Why did the Vrajavasis not go to Mathura to meet Krishna when they were suffering in separation from him?

Transcript

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Vrajavasis not go to meet Krishna in Mathura when they were suffering so much in separation from him? Answer, because Krishna wanted to protect them.
Krishna when he killed Kamsa and rescued Vasudev and all the Yadus from his atrocities because of the killing of Kamsa all the other demoniac kings became especially outraged the primary among them was Jarasandha and Jarasandha had alliances with many other kings so because of that the Yadus were in immense danger and in fact that was Krishna immediately after killing Kamsa wanted to return back to Vrindavan after having handed over the throne to Ugrasen that was one of the main reasons why he himself did not become the king of course the external reason was that the Yadus were cursed that nobody directly a descendant of Yadu would become the king of that dynasty but that was only the external reason the internal reason was that Krishna wanted to immediately return back to Vrindavan to be with the Vrajavasis as he had promised to them when he had started off from Vrindavan that I will come back but the Yadus requested that we are in great danger and we need protection so please stay with us at least till all the enemies are killed and that was the message that Krishna gave to Nanda Maharaj when Nanda Maharaj was waiting for him after the coronation of Ugrasena so when Krishna told Nanda Maharaj that Vasudeva and Devaki and that they have requested me to stay on over here along with all the other Yadus that’s their common request then Nanda Maharaj was heartbroken and he felt that this was his worst nightmare come true and he said oh Krishna I will stay right here with you and then Krishna in tears he said I’ll be very happy if you stay but what will happen to mother Yashoda how can she stay alone he says no I’ll get Yashoda and not only Yashoda we’ll get all the Vrajavasis here and we’ll all stay in Mathura itself so Krishna said no there are millions of cows that we have and all the millions of cows cannot be accommodated in Mathura and even if they are accommodated in Mathura how can they be provided land for grazing that is possible only in Vrindavan there’s abundant land available over there and we are all the servants of the cows and if the cows become cramped and they are not properly accommodated my heart will be very pained to see that so because we are all the servants of the cows for the sake of the cows we should all stay in all of you should stay in Vrindavan and as soon as I kill all the enemies I’ll come back and then Krishna paused and he spoke one more thing which he knew would cause great pain to the Vrajavasis all the more he said that actually not only is Mathura in danger because of my enemies but even Vrindavan can be in danger because of my connection with Vrindavan so he said it will be best if my connection with Vrindavan is not known to my enemies when Kamsa sent the demons to Vrindavan at that time I was personally there and I killed all the demons but now Vrindavan is not a Kshatriya community it is a Vaishya community and you cannot defend yourself if demons or demoniac kings along with their armies come and attack so and if your deep attachment to me becomes known and if my deep attachment to you becomes known then my enemies will exploit that weakness and will deliberately attack you and if Vrindavan gets devastated if anything happens to the Vrajavasis my suffering will know no end therefore till I am able to kill all the enemies it is best if our connection especially our love is not revealed to the world that means people will just think that because Vasudev was in danger you saw he just sent his son to his cousin for taking care of and that was all they will just see that my stay in Vrindavan was functional it was not intensely emotional and that way Vrindavan will be protected and the Maharaj realized the truth of what Krishna was saying and eventually when Jarasandha came to attack Mathura often his armies also passed by Vrindavan and the Vrajavasis had to leave their homes and go into the nearby mountainous forests so that they along with their cows would be protected so Jarasandha and his army when they passed by Vrindavan because they thought it is just another village so they did not particularly attack or devastated they focused their attacks on Mathura and because of this danger Nanda and the other Vrajavasis they never went to meet Krishna in Mathura although Mathura was close by because the connection had to be concealed and this is very movingly narrated by Jiva Goswami and Gopal Champu where he integrates the insights of Padma Purana, Brahma Vaivarta Purana, Vishnu Purana, Skanda Purana and various other Puranas, Garga Samhita also and gives us a integrated sequential and analytical narrative of Krishna’s pastimes. So later on when the Vrajavasis came to know that Krishna had gone to Dwarka they were further devastated emotionally because they felt that now Krishna is so far away and it’s very difficult for us to meet but in the sense they were relieved because Dwarka is a fortress under the ocean now they will be protected and also the disruptions in Vrindavan also minimized. Later on when Krishna and the Dwarkavasis decided to go to Kurukshetra on the occasion of the solar eclipse for bathing in the sacred waters over there, Nanda Maharaj and the Vrajavasis came to know about this.
They immediately decided that we will go there and because so many people from all over the various kingdoms will be coming, if we go there and even if we meet Krishna that will not arouse any suspicion of any great attachment. It’s just acquaintances coming to meet each other and the pretext will be our meeting Krishna. The pretext will be that we just come here to bathe and on the occasion of bathing we are meeting.
So it is not that we have any special love for Krishna. That’s what the world will not infer that. The enemies of Krishna will primarily think that oh this is just he had stayed with them they were his foster parents and when they had just incidentally come to bathe in Kurukshetra they met.
So this is the reason why Krishna and the Vrajavasis could not meet in Mathura and of course there is also another deeper reason is that the Vrajavasis did not really delight in seeing Krishna as a king. They wanted to see him as a cowherd boy and that’s why when the Gopis met Krishna in Vrindavan they begged him, beseeched him to please come back to Vrindavan so that where he would be decorated not by a crown but by a peacock feather and in his hands he would not have weapons but he would have flute and he would be dressed not in the armor of a warrior but he would be dressed in the Pitambar dress of the cowherd boy and he said that is the form in which we adore you forever and that was their seeing Krishna in that form was their greatest longing and Krishna fulfilled that longing when he came back to Danta after killing Danta Vakra in Mathura back to Vrindavan. So the reason is twofold the Vrajavasis primarily as per Krishna’s direction did not want to reveal the connection their connection with Krishna so that they would not be in danger and they also wanted to see Krishna not just in the not just see Krishna but see Krishna in his Vrajabhava and that’s why they begged to Krishna to eventually come back and that occasion as the seed of the Rath Yatra festival.
Thank you.