Sri Krishna with Radha

Compiled by London Swaminathan
Post No. 895 Dated 8th March 2014

Swami Vivekananda says,
“Krishna can never be understood until you have studied the Gita, for he was the embodiment of his own teaching. Every one of these incarnations came as a living illustration of what they came to preach. Krishna, the preacher of the Gita, was all his life the embodiment of that Song Celestial; he was the great illustration of non-attachment. He gives up his throne and never cares for it. He, the leader of India, at whose word kings come down from their thrones, never wants to be a king. He is the simple Krishna, ever the same Krishna who played with the Gopis”.

“ Ah, the most marvellous passage of his life, the most difficult to understand, and which none ought to attempt until he has become perfectly chaste and pure, that most marvellous expansion of love, allegorised and expressed in that beautiful play in Vrindaban , which none can understand but he who has become mad with love, drunk deep of the cup of love! Who can understand the throes of love of the Gopis – the very ideal of love, love that wants nothing, love that does not even care for anything in this world, or the world to come?”

Garba Dance

“They hated every adjective that was applied to Krishna; they did not care to know that he was the Lord of Creation, they did not care to know that he was almighty, they did not care to know that he was omnipotent, and so forth. The only thing they understood was that he was infinite Love, that was all. The Gopis understood Krishna only as the Krishna of Vrindaban. He, the leader of the hosts, the King of Kings, to them was the shepherd and the shepherd forever.”

“ I do not want wealth, nor many people, nor do I want learning; no, not even do I want to go to heaven. Let me born again and again, but Lord, grant me this, that I may have love for Thee, and that for love’s sake”.

“A great land mark in the history of religion is here , the ideal of love for love’s sake, work for work’s sake, duty for duty’s sake and it is for the first time fell from the greatest of Incarnations, Krishna, and for the first time in the history of humanity, upon the soil of India. The religions of fear and of temptations were gone forever, and in spite of the fear of hell, and temptation of enjoyment in heaven, came the grandest of the ideals, love for love’s sake, work for work’s sake, duty for duty’s sake”.

Let me repeat, Impure Fools!

“And what a love! I have told you just now that it is very difficult to understand the love of the Gopis. There are about wanting fools, even in the midst of us, who cannot understand the marvellous significance of that most marvellous of all episodes. There are, let me repeat impure fools, even born of our blood, who try to shrink from that as if something impure. To them I have only to say, first, make yourselves pure; and you must remember that he who tells the history of the love of the Gopis is none else but Shuka deva. The historian who records this marvellous love of the Gopis is one who was born pure, the eternally pure Shuka, the son of Vyasa. So long as there is selfishness in the heart, so long is love of god impossible; it is nothing but shop keeping. I give you something, O Lord, you give me something in return. And says the Lord – if you do not do this, I will take good care of you when you die. I will roast you all the rest of your lives, perhaps, and so on. So long such ideas are in the brain, how can one understand the mad throes of the Gopis’ love?”

“O for one, one kiss of those lips! One who has been kissed by Thee, his thirst for Thee increases for ever, all sorrows vanish, and he forgets love for everything else but for Thee and Thee alone”. Ay , forget first the love for gold, and name and fame, and for this little trumpery world of ours. Then, only then, you will understand the love of the Gopis, too holy to be attempted without giving up everything, too sacred to be understood until the soul has become perfectly pure. People with the ideas of sex, and of money, and of fame, bubbling every minute in the heart, daring to criticise and understand the love of the Gopis! That is the very essence of the Krishna Incarnation. Even the Gita, the great philosophy itself, does not compare with the madness of enjoyment, the drunkenness of love, where disciples and teachers and teachings and books and all these things have become one, even the ideas of fear, and God, and heaven. Everything has been thrown away. What remains is the madness of love. It is forgetfulness of everything, and the lover sees nothing in the world except that Krishna and Krishna alone, when the face of every being becomes a Krishna, when his own soul has become tinged with the Krishna colour. That was the great Krishna!”

“Do not waste your time upon little details. Take up the framework, the essence of the life”.
Source: Selections from The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Advaita Ashrama, Calcutta 700 014, Year of publication 1990.

Reference to Gopis in Tamil Literature

One of the earliest references to Gopis bathing in the River Yamuna and Krishna bending the trees so that the shepherd girls can get leaves to hide their bodies come from 2000 year old Sangam Tamil Literature. The reference is in verse 59 by Madurai Marudan Ilanagan in Akananauru.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa on the Gopis

How wonderful was the intensity of their Love! At the very sight of the Tamala tree, they were seized with the madness of Love. This was also the case with Gauranga. Looking at a forest before him, he thought that it was brundhavan. Oh! If one is favoured with but a particle of this ecstatic love! What devotion! This devotion the Gopis had, not only full to the brim but over flowing in super abundance.
Once Radha, to prove her chastity, carried on her head a pitcher filled with water. The picture had a thousand holes, but not a drop of water spilled. People began to praise her, saying, “ Such a chaste woman the world will never see again!” Then Radha said to them: Why do you praise me? Say, Glory unto Krishna! Hail Krishna! I am only his handmaid”.

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