Adi 4th chapter-description of rasas–#11

September 21, 2020 in Articles by Damaghosa dasa

Adi 4th chapter-description of rasas–#11

(NOTE—These are only selected summaries of verses in this chapter-otherwise this would be far too long for a short article)

Adi 4.17–-[Lord Kṛṣṇa thought:] “All the universe is filled with the conception of My majesty, but love weakened by that sense of majesty does not satisfy Me.
Adi 4.20--“In whatever transcendental mellow My devotee worships Me, I reciprocate with him. That is My natural behavior.

Adi 4.21-22–“If one cherishes pure loving devotion to Me, thinking of Me as his son, his friend or his beloved, regarding himself as great and considering Me his equal or inferior, I become subordinate to him.

PURPORTIn the Caitanya-caritāmṛta three kinds of devotional service are described-namely, bhakti (ordinary devotional service), śuddha-bhakti (pure devotional service) and viddha-bhakti (mixed devotional service).When devotional service is executed with some material purpose, involving fruitive activities, mental speculations or mystic yoga, it is called mixed or adulterated devotional service. Besides bhakti-yoga, the Bhagavad-gītā also describes karma-yoga, jñāna-yoga and dhyāna-yoga. Yoga means linking with the Supreme Lord, which is possible only through devotion. Fruitive activities ending in devotional service, philosophical speculation ending in devotional service, and the practice of mysticism ending in devotional service are known respectively as karma-yoga, jñāna-yoga and dhyāna-yoga. But such devotional service is adulterated by the three kinds of material activities.For those grossly engaged in identifying the body as the self, pious activity, or karma-yoga, is recommended. For those who identify the mind with the self, philosophical speculation, or jñāna-yoga, is recommended. But devotees standing on the spiritual platform have no need of such material conceptions of adulterated devotion. Adulterated devotional service does not directly aim for love of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore service performed strictly in conformity with the revealed scriptures is better than such viddha-bhakti because it is free from all kinds of material contamination. It is executed in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, solely to please the Supreme Personality of Godhead.Those who are spontaneously devoted to the Lord and have no aims for material gain are called attracted devoteesThey are spontaneously attracted to the service of the Lord, and they follow in the footsteps of self-realized souls. Their pure devotion (śuddha-bhakti), manifested from pure love of Godhead, surpasses the regulative principles of the authoritative scriptures. Sometimes loving ecstasy transcends regulative principles; such ecstasy, however, is completely on the spiritual platform and cannot be imitated. The regulative principles help ordinary devotees rise to the stage of perfect love of Godhead. Pure love for Kṛṣṇa is the perfection of pure devotion, and pure devotional service is identical with spontaneous devotional service.

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Flawless execution of regulative principles is exhibited in the Vaikuṇṭha planets. By strictly executing these principles one can be elevated to the Vaikuṇṭha planets. But spontaneous pure loving service is found in Kṛṣṇaloka alone.
Adi 4.25--“My friends climb on My shoulders in pure friendship, saying, ‘What kind of big man are You? You and I are equal.’
Adi 4.26--“If My beloved consort reproaches Me in a sulky mood, that steals My mind from the reverent hymns of the Vedas.

Adi 4.29-“The influence of yogamāyā will inspire the gopīs with the sentiment that I am their paramour.

PURPORT–Yogamāyā is the name of the internal potency that makes the Lord forget Himself and become an object of love for His pure devotee in different transcendental mellows. This yogamāyā potency creates a spiritual sentiment in the minds of the damsels of Vraja by which they think of Lord Kṛṣṇa as their paramour. This sentiment is never to be compared to mundane illicit sexual love. It has nothing to do with sexual psychology, although the pure love of such devotees seems to be sexual. One should know for certain that nothing can exist in this cosmic manifestation that has no real counterpart in the spiritual field. All material manifestations are emanations of the Transcendence. The erotic principles of amorous love reflected in mixed material values are perverted reflections of the reality of spirit, but one cannot understand the reality unless one is sufficiently educated in the spiritual science.

Adi 4.30--“Neither the gopīs nor I shall notice this, for our minds will always be entranced by one another’s beauty and qualities.

Purport….Since the devotees in the material world know almost nothing about these affairs, the Lord desires to show these affairs to them….In the spiritual loving sentiment induced by the yogamāyā potency, both Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa and the damsels of Vraja forget themselves in spiritual rapture. By the influence of such forgetfulness, the attractive beauty of the gopīs plays a prominent part in the transcendental satisfaction of the Lord, who has nothing to do with mundane sex. Because spiritual love of Godhead is above everything mundane, the gopīs superficially seem to transgress the codes of mundane morality. This perpetually puzzles mundane moralists. Therefore yogamāyā acts to cover the Lord and His pastimes from the eyes of mundaners, as confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā (7.25), where the Lord says that He reserves the right of not being exposed to everyone….The reason the Lord displays the rāsa-līlā is essentially to induce all the fallen souls to give up their diseased morality and religiosity, and to attract them to the kingdom of God to enjoy the reality. A person who actually understands what the rāsa-līlā is will certainly hate to indulge in mundane sex life. For the realized soul, hearing the Lord’s rāsa-līlā through the proper channel will result in complete abstinence from material sexual pleasure.

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Adi 4.31--“Pure attachment will unite us even at the expense of moral and religious duties [dharma]. Destiny will sometimes bring us together and sometimes separate us.
PURPORT… Those who want to enjoy life in the materialistic way of society, friendship and love should not go to the Yamunā to see the form of Govinda. The sound of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s flute is so sweet that it has made the gopīs forget all about their relationships with their kinsmen and flee to Kṛṣṇa in the dead of night.….The spontaneous attraction of Śrī Kṛṣṇa for His dearest parts and parcels generates an enthusiasm that obliges Śrī Kṛṣṇa and the gopīs to meet together. To celebrate this transcendental enthusiasm, there is need of a sentiment of separation between the lover and beloved. In the condition of material tribulation, no one wants the pangs of separation. But in the transcendental form, the very same separation, being absolute in its nature, strengthens the ties of love and enhances the desire of the lover and beloved to meet. The period of separation, evaluated transcendentally, is more relishable than the actual meeting, which lacks the feelings of increasing anticipation because the lover and beloved are both present.

Adi 4.32–“I shall taste the essence of all these rasas, and in this way I shall favor all the devotees.
Adi 4.33–“Then, by hearing about the pure love of the residents of Vraja, devotees will worship Me on the path of spontaneous love, abandoning all rituals of religiosity and fruitive activity.”

Adi 4.34–“Kṛṣṇa manifests His eternal humanlike form and performs His pastimes to show mercy to the devotees. Having heard such pastimes, one should engage in service to Him.”
PURPORT-…A class of so-called devotees known as sahajiyās try to imitate the Lord’s pastimes, although they have no understanding of the amorous love in His expansions of pleasure potency. Their superficial imitation can create havoc on the path for the advancement of one’s spiritual relationship with the Lord. Material sexual indulgence can never be equated with spiritual love, which is in unadulterated goodness. The activities of the sahajiyās simply lower one deeper into the material contamination of the senses and mind…. Trying to throw mud into transcendence with their perversity, the sahajiyās misinterpret the sayings tat-paratvena nirmalam and tat-paro bhavet. By misinterpreting tādrśīḥ krīḍāḥ, they want to indulge in sex while pretending to imitate Lord Kṛṣṇa. But one must actually understand the imports of the words through the intelligence of the authorized gosvāmīs. Śrīla Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura, in his prayers to the Gosvāmīs, has explained his inability to understand such spiritual affairs.rūpa-raghunātha-pade ha-ibe ākuti kabe hāma bujhaba se yugala-pīriti“When I shall be eager to understand the literature given by the Gosvāmīs, then I shall be able to understand the transcendental love affairs of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa.” In other words, unless one is trained under the disciplic succession of the Gosvāmīs, one cannot understand Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. The conditioned souls are naturally averse to understanding the spiritual existence of the Lord, and if they try to know the transcendental nature of the Lord’s pastimes while they remain absorbed in materialism, they are sure to blunder like the sahajiyās.

Adi 4.35--Here the use of the verb “bhavet,” which is in the imperative mood, tells us that this certainly must be done. Noncompliance would be abandonment of duty.
PURPORT-This imperative is applicable to pure devotees. Neophytes will be able to understand these affairs only after being elevated by regulated devotional service under the expert guidance of the spiritual master. Then they too will be competent to hear of the love affairs of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa.As long as one is in material, conditioned life, strict discipline is required in the matter of moral and immoral activities. The absolute world is transcendental and free from such distinctions because there inebriety is not possible. But in this material world a sexual appetite necessitates distinction between moral and immoral conduct. There are no sexual activities in the spiritual world. The transactions between lover and beloved in the spiritual world are pure transcendental love and unadulterated bliss.One who has not been attracted by the transcendental beauty of rasa will certainly be dragged down into material attraction, thus to act in material contamination and progress to the darkest region of hellish life.But by understanding the conjugal love of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa one is freed from the grip of attraction to material so-called love between man and woman.Similarly, one who understands the pure parental love of Nanda and Yaśodā for Kṛṣṇa will be saved from being dragged into material parental affection. If one accepts Kṛṣṇa as the supreme friend, the attraction of material friendship will be finished for him, and he will not be dismayed by so-called friendship with mundane wranglers. If he is attracted by servitorship to Kṛṣṇa, he will no longer have to serve the material body in the degraded status of material existence, with the false hope of becoming master in the future. Similarly, one who sees the greatness of Kṛṣṇa in neutrality will certainly never again seek the so-called relief of impersonalist or voidist philosophy.If one is not attracted by the transcendental nature of Kṛṣṇa, one is sure to be attracted to material enjoyment, thus to become implicated in the clinging network of virtuous and sinful activities and continue material existence by transmigrating from one material body to another. Only in Kṛṣṇa consciousness can one achieve the highest perfection of life.

Adi 4.36-37--Just as these desires are the fundamental reason for Kṛṣṇa’s appearance whereas destroying the demons is only an incidental necessity, so for Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, promulgating the dharma of the age is incidental.

               Conclusion–CHANT HARE KRSNA MAHA MANTRA AND BE HAPPY!!!                                 The most beautiful Sri Sri Gaura and  Nitai

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