The Rasa Theology

2014-06-15
Srimad Bhagavatam 10.47.04-06 - The Rasa Theology (download mp3)
by Shyamananda Prabhu at ISKCON Chowpatty
www.iskcondesiretree.net


 
 
SB 10.47.4
janimas tvam yadu-pateh
 parsadam samupagatam
bhartreha presitah pitror
 bhavan priya-cikirsaya

Translation:
[The gopis said:] We know that you are the personal servant of Krsna, the chief of the Yadus, and that you have come here on the order of your good master, who desires to give pleasure to His parents.


SB 10.47.5
anyatha go-vraje tasya
 smaraniyam na caksmahe
snehanubandho bandhunam
 muner api su-dustyajah

Translation:
We see nothing else He might consider worth remembering in these cow pastures of Vraja. Indeed, the bonds of affection for one’s family members are difficult to break, even for a sage.

SB 10.47.6
anyesv artha-krta maitri
 yavad-artha-vidambanam
pumbhih strisu krta yadvat
 sumanahsv iva satpadaih

Translation:
The friendship shown toward others — those who are not family members — is motivated by personal interest, and thus it is a pretense that lasts only until one’s purpose is fulfilled. Such friendship is just like the interest men take in women, or bees in flowers.

Purport:
Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura explains here that attractive women, like flowers, possess beauty, fragrance, tenderness, charm and so on. And as bees drink only once of a flower’s nectar and then leave it for another, fickle men abandon beautiful and devoted women to pursue other pleasures. This tendency is condemned here by the gopis, who gave their hearts completely to Sri Krsna. The gopis wanted only to exhibit their charms for Lord Krsna’s pleasure, and in the pain of separation they questioned the motives of His friendship with them.

These are the transcendental pastimes of the Lord. Both Lord Krsna and the gopis are completely liberated souls engaged in spiritual loving affairs. By contrast, our so-called loving affairs, being perverted reflections of the perfect loving relationships in the spiritual world, are polluted with lust, greed, pride and so on. Like all liberated souls, the gopis — and certainly Lord Krsna Himself — are eternally free of these lower qualities, and their intense loving affairs are motivated exclusively by unalloyed devotion.