentionally that he keeps it low profile so that none of his enemies will ever attack Vrindavan so he makes it appear to the world that actually I just happen to live in Vrindavan it’s like say as a student or a child maybe lives in some foster home or lives in some hostel and you live it and then you forget it so Krishna acts like that so that’s why everything that happens over there is not so well known so Sita’s love is also great but as I said that the Krishna demonstrates dharma in increasingly complex situations and similarly his bhakti the bhakti of his devotees including Radha is also demonstrated increasingly complex situations so that’s that selflessness that sacrifice in situations where moral lines become increasingly blurred that’s what is demonstrated by Radharani.
Does it answer your question or was your question something else? Yeah so from tattva point of view like I said Radharani is the source of the love of everyone so you could say Radharani is the source of love of Sita or the bhakti of Sita also but they are one and they are there so Radharani and Sita are one and different but that is like that so Sita’s love is categorically at a different level than you could say the love of any ordinary devotee in any other rasa so it’s way way higher but still within Madhuri rasa also there are grades. Yes one last question what is the nature of the Radha Krishna relationship especially new people ask how do we explain that so basically the first point to understand is that they are the divine consorts so Krishna is the is God the absolute in the female male form Radha is God in the female form and they are the divine couple so that’s the straightforward answer. Now somebody asked but when they married as queen and as a king and queen or whatever then we need to explain a simplest explanation is that consider a drama in which there are various characters and say there is there is a couple who are happily married but in that drama they’re playing a role where the woman is a married to someone else and then they have a relationship and the whole setting is done so that all the adventure all the fear all the suspense see for a husband and a wife to meet each other there is after the few initial maybe few months or few years there’s not much adventure there’s not much danger there can be various kinds of dangers but the point of meeting is not very difficult but here the setting is made in such a way that it’s constantly sacrifice danger adventure is required for their union to take place so in the setting in the drama they are they are not married but in actuality they are married the actuality they are a couple so that is how in tattva Krishna and Radha are the divine couple in leela it they are related in parkiyas so we shouldn’t emphasise the parkiyas so much the rasa there is the tattva and there is rasa so if we emphasise the rasa so much that the tattva is not understood or tattva is downplayed then those who are not rasika they will misunderstand so we need to emphasise the tattva strongly but they are the divine couple but for the intensification for the for the reciprocation of intense love they are arranged in a setting where there is opposition the whole idea is that love is or the strength any strength is seen when there is opposition say if the elephant is rushing towards the she elephant or elephant is rushing towards water now the elephant can run very fast but the elephant is tied it’s difficult to run the elephant is tied to a big big tree and the elephant brings down its baby elephant who’s now growing up and the baby elephant brings down the big tree then how much strength it has the audience can see that and the baby elephant also discuss oh i didn’t know i had so much strength so the strength is internally experienced and externally expressed when there is opposition similarly the love of the gopis for krishna especially the love of radha for krishna it is more experienced and expressed when it is restricted by another tie so it is a setting so it is it is a it is a leela but the tattva is important so if you focus on the tattva and people accept that’s good enough we ask further question then explain the leela but then emphasise come back and emphasise the tattva yes he was worried about misunderstanding on the other side prabha pushed the distribution of the krishna book which shows the um the i say the dramatic interaction of radha and krishna and that’s what forces us to have to do yeah yes so jivaswami has talked about the marriage of radha krishna that is after krishna comes back to vrindavan and then they married so see basically again this is a big subject i just make two quick points for this that like i talked about transcending dharma and honouring dharma so now krishna’s pastimes can happen in many different ways at different times and jivaswami what he described in gopal champu it is something which is will be accepted by those who accept the authority of jivaswami now he of course draws away shastras but the vivid details of the pastime which he is talking about then we don’t we don’t find them in the shastras now of course you could say there are various explanations given by our acharyas so for example one explanation is that when all the gopas had expanded and krishna had expanded as all the gopas that’s the time when all the gopis got married to them so they are all married to krishna only there’s another pastime i think in the no it is in the brahma vayuvartha puran or how brahma ji actually performs the marriage of radha and krishna so there are various occasions when there is a duly wedded relationship also but that is not the prominent mood that is the marriage itself is performed in secret you could at least the later towards the in the later two books so therefore that suspense and that adventure all that is still there so now when prabhupada gave the book krishna book told us to disturb the krishna book to everyone what he did was he made sure that we would never forget the tattva so time and time and time again he reminds us of the tattva and the tattva is reminded of then when we see the rasa the leela we won’t misunderstand so much so the idea is that you know the upside down tree metaphor upside down tree metaphor so there is a reflected mango there is the there is the say the water level and there is the real mango so the world and its relationships are like the reflected mango the radha krishna relationship is like the pure mango the original mango so now when we are guided by prabhupada and the acharyas then when we see the real mango we understand this is the real mango different from the different from the reflected mango and then on seeing the real mango the desire for the reflected mango goes away but if we do not have adequate philosophical conviction or we do not have adequate devotional purification then instead of the real mango directing us away from the reflected mango the real mango might remind us of the reflected mango and therefore although the krishna book is distributed widely prabhupada also said be cautious if you read those pastimes of rasa leela and that agitates you then use your common sense then don’t read right now so prabhupada gave us the picture of the real mango also but then he told you if you are still remembering the reflected mango so much then at this time don’t look at the real mango so don’t look at at least those pastimes so thank you very much