Hare Krishna! It is our incredible fortune, given to us by Srila Prabhupada and by all our spiritual mentors that we came here, to Maan Sarovar. Another name of this place is Hridaya Sarovar. Hridaya means heart. This Sarovar, this Lake is the heart of Radha and Krishna, nothing more or less. And apparently this is not a place which accords with our qualification, that’s why at the beginning we were trying to meditate on the attempts of Laksmi Devi to give up the attachment to aisvarya. The word aisvarya comes from the word isvara. Isvara means lord, governor, master and this isvarata is an inseparable characteristic of the Lord. And most of the religions, practically all the religions are accentuated on this aspect – aisvarya of the Lord, fear before the Lord, fear to make any mistake, to commit sin, to somehow hurt Him. And even in Vedic culture most of the people who are following the personal approach of the Lord, are also mainly immersed in this aisvarya bhava. If you go to South India you will find gigantic temples, with gopuras [monumental entrance tower], very luxurious worship of the Deities, where ratha-yatra is held every day, where the Deities are being taken outside with big pomp. For example, in the temple of Ranganath which we were talking about today, a she-elephant is brought to Sri Ranganath for mangala-arati every morning. And on this elephant, there is a big silver pot with water from the river Kaveri. Then they bring a cow there, putting her tail before Ranganath, because it is said, that Goddess Laksmi resided in the tail of the cow. And this elephant is specially trained in such a way, that it could blow its trunk. So, in this temple not pujari, but elephant blows. And now just imagine what kind of temple it is, that a she-elephant could move there without any obstacle. For example here elephant cannot be placed.
Vrindavan is a special place, where there is no aisvarya at all. Or to say more correctly there is aisvarya as well, but it is covered with such a thick layer of madhurya that it even cannot be penetrated. When residents of Vrindavan are coming into contact with this opulence, omnipotence of the Lord, they either ascribe it to the virtue of Nanda Maharaja, because he is worshiping Narayana and so that he has deserved this protection, or just saying: “Our Gopal is so cool. Well done…” Vrindavan, is very special place and most of the people, including us, cannot understand it, that’s why we have to approach such places very carefully, especially the places which are the very heart of Vrindavan. We have to understand, that by some kind of whim of providence we came here more or less accidentally, and according to how we will act here, according to how we be able to respect everything which is happening here, our spiritual life and our spiritual fate depends on that. It’s so easy to go somewhere from Krishna Consciousness. We acknowledge, we respect other traditions, we understand, that all of them help people to come closer to God somehow or other. But which God? We respect other spiritual paths, without doubt, but we want, we hope, we wish to go to Krishna in Vrindavan.
On one hand coming here, in Vraja, we have to visit such places, but on the other hand we also have to understand that, they are demanding particular caution and awe from us. Even an ordinary person we must not treat ill to his heart. We all know how sensitive our heart is. Is our heart sensitive? Is it easy to offend us? Yes. And believe or not, it is also very easy to offend even sanyasi. I remember, once I was talking to Gurumaharaj and our talk was about one prolonged conflict between two respectable groups of gaudiya vaisnavas whose leaders were very honorable, remarkable devotees, pure devotees, followers of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati. At some moment, they disputed and this discord has been prolonging already for some decades. And he said very interestingly: you may be a sanyasi, you may be renounced from this world, but the more the heart is purified, as more sensitive it becomes. We think that, if heart is purified, it will become senseless and it does not care two pence at all. But actually this is not a fact. Sensitivity is the primeval nature of consciousness, and the Lord, although He has the purest heart, He is also the most sensitive. That’s why in our gaudiya-sampradaya actually there are two things we have to know: we need to chant mantra: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare. I hope, all of you is aware about it now. And another thing is that you have to avoid offences. And nobody knows that, or maybe everyone prefers to forget about it.
Recently one of my disciples wrote to me: “You saved my life.” And okay, I am already used to it, that I have saved a lot of lives. At least they think so, but I really liked what she was writing. She was saying there: “On the day of my initiation I gave you a vow, not to offend anyone. And although I broke this vow too many times, somehow or other it really saved me from the most dangerous offences.” And I liked these words, I was touched very much by these words, because actually this is the second important thing if not the first, which we have to understand. I If we want to approach Krishna, who is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the Highest Personality, we have to accept, that His heart is very sensitive and He will not bear even the slightest cue for offence. He accepts our love with joy, with greed, He absorbs love and accepts with gratitude every form of love. He will not just reciprocate, He will give ten million times more for your love, but He does not want those people around Him whose mind is contaminated with envy.
Ultimately all the offences that we are committing are dictated by the only feeling, absolutely opposite feeling to love. And that’s why aparadha is called aparadha. Aparadha is something opposite, separating, departing us from love, from the mood which accepts Krishna. He accepts love and Radha is the manifestation of this love. And aparadha is what departs us from this love, which hinders us to love, which destroys love in our heart. This is the biggest misfortune, the biggest tragedy that can happen to us. And Srila Rupa Goswami says, that if a person is committing aparadha, in worst case he will leave, and his heart might turn into stone-like heart of an atheist, who wants to get enjoyment for himself only. It happens. And in the best case, as Rupa Goswami says, the level of his love will gradually decrease according to what kind of offence he is committing, according to the degree of this offence. And in this way, he will lose something the most precious. Actually it’s apparent that we are still very far from this, but anyway what we have now is that we can appreciate this ideal of love, of pure love, and as I already mentioned, if it comes into our heart, everything else will be erased, all the other things will stop to be important for us. Just this bare fact, that we believe in it, actually we believe not in God, we believe in Love, and Love includes God, we believe that there is nothing more precious than love, moreover not just love, but boundless love which is reigning here.
This boundless love manifested here, in Vrindavan and we want to achieve it, because the soul in its nature is boundless, soul cannot be satisfied with anything limited. Why does the experience of material enjoyments disappoint us so much? Because they are limited, while soul wants something unlimited. Vedanta-Sutra begins with this. One of the first topic which Baladeva Vidyabhusana is talking about in his commentary to vedanta-sutra is that, in Upanishads God is called bhauma, which means unlimited. This desire of something unlimited, something boundless lives in our soul, because we are part and particle of the Lord, we are created alike to Him, and this infinity of the Lord is most unlimitedly manifested in Vrindavan. Everything infinite is infinite, but there exists more infinite and less infinite, and the most infinite place is Vrindavan. Why? Because love of God does not know any boundaries. And this is one of such places, where we must try to feel this love even to some level.
When you have opportunity, please come here alone, sit here on the banks of this lake and chant mantra: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare. Yesterday while preparing for the parikrama I was reading a book written by Sivarama Maharaja called “Navavraja Mahima”, and there he was saying about this place, that out of all the places in Bhauma Vrindavan – or of Vrindavan which is manifested here on the Earth – there is no other place where I could feel love of Radha and Krishna so intimately. He says, that this is very special place and he knows what he is saying. This book in itself is narrating about lots of miracles, which are taking place here, in Vrindavan, and even from all other places he excludes this place. That’s why we have to appreciate this tremendous fortune of being here. We occurred here by the mercy and there is no other reason, not because we deserved it, but only by the mercy we are here and again, by the mercy which is unreasonable, we can understand and feel something here, in this place.
There is a plan to take bath in this lake. Here are two ghats, one here and another there. Matajis may separately bathe. This is also rare opportunity because, when we are in a sacred place we should take bath definitely for it is said, that the water is bearing in itself the vibration of this wonderful place. And I want to say few words about this place, although I feel extremely embarrassed and not qualified. In order to somehow or other immerse in the mood of this place I have been reading Prema Samputa, for last few weeks, a book by Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura, where together with the other topics he is describing what happened here as well. More correctly he is describing, what happened in the hearts of Krishna and Srimati Radharani.
This place is connected with rasa-lila, generally people are describing svarupa of the rasa-lila, or external happening which characterizes rasa-lila, the highest lila of love. Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura in this small book, poem Prema Samputa, is describing svabhava of this lila. There is lila-svarupa, there is lila-svabhava. Just like us – we also have svarupa, our external manifestation, and svabhava, our internal mood, internal condition. And here, in that book he is talking, or more correctly Srimati Radharani Herself, who is the main heroine of this book, and on whose behalf all the narration is going on, he is saying that those people, who have no love and still are talking about love, only spoil everything and people listening to them, are even less fortunate. He is warning us from our insistent stubborn attempts to devalue love. He categorically is saying that talking about love is forbidden. Moreover, if someone is saying to you: “I love you”, it means, that he does not love you. Under the guise of words of love people in this world are hiding their lust. When someone is saying to you: “I love you”, please, take google translator and translate it into real language, and on true language he is saying: “I want something from you.” This is the only thing you are being told at this moment.
Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura through the lips of Srimati Radharani is saying that talking about love is forbidden. He says that love is manifested through the eyes, it can be radiating from a person, or shining in the eyes of a person, but it is forbidden to talk about it. That’s why Srila Prabhupada practically didn’t say a word about love. Sometimes his throat was chocked with ecstasy and he was in such a condition that he couldn’t say a word and he would stand up and go saying out and through this lump in his throat he would say to the people listening to him: “Go on chanting Hare Krishna.” But somehow or other, these attempts for making love cheaper is still going on, although Srila Prabhupada was always warning everyone against it. An attempt to turn love into something for sale, is called sahajiya, when we are talking about high matters without any understanding of them, and that’s why Srimati Radhika is saying: “One who is trying to analyze love, one who is trying to understand love only with his intelligence only, in principle he will not understand anything.” One who is talking about love without any understanding of this, is just making obstruction for others as well to understand it. Love is manifested in action, that’s why we said in Belvan or in Bilva-van that even munis, the great sages, who were meditating on the service to Krishna, who were remembering Krishna’s lilas, eventually they could approach Him, only when they took birth here, on the land of Vrindavan, this has naturally to be deserved, it does not come just like that and not that fast also. And we occurred here in this place, I will try to say something about svarupa of what happened here and will try to slightly touch svabhava as well. Only in order to try, maybe one day, to realize it. And again, if you have opportunity to come here alone, without big group and just sit and chant mantra on the bank of this lake, I think you will get big merit and especially if you try to remember what happened here.
As I already told you, this place is continually connected with rasa-lila. On the other shore of Yamuna took place this rasa-lila, rasa-dance. And in some moment Radhika, Nayaki-siromani, the heroine on this dance got angry with Krishna and as it is supposed to be she turned away and came here to this place. And here She saw a pilu-tree. If you look around, you will see this pilu-tree. These pilu-trees in natural way are bowing down on the ground and they are making kunjas. All the kunjas in Vrindavan are mainly from this pilu. She saw this amazing kunja, with amazing beauty, or some kunjas made from the pilu tree and on one side of this kunja was tamal tree, if you turn back, you will see this marveling tamal tree and on the other side was growing kadamba tree and now on the other side of this altar is growing a kadamba tree as well. When Radhika saw a tamal tree, her heart was even more carried away by the love towards Krishna, She was sitting in this kunja and started crying, and these tears of boundless love which came out from her heart turned into this lake – Maan-sarovara. Word maan, or maana with prolonged “a” it’s very difficult, actually, it is impossible to translate into Russian. Some people translate it as anger, loving anger, but it is not correct. Actually maan is Love, this is special manifestation of love. And no matter how people of other cultures try to translate this word and they will never do that, because only here, in this place people know what love is – even here not everyone.
Recently Bhurijana prabhu told me one little story, which I liked very much, he said that once he was talking to Bhakti Vaibhava Puri Maharaja, who is Srila Prabhupada’s spiritual brother, a disciple of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura who loved Srila Prabhupada very much. And Srila Prabhupada loved Him very much – among all his spiritual brothers he was singling out Bhakti Vaibhava Puri Maharaja and they had very close and very warm relationships with each other, which was kept further as well. And once Bhakti Vaibhava Puri Maharaja, in fact the talk was about love, about how to understand love, Bhakti Vaibhava Puri Maharaja angrily looking at the disciples of Srila Prabhupada, said: “You, people from West will never be able to understand what love is, you do not know what love is.” And to prove it, he said: “You can believe me or not, I have seen how a mother was feeding with spoon her 60 years old son.” Could you imagine this scene? A person is 60 years old, and his mom loves him so much, that she couldn’t help but feed him with a spoon. The only thing that we know from where we can learn love, is Bollywood movies, where some kind of shadows of this culture of love is still kept.
Actually this is great thing – culture of love, culture of service, culture of tenderness, culture of relationships, when each person endlessly appreciates other’s sensitivity, and is afraid to make him angry, to offend him, to hurt him, when every person is emanating to this love… And ultimately this is our ideal, we want to realize it. And although we will never understand and we will never translate what is maan, but anyway we have to try with great owe to understand what this maan is. Actually Srimati Radharani came here because of maan, not because maan that was raging in Her heart, but because of different maan, that She saw in the heart of other gopis. If we describe just external events that happened at this magic night on Sarad Purnima when Krishna called gopis of Vrindavan with His flute. When Krishna saw full moon in the month of Sarad, and the month of Sarad is very special month, when it has just finished raining. And the moon is full, and especially bright.
There are several nights, or conditions of the moon which is called siddha. And full moon, or Sarad Purnima, full moon of the month of Kartik is one of such nights. Another night, by the way will be tomorrow or the day after tomorrow at Diwali night, when there will be new moon. Such nights are called siddha, because if a person does not sleep at this night and is very intensively engaged in spiritual practice by chanting mantra, there is big chance, that he will achieve perfection in this mantra, which means that he might see the Worshipable Deity of this mantra before him. And all the yogis, all the mahatmas, they know these secrets, they are using these particular astrological positions of the stars for strengthening their spiritual practice. As we also know that on Ekadasi day spiritual practice brings much deeper fruits than on any other day, that’s why we are trying to spare more time for spirituality on these days.
At this night, on Sarad Purnima, when Krishna saw full ascending moon, when He saw jasmine flowers, that suddenly started to blossom, while as a rule they are blossoming in spring, but anyway they unexpectedly began to blossom at this moment, and the aroma of jasmine flowers struck in Krishna’s nose and this smell made Him dizzy, at this moment Krishna, God, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, whose each and every desire is fulfilled instantly, who is absolutely self-sufficient, felt desire to enjoy. Visksarantam manas cakret. Literally as is uttered by Badarayani or Sukadeva Goswami, He decided to enjoy with what, or whom? – with Love, with love of gopis. Why? He whose spiritual desires are satisfied, who is deriving pleasure from Himself, why then He decided to enjoy? Why He decided to take pleasure with their love? Does it mean that He was lacking something? Of course, no. He decided to enjoy this love out of completeness.
As in the beginning of Srimad-Bhagavatam it is said, that atmaramas – great sages, nevertheless they are atmaramas, nevertheless they are self-satisfied, still they are enjoying what? Atmaramas ca munayo, nirganthah apy urukrame… Hare Krishna! How many times did Lord Caitanya explain this verse? First was Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya, next was Sanatana Goswami, then He explained it in Varanasi and… anyway, you do not know this verse. For whom Lord Caitanya explained it? For mayavadi-sanyasis of Varanasi? The essence of this verse is very important, there it is said, that even a person who is absolutely satisfied, he is nirgranthi, he does not have false ego at all, he absolutely does not have false ego, anyway he is enjoying this bhakti, or he is starting to engage in devotional service of Krishna, why? Itham bhuta guno harih. Because such kind of character has Krishna, because he cannot help but serve, although he personally does not need anything, but he wants to serve Krishna, because such kind is Krishna’s character. And Sukadeva Goswami says that when in this moment, at the night of Sarad Purnima, Krishna became eager to enjoy with gopis, why Krishna wanted to enjoy the gopis? Itham bhuta guno… gopih, because it is their character. Great self-satisfied personalities are serving Krishna, because He astounds them with His wonderful characters. And who is confounding Krishna with their characters? – Cowherd girls of Vrindavan. This is where rasa-lila starts. This is not a primitive lila and most of the people do not understand it. Because as we know what happened: Krishna called them, cowherd girls ran after the call of His flute, they left their homes, and this is already very difficult for people to understand.
Recently there was a gathering of the yogis, and one of the girls, who was yogini asked: “How is that, this is dharma, why Krishna called someone’s wives, how could it be? They were others’ wives! How they ran to Him?” It is okay for us, this can be understood, because it somehow or other accords with our modern culture, there is no problem, but people who acquainted with Vedic culture, they cannot understand how that can be. And this is already a mystery, this is already a secret. And if we understand this secret, how gopis carelessly rejected everything, knowing that they could never return back, that they would never be accepted back, but nevertheless they left everything and ran to Krishna. Krishna joked with them and told them to go back home again. They told Him everything what they were thinking about it. Krishna said, okay I have changed my mind, let’s dance.
And they started dancing and as we know, and as Sukadeva Goswami says, at some moment they became proud. When Srimati Radharani saw all this happening, She got very angry and came here, is it right? But what happened actually? Where is love here? Some of them are proud, others are jealous, third are running away from their homes, forth are getting angry. Where is love? If we will look at this from aside, we will not understand anything, we will not understand absolutely anything. That is why our acaryas are trying with all their great love to bring to us svabhava – what was happening in the heart of those heroines who were participating in this wonderful lila. And our only hope is that at least we get little reflection of that, that the impetus of this lila is true love, where there is no place neither for jealousy, nor anger, even loving anger but all these feelings are pure love. If we understand this, we will understand something. Even if we understand it theoretically, it means, that we will understand something and somehow we will come closer to this understanding. In fact, as I told you, and as Sukadeva Goswami is saying Radhika came here because She saw that the gopis during the rasa-d… And yes, what happened next? Krishna left all the gopis and then Krishna abandoned whom as well? Then He abandoned Radharani. Pure love, isn’t it? And then they started crying, He came back of course.
But again, with our attempts we can try and ask with owe for mercy to the gopis, that they explain to us, what was actually happening at this moment. When great acaryas are starting their comments on rasa-lila-pancadhyayi, they at the beginning ask for mercy of the gopis, they are begging: “Please, help us to understand what is happening at this moment; please, help us to understand what is happening in Krishna’s heart, and in your hearts, without it we will not be able to understand this.” And this is basically what maan means, it means anger, but maan also means pride, when we are respecting someone, this is also called maan, and it is also when a person is thinking about himself. And does some of you think about him/herself sometimes? This is also called maan. And again, what happened externally? Krishna started to dance with these gopis, and every gopi was thinking: “He is dancing with me only.” And they became proud. Is it right? How they became proud? We know that love and pride are incompatible feelings and to achieve love a person should become humbler than the grass and more tolerant than a tree. trinad api sunicena taror api sahisnuna… Wherefrom this pride came in their hearts? Why they became proud? From where this feeling came?
Acaryas explain they were not proud of themselves, they were proud of Krishna. They were proud of their fortune without doubt, because each of them was thinking, that Krishna is dancing only with me and with no one else, besides, in front of all the others: “Krishna is the object everyone’s of love, and after long, many years of expectation, when we at last meet at night, He came to me and selected only me”. Who out of you would not be proud of it? That’s it, I think that it would be nice to at least look around – can everyone see me, my fortune? Oh yes post a selfy on Instagram: “Krishna is dancing only with me!” Gopis did not notice that Krishna was dancing with others as well, they were thinking: “Krishna is dancing only with me.”
But actually Krishna acted like that because He wanted to gift Himself to each gopi. Krishna was driven by love, He wanted to delight each and every gopi, He approached each of them and acted in such a way that each gopi was thinking He was dancing only with her. This was Krishna’s gift. And when someone is gifting us something precious, what kind of reaction we should have on this? Just say something with a shrug: that’s it. No, this pride which appeared in their heart, this was their love actually. In this way they reciprocated to Krishna’s love. They were proud of Him: “Look at Him, there is no one better than Him and He is dancing with me.” But for them the main thing was not “with me”, but “with Him”, and that He was happy.
And what was happened with them, it is also maan. If we translate this word maan, literally it means manifestation of love that outwardly does not look like love, when love is outwardly assuming form different from love, it takes contradictory shapes, so that it looks like something opposite to love. And this is called maan, and that is why, when gopis were proud, was also maan, because outwardly pride is opposite to love. Love makes a person what kind? Humble – love makes a person humble, true love makes a person humble. When mother loves a baby, she does not reject to clean even its stool. Love is a desire to serve, a desire, to do everything possible, and this is immanent for a humble person only. But when love reaches certain degree, and one’s heart is melting with love, then love is assuming opposite forms. A person somehow is covering his love under the guise of something what does not appear to be love. Another manifestation of love as Srila Rupa Goswami is describing, this causeless maan of Srimati Radharani, it is said that once Krishna was meeting Radhika in a kunja and in some moment She felt such love towards Him, that She could not keep from crying, and tears like waves flowed from Her eyes. And to somehow mask her love, She turned away and told Him: “Krishna your cows have made dust storm, and this dust is burning my eyes and that’s why there are tears in my eyes.” What cows? This is maan. Krishna is saying, “Come close to Me I will blow in Your eyes to get rid of this dust.” And Radhika is turning away from Him and says: “Go away, I do not want to see You. I have no interest in the manifestations of Your love.” What is this? – Love. But externally it appears as something opposite to love, that’s why when this love achieves its highest and more complete manifestation, it turns into rasa. It becomes rasa. And in another way, rasa-sastra calls maan as maan-seva. This is some kind of service to the object of your love to make his love and pleasure stronger.
Gopis, accepting Krishna’s gift while during the rasa-dance, being proud of Him actually wanted Him to become happier. It was their love, because when we see when someone is responding to our love and is accepting our love with delight, we are taking pleasure by seeing how they are accepting our love, isn’t it? This is what they were driven by, but outwardly it looked like pride. Each of the cowherd girls was dancing and thinking for herself, that she was the best. This is maan. Because again, maan this is something which externally contradicts to love.
And then happened absolutely wondering occasion, Srimati Radharani seeing that Krishna is dancing with all the others, got angry, turned away and went. And when Krishna saw that She went, He became so confused, that of the many forms of Krishna instantly turned into one Krishna and He left the rasa dance, following Her. What happened next? Krisnadasa Kaviraja Goswami says, that when Radhika sees other gopis meeting with Krishna, She is enjoying their meeting with Krishna 10 million times more than when She meets Him Herself, because this is the nature of love. Love does not know jealousy, true love does not know jealousy, true love is, when I want my beloved to be happy, and when I see, that he is happy, I am happy. What happened to Her? What happened at this moment? Can anyone answer this question? What did Radhika see at this moment? Again, I ask all of you for forgiveness that I am daring to talk about all these things, somehow or other I am trying to say something about this topic whatever awkward I may be feeling.
We know, that Srimati Radharani wants other gopis to meet Krishna but at this moment She saw that Krishna was dancing with different gopis and Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura is explaining it on Her behalf. He says, that Krishna Himself is promising in Bhagavad-Gita: Ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham [Bg. 4.11] … what does it mean? Okay, this means that not only Srimad-Bhagavatam, you do not know Bhagavad-Gita as well. What does this verse mean? tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham? Krishna is promising, that I am ideally reflecting the feelings of another person, when another person comes to Me, I pay him reciprocally, I take his feelings and reflect them from the mirror of My heart and pay to him in ideal reciprocation. Srimati Radharani saw that in Krishna’s heart lives this desire of love and He wants to express His love unlimitedly. At the same time She saw all the gopis with Him as being able to express their love only to certain extend. Whereas Krishna wants to manifest His love boundlessly, and She understands, that in this moment Krishna’s love is shrinking, because He wants to reciprocate to their love, but actually He wants to express all His love, but He cannot express His love, that’s why He is very misfortunate. Only when He is with Her, He can experience and express His love completely. And as She felt that, that Krishna was forlorn at this moment, Her heart became sorrowful because of Krishna’s misery, She turned away and left.
What happened next, we will talk about it later, She went and started weeping here, not because of Herself and not because of the jealousness as it is said, not because of loving anger as someone is translating this word maan. She went away from there, because sitting here on the staircases of this lake, nearby, when the lake still did not exist, weeping in this kunja, in actuality She was repenting that Krishna wanted to express His love completely, but He could not do that. And what was She saying herewith? She was saying: “Krishna is thief, He is used to stealing, He has been stealing from His very childhood, He was stealing makhan from the cowherds, He was stealing yogurt, then He was stealing cloths, then He was stealing hearts, then He was stealing lives of the people. And now He is stealing from Himself.” She was sitting here and was crying: “He wants love and He cannot get love.” And as in Her heart lives unbreakable confidence: “Krishna belongs to me, Krishna is mine.” She knew: “If I leave rasa-dance, He will follow me.” And exactly that happened, Krishna left rasa-dance, where other cowherd girls found themselves back in square one, then they realized that disappeared He, whom they were dancing with, and He darted here, He darted after the footprints of Radhika to Yamuna and following this footprints found Her. When He found Her here weeping, He worshiped and touched Her feet with His flute. He started to ask Her for forgiveness and started saying: “Please, forgive me.” And began to praise Her, began saying: “I love you, I love you more than anyone else.” and Srimati Radharani would turn away from Krishna. He was again and again saying: “I love you!” While I have just told you, that one who loves, must not say: “I love you.” What does it mean? Does it mean that Krishna is feeling lust and is trying to bewilder Her? Srimati Radharani Herself – when Krishna wangled Her to explain what was going on at the moment in His heart – explains that with these words Krishna was trying to veil His love. True love is not expressed with the words: “I love you.” Krishna at this moment was also experiencing maan in the sense that he started to say something, feeling shy because of the strength of His love. Srimati Radharani says, that He was trying to say something to show His love as if it was lust. In the material world people are showing their lust as if it were love, but here, at this place Krishna was trying to hide His love behind the mask of lust. And when Radhika felt this, what kind of strong love was raging in Him, She was pleased, but She wanted Him to experience even more pleasure, to strengthen it more and that’s why She turned away. And after that He was begging Her for forgiveness.
Is anybody here who understood something out of this? The only thing which we have to understand, is the thing that love, that lives here, in the hearts of the residents of Vrindavan is absolutely pure and until the moment our heart is purified in such a level, we will not be able to catch even a sunbeam of this love, but when are able to appreciate this love properly, then some kind of shadow of love will touch us. And this is what Radhika is explaining further. Actually the content of this book Prema Samputa is that Krishna assumed form of Gandharvi, a girl from heavenly planets and He came here to Vrindavan and covering her head with a veil, she started saying: “Alas, I was traveling above Vrindavan that night and I saw what was happening during rasa-lila, how you gave your heart to an absolutely unworthy person, how you gave all your love to one who could not appreciate it, who rudely dealt with you, who abandoned you,. In fact Krishna wanted Radhika to say something to Him, but He knew that if He came to Her as Krishna, she would say: “Go away.” He would hear only this. That is why He came in this form, and Radhika started to tell Him everything, started to tell her, to this Gandharvi, all this story and Radhika said one very important thing. We may not understand all the other things, but please, try to understand only this thing. Why all these happened, why this lila happened, why they couldn’t just dance at night and be jubilant because of this? Why was everything so difficult, why at the beginning it was important to dance, then to go away, to disappear, to abandon all?
She explained one secret: Krishna made all this, Krishna made all this lila and yoga-maya made all this lila only for one purpose, that all the other gopis to some extend could appreciate the love that connects Radha and Krishna, internal energy of pleasure and the primeval source of all energies, Hladini-sakti and Saktiman, Krishna and Radha. Nobody except of their very close friends had been aware of this, but after this lila, after gopis found Radharani lying fainted, full of tears and saw Her love, felt Her love, they understood that their love in measure was just like a mustard seed, and Her love was as huge as mountain Meru. And when they appreciated Her love, Her love could reflect in the mirror of their heart. And that’s why another part of rasa-dance was absolutely different. After that all the gopis were dancing with Krishna and in the center there were Radha and Krishna, and all the others were reflecting Their love, helped Their love to become stronger and deeper.
And why I am saying, that this is the most important, which we have to understand? Because love in our heart… Srimati Radharani is saying that love of the other gopis is measure of mustard seed, and what about our love in our heart, what kind of size of love do we have then? How is it meson or what? To fragment atom again, and again and again… there will be quark, is not it? And again, to divide quark into 10 thousand particles, then it will be the right measure of our love, comparatively to the mustard seed which exists in gopis’ hearts. But to respect love of other people – that is the lesson. We do not have love, we do not have love. We have to write it on our t-shirt: “I do not have love.” No, no what can you do with that? No. But if we appreciate another’s love, if we learn to appreciate another’s love, if we learn to see another’s love, then their love subsequently maybe reflected in our heart and if we never do it, it will not happen ever to us. In order to achieve love, at first, we have to learn how to see and respect the love of other people. And of course, love of Srimati Radharani, but again, for us it is too far. If we just start looking at others and thinking like that: he has love. And if we pray to another person: “Give me love.” And even not pray, because about love it should not be spoken openly. But just hope or just try to serve another person, then something will move in our heart.
I told in the beginning here, that’s why we cannot understand this lilas, because our heart is contaminated with numberless offences. The only thing which we can in actuality confront to it, is our desire to serve and to purify our heart in this manner and that is properly all what we have to understand. All what is happening in it, this is manifestation of pure love and all that can happen to us, the best thing what can happen to us, is if we learn how to treat this love with owe, understanding that now our heart is in the grips of selfishness, this is the worst thing, all our sufferings are coming from that, because that selfishness lives in our heart, because of that we can think only about ourselves. But when in the process of devotional service, we learn to expend our heart even a little bit more, then gradually love of other persons will be reflected in our heart and in this way, we will be able to learn how to love. Love can be learnt and the path of devotional service is all about it. During this journey to Vrindavan we are trying to learn how to love, by hearing, narrating about love and chanting the Holy Name: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare…
People, who truly achieved something in bhakti, and there is talk about it in Srimad-Bhagavatam, in the 11
th canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam there is given the definition of uttama-bhaktas – those who achieved pure love, they are seeing this love in everyone else and they are saying: “Everyone has love, there is the only exclusion and that is myself.” They can see love everywhere and if we learn to appreciate it, then gradually, gradually some kind of reflection of love will enter our heart, and this reflection will overlap everything else. You will be the happiest people in the world, the happiest…
Srila Radhanatha Maharaja tells a story about passing away of Bhakti Tirtha Maharaja. When he on one of the last days of his being on the Earth, when his collarbone was broken, fragmented by the cancer, when at some moment his bones became so fragile that they started to break, after such days, suddenly he was brightened with his wonderful smile and said: “I would never change this moment to anything else, because what I am feeling now in my heart, I have never felt.” Physically the body is suffering, fragmented with cancer, with this deadly disease, a person is saying: “I will never exchange this feeling into anything else, never.” Because as an answer to our sincere attempts Krishna is gifting something to us which overlaps everything else.
And again, Srila Radhanatha Maharaja told me very surprising story. He said, that some days before the disappearance of Bhakti Tirtha Maharaja, Srila Prabhupada came to him in the dream and Srila Prabhupada told him: “I will make you… You will be there in the camp of Subala assisting the love of Radha and Krishna, this is my blessings to you, that’s what I am giving to you.” That’s it, such kind of sad story we have about us, who are going everywhere and trying to enjoy. Somehow or other, because of our wanderings in this world, we came here and this is our fortune, which was showered to us. And the main thing now is to appreciate this fortune. The main thing is to understand, that we did not deserve anything, we deserved absolutely nothing because if even the most powerful electronic microscope tries to find love in our heart, it will not succeed, nothing will come out from this. No, no. But by the fortune that somehow or other we met devotees, some of the devotees, a particle of their love reflected in our heart and this is great fortune in itself, the main thing is to appreciate this fortune and not to think that this is something widespread, because nowhere in the whole world, there is something like that. And after that definitely you will be worshiped on the Brahmaloka, when you occur there, Puranas are saying that and it has to happen. Thank you very much! Hare Krishna!