>
>tapta kancana gaurangi
>radhe vrndavanesvari
>vrsabhanu sute devi
>pranamami hari priye
>
Dear Bhakta Paul
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Hello. Hare Krishna!
I have seen a couple of your posting on alt.religion.viasnava [I have some
problems with my newsfeed with ARV and I miss many of the articles though]
It is so nice to be trying to get the mercy of Radharani. That is the mood of the
devotees in Vrndavana. Thay are always chanting, "Jaya Radhe". Everywhere you
go... It's amazing. Because Radharani is very dear to Krishna. If we can please
Radharani then Krishna is automatically pleased.
But the relationship between Srimati Radharani and Krishna is a very confidential
one. We shouldn't immediately want to jump up and understand Krishna's dealings
with the gopis and the principal gopi, Srimati Radharani, without first preparing
ourselves.
The Srimad Bhagavatam is a very scientific presentation of spiritual knowledge. As
you know when we worship Krishna in the temple we start from His lotus feet and
gradually move up to His lotus face. So the Bhagavatam is similarly described. The
first and second cantos are His two lotus feet... and finally the tenth canto
[where His pastimes, of which His pastimes with Srimati Radharani are the topmost,
are described.] The tenth canto is likened to the beautiful smiling face of
Krishna.
So we should read all the Bhagavatam. It starts where the Bhagavad-gita finishes,
after the battle of Kuruksettra, then it describes the creation, then the
activities of many of Krishna's incarnations and devotees... So all these pastimes
are just as important as Krishna's dancing with Radharani in the rasa dance. If we
don't understand the material presented in cantos 1-9 we will certainly not be
able to understand Krishna's pastimes with Radharani. It is a very sublime subject
matter. So many fools have presented Krishna's pastimes in a mundane way. People
think Krishna was a great woman-hunter and they paint horrible lusty pictures...
This is very bad. Krishna's relationship with Radharani and the gopis is
completely spiritual. It has absolutely nothing to do with the mundane sexual
relationships in this world..
>Unfortunately, it is very hard
>to find a great deal of information about Her. i know of several books
Why don't you read Srila Prabhupada's books? Everything is there. You have not
read them I can tell. Particularly Krishna Book and Sri Caitanya-caritamrta. You
will not find any other books [at least in English] that describe the pastimes of
Srimati Radharani so nicely... The Goswamis of Vrndavana have written many very
elevated books about Radha and Krishna, but they are very elevated and we would
misunderstand them... But everything is in Srila Prabhupada's books. We don't need
to read anything else. We make advancement in spiritual life by serving our
spiritual master, by pleasing him... It's not like mundane education. So we read
the books but the realization comes from the service. It's not just an academic
thing. We have to engage our senses in the service of Krishna under the direction
of a bona fide spiritual master...
In the Sri Caitanya-caritamrta different relationships with Krishna are discussed
and different types of service... Of all the devotees of Krishna Radha stands
supreme and the highest ecstasy Srimati Radharani feels is when She is separated
from Krishna. This is very bewildering to Krishna... Because He can't understand
what this feeling of separation from Himself is! Because how could He be separated
from Himself? So thinking like this and desiring to taste the same ecstasy that
Radha feels in separation from Him He decides to incarnate in the mood of
Radharani. So He appears Himself as Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He is Krishna
Himself, but his mood is as a devotee of Krishna...
The Gaudiya Viasnavas [us] worship Krishna in this same vipralamba seva [mood of
separation]. It is simultaneously painful and ecstatic. It has been described like
drinking hot sugercane juce. In India they boil down the sugercane juce to make
sugar so while this is going on there are big pots of boiling hot sugar water...
It is very sweet to taste, but it is very hot and it burns your mouth....
Here is a little bit from the first volume of the Adi-Lila:
"Krishna appeared as Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu to distribute the chanting of Hare
Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama
Hare Hare. He appeared in the mood and complexion of Sri Radha. But this
[spreading the chanting of Hare Krishna] was an external purpose. There is a
principal cause for Sri Krishna's appearance. It grows from His own engagements as
the foremost enjoyer of loving exchanges.
"The heart of Lord Caitanya is the image of Sri Radhika's emotions. Thus feelings
of pleasure and pain arise constantly therein.
"In the final portion of His pastimes, Lord Caitanya was obsessed with the madness
of separation from Lord Krishna. He acted in erroneous ways and talked
deliriously.
"Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu exhibited the highest stage of feelings of a devotee
in separation from the Lord. This exhibition was sublime because He was completely
perfect in the feelings of separation. Materialists, however, cannot understand
this. Sometimes materialistic scholars think He was diseased or crazy. Their
problem is they always engage in material sense gratification and can never
understand the feelings of the devotees of the Lord. Materialists are most
abominable in their ideas. They think they can enjoy directly perceivable gross
objects by their senses and that they can similarly deal with the transcendental
features of Lord Caitanya. But the Lord is understood only in pursuance of the
principles laid down by the Gosvamis, headed by Svarupa Damodara .
"Just as Radhika went mad at the site of Uddhava, so Lord Caitanya was obsessed
day and night with the madness of separation. At night He talked incoherently in
grief with His arms around Svarupa Damodara's neck. He spoke out His heart in
ecstatic inspiration. When a particular sentiment arose in His heart, Svarupa
Damodara satisfied Him by singing songs or reciting verses of a similar nature...
"[Krshna says]Whatever pleasure I get from tasting My love for Srimati Radharani ,
She tastes ten million times more than Me by Her love. Just as I am the abode of
all mutually contradictory characteristics, so Radha's love is always full of
similar contradictions. Radha's love is all-pervading, leaving no room for
expansion. But still it is expanding constantly. There is certainly nothing
greater than Her love. But Her love is devoid of pride. That is the sign of its
greatness. Nobody is purer then Her love. But its behavior is always perverse and
crooked.
"All glories to Radha's love for Krishna, the enemy of the demon Mura. Although it
is all-pervading, it tends to increase at every moment. Although it is important,
it is devoid of pride. Although it is pure it is always beset with duplicity.
"Sri Radha is the highest abode of that love, and I am its only object. I taste
the bliss to which the object of love is entitled. But the pleasure of Radha, the
abode of that love, is ten million times greater. If sometime I can be the abode
of that love, only then may I taste its joy.
"Thinking in this way Lord Krishna was curious to taste that love. His eager
desire for that love increasingly blazed in His heart. This is one desire. Now
hear another. Seeing His own beauty Lord Krishna began to consider. "My sweetness
is wonderful, infinite and full. No one in the three worlds can find its limit.
Only Radhika, by the strength of Her love, tastes all the nectar of My sweetness.
Although Radha's love is pure like a mirror, its purity increases at every moment.
My sweetness also has no room for expansion, yet it shines before that mirror in
newer and newer beauty. There is a constant competition between My sweetness and
the mirror of Radha's love. They both go on increasing, but neither knows defeat.
"My sweetness is always newer and newer. Devotees taste it according to their own
respective love. If I see My sweetness in a mirror I am tempted to taste it but
nevertheless I cannot. If I deliberate on a way to taste it, I find that I hanker
for the position of Radhika.
"The beauty of Krishna has one natural strength: it thrills the hearts of all men
and women beginning with Lord Krishna Himself. All minds are attracted to hearing
His sweet voice and flute, or by seeing His beauty. Even Lord Krishna Himself
makes efforts to taste that sweetness.
"The thirst of one who always drinks that sweetness is never satisfied. Rather,
that thirst increases constantly. Such a person, being unsatisfied, begins to
blaspheme Lord Brahma, saying that he doesn't know the art of creating well and is
simply inexperienced. He has not given millions of eyes to see the beauty of
Krishna. He has given only two eyes, and even those eyes blink. How then shall I
see the lovely face of Krishna?
"[the gopis say]O Krishna, when You go to the forest during the day and we do not
see Your sweet face, which is surrounded by beautiful curling hairs, half a second
becomes as long as an entire age for us. And we consider the creator, who has put
eyelids on the eyes we use for seeing You, to be simply a fool.
"The gopis saw their beloved Krishna at Kuruksetra after a long separation. They
secured and embraced Him in their hearts through their eyes, and they attained a
joy so intense that not even perfect yogis can attain it. The gopis cursed the
creator for creating eyelids that interfered with their vision.
"O friends, those eyes that see the beautiful faces of the sons of Nanda Maharaja
[Krishna and Balarama] are certainly fortunate. As these two sons enter the
forest, surrounded by Their friends, driving the cows before Them, They hold Their
flutes to Their mouths and glance lovingly upon the residents of Vrndavana. For
those who have eyes, we think there is no greater object of vision.
Srila Prabhupada Ki Jaya!
>that specifically deal with Her, but i'd like to know of more. For
>example, i have heard that the Brahma-vaivarta Purana is supposed to be
>about Her, but unfortunately, in the same breath of that uplifting
>sentence, i was told it has not yet been translated into English.
No. It is not about Radharani... The Bhagavat Purana, the Srimad Bhagavatam,
KRISHNA BOOK, is about Radharani...
Srila Vyasadeva [the author of the four Vedas, the Puranas, the Mahabarata [which
includes the Bhagavad-gita] etc.. wrote all of his books but he still felt
dissatisfied. So his spiritual master, Narada Muni, appeared before him and asked,
"Why are you so dejected? You have written so many wonderful books..." So Narada
informed him of the problem. "In all your books you have very nicely described the
path of dharma, artha, karma and moksa [religiosity, economic development, sense
gratificiation and liberation...] But you haven't described pure devotional
service, you haven't described Krishna's pastimes... This is why you are not
satisfied." Narada even criticized him saying, "You have described the path of
fruitive activities, you have described demigod worship, so many material
things... When people read these books their minds will become bewildered by the
flowery language and will engage in fruitive activities... How will they develop
pure love for Krishna? How will they engage in pure devotional service?"
So Srila Narada Muni instructed Srila Vyasadeva to write the Srimad Bhagavatam
which Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu has described as the "spotless purana" because
there are no fruitive activities in it. Only pure devotional service to Krishna.
So you won't find much about Radha-Krishna in the Vedas except in the Srimad
Bhagavatam. That's the main book. And the Krishna Book is the essence. Srila
Prabhupada established a very nice program in ISKCON of Krishna Book and hot milk
before taking rest in the evenings... So it is very nice. Some hot milk and a
chapter from Krishna Book every night. You should try and do it. We should know
all Krishna's pastimes. They are extremely blissful, although in the beginning we
can't appreciate them that much. But the more we read the better it gets...
I don't recommend reading books other than Srila Prabhupada's. He has given us
everything. Many of the other translations are by Mayavadis and although they talk
about Krishna the effect is disasterous... By reading them we will not be able to
understand Krishna and Radha. We will get completely the wrong idea.
mayavadi-bhasya sunile haya sarva-nasa
"Srila Vayasadeva presented the Vedanta philosophy for the deliverance of the
conditioned souls but if one hears the commentary of Sankaracaraya, everything is
spoiled." (CcMad 6.169)
It is like milk touched by the lips of a serpent. Milk is very good. It makes one
strong and healthy. The serpent also likes milk. But when the serpent drinks the
milk his poison mixes with the milk... So if you drink that milk you die...
Thank you. Hare Krishna!
Madhudvisa dasa
(madhudvisa@krishna.org) /sudarsana
All glories to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada!
Sudarsana
Home madhudvisa@krishna.org