19960921 Caitanya-caritāmṛta Ādi-līlā 7.18-19, Rādhāṣṭamī

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapātāka Swami on Rādhāṣṭamī on September 21^st 1996, in Wiesbaden Germany. The class begins with a reading from Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi-līlā, 7.18-19.

Texts 18-19

yāṅ-sabā lañā prabhura nitya vihara
yāṅ-sabā lañā prabhura kīrtana-pracāra
yāṅ-sabā lañā karena prema āsvādana
yāṅ-sabā lañā dāna kare prema-dhana

Translation: The internal devotees or potencies are all eternal associates in the pastimes of the Lord. Only with them does the Lord advent to propound the saṅkīrtana. movement, only with them does the Lord taste the mellow of conjugal love, and only with them does He distribute This love of God to people in general.

Purport: Distinguishing between pure devotees and internal or confidential devotees, Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī, in his book Upadeśāmṛta, traces the following gradual process of development. Out of many thousands of karmīs, one is better when he is situated in perfect Vedic knowledge. Out of many such learned scholars and philosophers, one who is actually liberated from material bondage is better, and out of many such persons who are actually liberated, one who is a devotee of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is considered to be the best. Among the many such transcendental lovers of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the gopīs are the best, and among the gopīs Śrīmatī Rādhikā is the best. Śrīmatī Rādhikā is very dear to Lord Kṛṣṇa, and similarly Her ponds, namely, Śyāma-kuṇḍa and Rādhā-kuṇḍa, are also very dear to the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura comments in his Anubhāṣya that among the five tattvas, two are energies (śakti-tattva) and the three others are energetic (śaktimān tattva). Unalloyed and internal devotees are both engaged in the favorable culture of Kṛṣṇa consciousness untinged by philosophical speculation or fruitive activities.

Jayapatākā Swami: So the theology or the philosophy of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness is very vast. There is five principal tattvas, which are worshipped sometimes as Pañca-tattva. There is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the original person. Then He has His original expansion. And then He has His incarnation into the material world, on one side. On the other side, then He has His Supreme Energy, His Spiritual Energy and then has the individual spiritual potency of pure devotee. Even that sounds too complicated. Let me further simplify. Just like you have the sun, and along with the sun you have the sunlight. So can you conceive of a sun without sunlight? what would be the meaning of sun without sunlight? So along with the Lord there is His energies. Without the energy, the Lord is not complete. So The Lord and His energy together are the complete whole. Actually, usually there is Kṛṣṇa and He manifest His energy. So He has basically three types of energy. He has His spiritual potency, which is outside of the material world. Then He has the material potency, which means things we see here all around us in the material world. And then in between the material and spiritual potency, there is marginal potency, which is the living entities. That's what we are. We are very small by nature spiritually, and if we are not under Kṛṣṇa’s spiritual potencies’ shelter, then automatically we come under the control of the external or material energy. In the Upaniṣads the energies are described as parasya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate. (Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.8) The Lord has various kinds of spiritual potencies. Now the material energy, for the Lord, it’s a spiritual potency. But the material energy has a different function. Her function is to keep the souls in the under her control, who are desirous of forgetting about Kṛṣṇa. Those who want to maintain an independent existence from God, or have desired that in the past, she creates an illusion of independence. Actually, we can never be independent from God or Kṛṣṇa because we are all part of Kṛṣṇa. Everything is part of Kṛṣṇa. Just like, how can the sunlight be independent of the sun? The Lord, why does create His energy? It’s for pleasure. Why do parents have children? They want to enjoy having children. Whatever the happiness of the family life is. Variety is called the spice of life. So the Lord, in order to create more and more transcendental circumstances of happiness, of enjoyment, He creates different types of energies. Now to be the king, if you have no subjects… just like if somebody walks in and says, “I am the king!”

And you say, “You are king of what?”

“I am the king!”

“Alright Mr. King, who are your subjects? How many people are you the king of?”

“I am not the king of anybody. I am just the king.”

Nobody will take it very seriously. A king of thousands of people or millions of people, well then it has some value. So to be the Supreme Lord, if you have no one that you are the Lord of, then what is the meaning. So the Lord creates so many different kinds of... actually, He doesn't create. When you create something, then it gets destroyed. (*out of topic convo*) Say, this is something that is created, it has been brought into existence and at some time it will decompose and cease to exist in this form. In that sense, nobody is ‘created’. We always exist.  It's beyond time. It’s not that in some given time we are created and then we cease to exist.

But the Lord, beyond time. Time is a thing of the material world. In the spiritual world there is no time factor. He manifested so many different energies. Some are very powerful energies, who are not different from him, except that they are His energy and He is the Lord. Otherwise they are both equal, but their relationship is different. And He has very small energies, which we are, for serving Him. Why we are smaller is because we only know a little bit. We don’t know everything. We can never know everything that Kṛṣṇa can know. Just like a small child cannot know everything that the parent knows. Of course, the small child can grow and then know. But as a child, you cannot know. We can never become God. We are always the part of the Lord. Kṛṣṇa explains This in Bhagavad-gītā - mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ (Bg. 15.7) That the jīva, the living entities, are My part and parcel and they are eternal. So eternally, we are part of Kṛṣṇa. So we know that there are different energies of the Lord, there is spiritual energy, the material energy. Then we are also the part of minute energy.

So what is Rādhārāṇī’s position in all of this? Actually, Rādhārāṇī is the Supreme Energy but Her specific function is to give pleasure to Kṛṣṇa. Just like in the material world, a man, they like to enjoy the company of a beautiful woman and they have some desire to enjoy a loving relationship with a woman. So man or woman, they like this relationship. Because in the Vedānta-sūtra, it is explained that anything that’s in this world exists because it is originally comes from God, from the Absolute Truth. Janmādy asya yataḥ. (Vs. 1.1.2) But not that what we see here is exactly the same thing that’s in God, but it is a reflection. Not exactly the same. In fact apart from appearance, there is a big difference. So when the Supreme Lord, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Bhagavān, He also wants to enjoy. Originally, He was the first. We come after that. He wants to enjoy. So He, from himself, He expands. From one, He becomes two. Kṛṣṇa is not a material man and Rādhārāṇī is not a material woman. They have nothing to do with material, actually. Although the form may look like a material man and material woman. We are imitation or copies, but our existence in the material world and these bodies are completely dead. That’s another very big topic, but it’s completely different. Kṛṣṇa is not material and neither Rādhārāṇī is material. Therefore, they are not really like a material man or woman. But material men and women look like Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā, because we are made in the image of the Supreme Person.

So the Lord expands himself through His energy, and together they are having loving exchanges. Now Rādhārāṇī, in order to serve Kṛṣṇa better, She expands Herself into many other energies and She goes on expanding. Then She expands all the living entities. We are all ultimately also expansions from Rādhārāṇī. We are all meant originally to serve Kṛṣṇa, that’s our eternal nature. But Kṛṣṇa, in order for there to be any happiness, the service has to be loving. And love by definition is voluntary, right? If some crazy man comes… you read about crazy people all the time coming with machine guns and mowing people down. Say some crazy person comes into some assembly and says, “All right. I want all of you to love me or I will shoot you.” You would fear him. “I want all of you to fear me.” Okay that you can say.  But by fear, you can’t get people to love you, isn’t it? Love has to be something voluntary, something without any motive, simply has to be very pure. You serve the person, you appreciate the person, you love the person.

So the relationship that exists in the spiritual world is love. It is called prema or bhakti. In order to achieve that, Kṛṣṇa, He gives His energies free will. All of us have free will. Because that is the very nature of our existence. We have been given that free will. But when we have been given free will, that means we have the right to use it or misuse it. The vast majority of living entities are right now in a loving relationship with Kṛṣṇa. But a very small fraction of the living entities, have somehow or another, decided to experiment what is like not to love Kṛṣṇa or try have some separate existence. And that’s what is our position in the material world. This is kind of like a prison house. Very luxurious prison house that has various levels of existence. And the Lord, of course He likes to try to liberate people from this prison house. The whole reason of the material world’s existence, is in order to give the living entities who opted for some independent existence, to eventually, through their own experience, to come around and decide that, “Actually I love Kṛṣṇa. I want to serve Kṛṣṇa. I want to go back to Kṛṣṇa. I don’t want to stay here.” Kṛṣṇa is very eager to take us back. It's not that He wants us to be here. Many times we read people say, “Why there is so much suffering?” You See Kṛṣṇa explains in the Bhagavad-gītā how He creates the material world. He said, “Although I create the material world, although the material world is also my energy, it is not separate from me. And at the same time, I am not part of it. I am not within it. So although I am the Lord of all living entities, and although nothing happens without my permission, at the same time see my mystic opulence. That everything is going on without my direct intervention.”

Kṛṣṇa creates the mechanism. How things will go by creating law of karma. Giving everybody equal playing field. If you do good to others, you get good karma. If you do cause pain to others or your own body, then you have to suffer. The whole law of karma. So now in the Kali-yuga, people reap a lot of bad karma because they are doing a lot of bad karma. They are causing sufferings to others, they are killing the animals, they are ruining the nature. So they have to take the karma for that. So that they have to suffer the reactions. So Kṛṣṇa doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like to see people suffer. But when you give people free will “Okay. This is the law. If you act in this way, you can be happy. You act in this way, you suffer.” So then, when people are misbehaving, they are suffering. So what do you do in that circumstance? He sends, He comes Himself, and He tries to convince people to follow the right path so they don’t have to suffer. He sends His representatives as gurus, prophets and so on to give systems of religion, so people can avoid the suffering. Because he knows the laws of nature that He has created, and if we go against these, we are forced to suffer. He doesn’t want us to suffer. He wants us all to be happy, but ultimately the real happiness is to leave the material world and be with Him eternally. So there are many processes of yoga or processes of self-realization. But ultimately, when we are attracted to the spiritual happiness, that is a very positive one. And most of the great seekers in the past, they were attracted by this spiritual happiness. Even Lord Buddha, He renounced. What was Buddhas name before? Siddhārtha. He renounced everything as Prince Siddhārtha and He went looking for spiritual happiness. He was not happy in spite of having so many young princesses and arrangements, but He wasn’t feeling happiness. He wanted spiritual knowledge and spiritual happiness. So He went to meditate. Bharata Mahārāja was another great emperor of India. He left his entire kingdom and went to the forest to seek spiritual happiness. Like that throughout the ages, people have gone looking for the spiritual happiness. So my dear devotees, you know who that spiritual happiness is. That everyone is looking for. That is Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. She is the original form, the Personality of the spiritual happiness. She is the source of all spirituality. And She is the embodiment of pure love for Kṛṣṇa. She has got all kinds of wonderful qualities. Everyone is looking for that spiritual happiness. So today we are worshipping Rādhārāṇī, trying to understand something about Her, because She is the Supreme Energy of the Lord. Sometimes there is a picture you see, Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. One leg is Kṛṣṇa and one is Rādhā. Integrated form. Prabhupāda liked that form, because actually Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa although are separate, are one and inseparable. But for the sake of expanding this pastime, one have become two. Well since Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Lord and He has got many energies, so other energies are doing other things. He has existential energy, who are maintaining the universes for him. He has got the conscious energy, which gives knowledge-acquiring consciousness to the living entities. These are called Sat-Cit-Ānanda. Kṛṣṇa is known as saccidānanda-vigraha. His form is eternal blissful knowledge. So the Ānanda or blissful part is Rādhārāṇī. It is the Supreme of the energies. So other energies are also doing the functional activities to keep everything going.

So Rādhārāṇī doesn’t deal with the functioning, but simply with the direct service of the Lord and everyone is serving the Lord, so that’s why everyone is coming from Her. But others are taking care of the functioning of things. So Rādhārāṇī’s focus is simply on Kṛṣṇa. How to make Kṛṣṇa happy. And Kṛṣṇa reciprocates, He wants to make Rādhārāṇī happy. So if we can please Rādhārāṇī, then automatically Kṛṣṇa will be very pleased with us. And if Rādhārāṇī says, “Please bless this devotee.”, then Kṛṣṇa will easily bless us without any doubt. It mentioned today about Rādhā Kuṇḍa. Rādhā Kuṇḍa is a very special holy place because it is the Kuṇḍa of Rādhārāṇī and it is considered to be non-different from Rādhārāṇī. In the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, when Kṛṣṇa was in Vṛndāvanaa, there was a demon called Ariṣṭāsura who came and attacked Kṛṣṇa. Ariṣṭāsura was the demon in the form of a bull. Ariṣṭa is Sanskrit for bull. So This demon was a human-type, who changed his form to a big bull. And as a bull, charging Kṛṣṇa, trying to kill him. Like the bull fights in Spain and other places. But here, this was gigantic bull coming and trying to kill Kṛṣṇa and His friends. 

When Kṛṣṇa came in this world 5000 years ago, there was a king at that time who was allied with various type of evil forces. Magicians and sorcerers and demons and things. He requested them to find Kṛṣṇa and kill Him, because He heard Kṛṣṇa would be the cause of His death. So throughout Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes in Vṛndāvanaa, He was being harassed by different demons who’d come and try to kill Him. So Kṛṣṇa can never be killed. But when He comes in this world, He acts like one of us to some extent. Although He does miraculous things that we cannot do, like He lifting up a mountain with one finger for seven days and things like that. By going out of the universe to other planets and things. But when Kṛṣṇa was in Vṛndāvanaa acting like a cowherd boy, then these demons would come and attack Him and then He would reciprocate. Kṛṣṇa says however you approach me, I reciprocate with you. If you approach Me with devotion and faith, then I will put My trust in you and I will give you My love. If you approach Me to kill Me, then I will reciprocate with you and I will kill you. However you approach Kṛṣṇa, He will reciprocate. So it is recommended we should approach Kṛṣṇa with devotion and then He will takes us under His protection and bring us back to Him. But there are some who don't want to do that. So this Ariṣṭāsura was one of the them and He tried to kill Kṛṣṇa. So finally Kṛṣṇa, He killed the Ariṣṭāsura. When Kṛṣṇa kills a demon, then the ātmā, the soul, leaves the body of the demon and enters into the body of Kṛṣṇa, and gets mokṣa or liberation. So anyone, we leave our body thinking of God, then we go back to God. So the demons, when they are killed by God, they’re obviously thinking about Him. Then they achieve God. But since they’re demons, usually they achieve Him in the impersonal form. That's why it’s said those who want to get mokṣa and merge into the Lord,  this is not the very exalted kind of.. this is considered the lowest of all the forms of liberation. Because even the demons who are killed by Kṛṣṇa, they get that liberation. So the devotees, they don't accept that form of liberation, even if Kṛṣṇa offers. There is four other types of liberation: living in the same planet of the Lord – sālokya - in the spiritual world, planets that are no-creation-no-destruction, eternally living – Sālokya. Then sārūpya - having the same kind of spiritual form as the Lord. Sārṣṭi - having the opulences of the Lord, mystic powers and so many mystic opulences. And sāmīpya - to be close to the Lord. These four devotees accept for the service of the Lord. They can accept. But the merging, sāyujya, that mokṣa they don't accept. That form of liberation to become one with the Lord and lose your individual existence.

So anyway, this Ariṣṭāsura was killed by Kṛṣṇa and liberated. So Rādhārāṇī and Her gopīs in Vṛndāvanaa, they have very intricate relationship with Kṛṣṇa. They know that Kṛṣṇa is happy when they joke with him and say different… When Kṛṣṇa came back, Rādhārāṇī said, “Don't come near me! I don't want to talk with you. Don't come near me. (￢_￢)”

He said, “Why?? (╯︵╰)”

“Because you have just killed a cow! You killed a bull. This is go-hatyā. This is a very great sin. So because you killed the bull, which is a male cow, you have committed a great sin. That means now you are contaminated. So you have to go to so many holy places. Like Indra, when He can killed the brāhmaṇa, he had to do tapasyā. He had to penance and get purified and then only he could be freed from the sins. So you have to do some bathing and get purified from the sin. Or how can We talk to a sinful person? You just killed a cow! (⌣̀_⌣́)”

“Why I have to go to the holy places?
If I want, all the holy places will come here! (￣▽￣)”

And so Kṛṣṇa just said, “All the holy places come here!” So from all over the universes, all the holy places came and assembled there. All the holy rivers: Gaṅgā, Yamunā, Sarasvatī, all the sacred places. It is all like a play between Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā. Because how Gaṅgā is purified? By touching the feet of Viṣṇu. And who is Kṛṣṇa but Viṣṇu. So for Him, there is no sin actually. But like this, they are having fun with each other. So since Kṛṣṇa is playing the part of a human, He is saying, “Okay, you want me to get purified? Take a bath? So all the holy rivers, you come here.” And then He dug up in that indentation, where Ariṣṭāsura and Kṛṣṇa has been fighting back and forth. Kṛṣṇa grabbed him by the horns, was pushing, they dug a indentation. It became like a lake bed. So then it was a little further dug and He put all those holy waters there. And then Kṛṣṇa bathed and came out.

“Okay! Now I am pure. Now you can talk with me. (¬‿¬)”

Now Rādhārāṇī, then She became… “Why’s Kṛṣṇa got a kuṇḍa?  (>﹏<) ”

Kṛṣṇa said, “You should come and you can also bathe. You can use my lake, I have here my own personal lake, so you can bathe. (ᵔ◡ᵔ)”

And Rādhā said, “No! No! I want to have my own lake. Then I am going to ask you to bathe in my lake. (￢‿￢)”

“But I already have all the holy rivers in my lake. (￣～￣)”

Then Rādhārāṇī said to all the gopīs, “I want you to immediately dig me a lake!”

So thousands of thousands of gopīs came in there, working with their bare hands and somehow or another, within a very short time, within just a few moments, they dug out a huge lake bed, but it is empty, just a hole was there in the ground. Kṛṣṇa was amazed how all the ladies, they all got together. All the gopīs they just dug out this massive excavation, because they are all spiritual potencies.

So then Kṛṣṇa said, “Well, I can put the water from my lake into yours. ＾◡＾”

“No! No! I don't want your water. (￣～￣) (laughter) I will send my gopīs to other planets, all over the universe. We will bring Gaṅgā from the higher planets. (laughter) We will carry and fill This lake.” So it’s like, “I want to do something more special than you, for your pleasure.”

The representative of all the holy places came and surrendered to Rādhārāṇī and pleaded. “You are the Supreme Energy. Without Your pleasure, there is no way we can ever achieve success in our lives. You are the original goddess of fortune. We all are simply meant for Your service. So we don't feel complete if we are not allowed to be in Your lake. We want to be in your lake and to serve you. Please don't deprive us of This opportunity to serve you.”

So because they pleaded like that then Rādhāraṇī looked to Lalitā and then She said, “All right, because they pleaded. (⁀ᗢ⁀)” So then when they had permission, then between Śyāma-Kuṇḍa and Rādhā-Kuṇḍa, there was a small piece of land that got cut and they became a connection. And all the holy waters came into Rādhā-Kuṇḍa. And then Rādhārāṇī invited Kṛṣṇa to bathe in Her kuṇḍa. So that Rādhā-Kuṇḍa is considered the most holy of all the holy places. And Kṛṣṇa would regularly come. Sometimes bathe in Śyāma-Kuṇḍa, but usually they bathe in Rādhā-Kuṇḍa.

So like this there are so many different pastimes of the Lord. Now Rādhārāṇī is worshipped on this day of Rādhāṣṭamī. She appeared 15 days… one year 15 days or 15 days younger than Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa was the previous aṣṭamī and then after that comes Rādhāṣṭamī. Now When Rādhārāṇī was born, She never opened Her eyes, so Her parents thought She was blind. So they thought, “We’re very unfortunate. We have a beautiful daughter but She is born blind.” Now when Kṛṣṇa appeared in Vṛndāvana, in this world, He actually was carried to Vṛndāvana. Then Nārada Muni came to see Kṛṣṇa in Vṛndāvana and saw him there in the house of Yaśoda and Nanda Mahārāja. Saw how the Supreme Lord has come in a baby form. So then Nārada Muni, He knew that whenever the Lord comes, He always comes with His Supreme Energy. So He was looking, where is the energy of the Lord? She must be here also. So he went and he looked in Varṣāṇā. And he looked throughout the different houses. And then He found in king Vṛṣabhānu’s house there was a beautiful young baby. “I never saw some baby so beautiful. Golden color, like molten gold. Actually She had appeared from a lotus. So then Nārada Muni understood this must be the Supreme Energy who has come to serve Lord Kṛṣṇa. So now he came in the front door and he saw king Vṛṣabhānu, and he received Nārada Muni as a great spiritual master, great guru. Gave him a seat and said, “What brings you here to my house?” 

“No I have just come Here to wish you well.”

“We are so grateful for your coming because when a spiritual master visits the home of a householder, this purifies the house.”

“So where are your children? I will bless your children.”

So they had some older children. They brought and He blessed.

“Don't you have any young children?”

“Well, we have one young baby girl but She was born blind.”

“Can I see that girl?”

So they came out with the golden baby and put in the lap of Nārada Muni. When he was holding Rādhārāṇī, he got so much spiritual happiness just by touching Rādhārāṇī and looking at her. She is so beautiful that he became stunned.  He couldn't move. Tears were coming from his eyes, his body was shaking, his heart was filled with love. He was so much overwhelmed love for Kṛṣṇa just by touching Rādhārāṇī. For forty-five minutes, he was just motionless. Couldn't move, couldn't speak. His voice was choked up. They didn't know what happened. So powerful, just the touch of Rādhārāṇī. Then Nārada Muni choked very much, voice choked with emotion. He said, “You don't know how fortunate you are. This daughter, She is going to bring you all kinds of… how great She is! You don't understand how fortunate you are to have Her in your house.”

So when there was the occasion of Kṛṣṇa’s birth anniversary, that time Kīrtidā, the wife of king Vṛṣabhānu brought Rādhā, little baby, over to Kṛṣṇa’s house, to mother Yaśoda’s house. Outside they were getting ready to do the sacrifices and ceremonies and decorations and things going on. So they put the babies in one little nursery room while they are readying all the outside things. They do a bathing and different things for the baby. So that time Kṛṣṇa was lying there, and Rādhārāṇī at some distance was lying there on their little blanket or whatever. So then Kṛṣṇa, He crawled over to Rādhārāṇī as a baby. Then He crawled right over to Rādhārāṇī and put His face right in front of Rādhārāṇī’s face. At that time Rādhārāṇī, as soon as She could smell Kṛṣṇa in front of Her, She opened Her eyes. 

When Kṛṣṇa invited Her, “Let's go down to the material world and show our pastimes to attract people to come back to the spiritual world.” The idea of Kṛṣṇa showing His pastimes is to show people that the spiritual world is not a dull and dry place, but it is filled with variety and wonderful, loving, exciting activities. And that's actually where we will be happy. To be involved with Kṛṣṇa in the spiritual world. So He invites Rādhārāṇī, “Let's come down into the material world and have our pastimes there.”

And She said, “Well I will come down. The first person I will see is you. I don't want to see anyone before I see you.” So when She comes, She stays blind until Kṛṣṇa comes in front of Her. Then She opens Her eyes and gets Her sight. So then they came and said, “OH! Our daughter! Our blind daughter has now got eyesight! Kṛṣṇa must have some special power. Kṛṣṇa, as a baby He is just over Rādhārāṇī and now She got Her vision back! Before She was blind.”

So just by observing Rādhāṣṭamī, observing the festival to Rādhārāṇī, one gets many many blessings. This is worth more than a hundred thousand Ekādaśīs, to observe Rādhāṣṭamī. There is many glories mentioned in Padma Purāṇa, different Purāṇas, about worshipping Rādhārāṇī on Rādhāṣṭamī. So you already fortunate to be celebrating Rādhāṣṭamī, remembrance of Rādhārāṇī. The way to please Rādhārāṇī is actually to cultivate our devotion to Kṛṣṇa. Actually I am very inspired also to hear that here in Wiesbaden, the devotees have decided to make a project. A temple and a kitchen for Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa and Gaura-Nitāi, which is a very special offering for the pleasure and practice. I just heard about it. I have not seen anything but I think that they have put up some pictures they’d like to show. One of the special services we can do in this world, is to make a permanent facility for worshipping the Lord. Here it's already so crowded. Devotees are just barely fitting into their rooms. So they have a permanent facility over here, very nice service for Rādhārāṇī and Kṛṣṇa. One other thing happened is after Nārada Muni wanted to see Rādhā, the Supreme Energy, more fully as a young girl. So He was in the forest of Vṛndāvana, praying to Her to reveal Herself. And then although She was present before everyone as a baby, Her, along with Her energies, the sakhīs, appeared to Nārada Muni. And Nārada Muni begged Her for devotion to Lord Kṛṣṇa, pure devotion. So many times people, they don't understand. Sometimes we hear people, sometimes the Christian missionaries in India, they tell the people, “Why you worship Kṛṣṇa? He is a thief, He steals butter.”

The Supreme Lord owns everything, so where’s the question stealing for Him anyway? But apart from that, just to give happiness to the neighbours, He goes and plays around as a young child. He takes some butter and feeds to the monkeys. These monkeys are great sages who have taken birth as monkeys to get some butter from the hand of the Supreme Lord. This is not theft. These are child proclivities, done just so that people have something to talk about Kṛṣṇa and creates some excitement with Kṛṣṇa. In fact that even the devotees very affectionately refer to Kṛṣṇa as Mākhana-cora. With a purified heart, we start to become attracted; that something is very special about all these things, something very spiritual and very satisfying to the heart. So that attraction for Kṛṣṇa grows. Then Kṛṣṇa is very pleased to take us back to serve him eternally. That is His sublime program. But generally, we are not pure enough to really appreciate the full glories of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā. So first we need to study about Kṛṣṇa’s potencies and know how great Kṛṣṇa is. How He creates the material world. How the whole universal form, all the energies, the nature, is all coming from the Lord. Then how He incarnates in different yugas and different pastimes with different devotees.  So we start to appreciate the greatness of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. How He is our well-wisher. How He wants us to be liberated from the material bondage. And then finally, the form of Kṛṣṇa is the most esoteric. This the most confidential form.

Prabhupāda explains that Kṛṣṇa has got His majestic form known as Nārāyaṇa and He has His original form known as Kṛṣṇa. So just like when you go to see a judge in the high court or supreme court. The judge sometimes, like in England, they wear the big white wig and things. In different places, they wear different costumes or uniforms. But when they come in the court, people stand up. They say “My Lord! Your Honor!” There’s some formalities. When the judge is in his seat, everyone has to respect him. So like that, when the Supreme Lord is in His majestic form as Nārāyaṇa or Viṣṇu, then very formal dealings are kept with Him. Fear, respect, majesty… all these kinds of moods are very prominent with that form of the Lord. That’s the form most people think about. ‘The Supreme Lord’, ‘The Supreme Powerful’. But just like the judge, when he goes home at night, then after work he’s got a wife, and kids, and brothers, friends, girlfriend, whatever.  There are so many different things they do. The wife may come and give him some lemonade or something. A child may sit on His lap. But in the court the grandchild can’t sit on the lap. In the house they can. So Prabhupāda explains Vaikuṇṭha is the majestic aspect and Goloka Vṛndāvana is informal aspect where everything is done on pure love. There is no awe, no reverence, no fear. It’s completely just love. But to appreciate Kṛṣṇa’s loving pastimes from our position is hard. First we go and understand who Kṛṣṇa is. Then we can appreciate His greatness. That although He is the Lord of everything, He has His very personal, gentle, loving personality. And that is brought out. You see, Kṛṣṇa, without Rādhārāṇī you don’t notice him. So He is not so easy to see. In the pastime of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, Rādhā brings out the best in Kṛṣṇa, because of Her love for Kṛṣṇa. Everything becomes revealed. So I thank all of you for coming here on This occasion of Rādhāstmi. I am very happy to be here. Please when we chant,

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

Hare is also calling Rādhā. And Kṛṣṇa is Kṛṣṇa. So Hare Kṛṣṇa is like saying RādhāKṛṣṇa RādhāKṛṣṇa. So Rādhārāṇī is also there. So get the blessings of Rādhārāṇī today and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa very carefully your whole life. Thank you.

Hare Kṛṣṇa!