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KRISHNA AND THE GOPIS
KRISHNA saw all the Gopis surrounding Him, lost in the music of His Magic Flute. He looked at all of them and spoke sweet words. He said: “In the middle of the forest, at this time of the night you have all come here. What can I do to please you all? Please tell me the reason why you have come here in a group. It is late in the night and there may be dangerous animals lurking in the bushes. Please go back to your homes. It is not right that you should be here now. Your kinsfolk will all be waiting for you. Go back before their anger swells up. You must have come to see the river in the moonlight. Look at the forest around you. The beams of the silver moon have made it so very beautiful and the cool breeze which comes after caressing the waves of the river is indeed very soothing to the limbs. Now that you have stood here for a while, please do not tarry but go back to your homes. Your husbands are waiting for You. Your Children will be crying for your comforting arms around them. You will have to attend to your Cows and Calves. Why do you look accusingly at me? Have You by any chance, come here to spend Your time with me? I am pleased to know that it is so. All beings are full of love for me. But you should not forget where your duties lie. Attending to your husbands and to your Children should be your prime consideration. This love you have for me, for someone other than your husbands, is not good for any woman. It leads you away from Heaven. It is futile and it brings a stigma to your name. It is a secret desire and as such, the fear of being found out is always there. Please desist from this action. Go back home and remember the great devotion you have for me which is because You have been constantly hearing about my actions: by thinking on me: by singing about me and seeing me often. That devotion will not equal this love which is wrong. So, once again I am asking you, please go back to your homes.”
The Gopis stood as though they had been carved out of stones. The words of KRISHNA were unwelcome and they were not pleasing to their ears. They felt frustrated and their faces faded like flowers. Their hearts were filled with sorrow and they cast their faces down. Sighs escaped their red lips and their eyes filled with tears.
They stood silent and KRISHNA could see their tears glistening in the light of the Moon. With soft timid voices, they began talking incessantly to KRISHNA who had spoken such harsh words to them. Their tears were falling incessantly and they paid no heed to the fact that their eye-black was all being erased: that their hair was all awry: that their garments had not been worn properly since they had been in such a hurry to reach the presence of KRISHNA. All these things were unheeded. All that they knew was that their quest was in vain and KRISHNA had spoken unkindly to them. They all spoke together and one by one: “KRISHNA, it is not becoming of You that You should talk like this. We have abandoned everything and come to you for succour. Please do not cast us away. You talk to us glibly about rules of conduct: that our place is our Home and that we should attend to our husbands, to our elders and to our Children. You can keep your sermons to yourself. We came here not to listen to a discourse on how to conduct oneself: on how a woman should behave. We have come to you trusting that You will never abandon us.”
“You ask us to be faithful to the Home, to the Husband and Child: if all these do not grant you happiness what then, is the use of such a dharma? Learned Men have said that abandoning these bondages, one should set one’s mind on the Eternal One. And we have also been told that You are the Eternal One who has assumed a Human Form. We know nothing of the Shastras and the nuances of Dharma. We have seen the learned ones thinking on You and saying that You are the path to moksha. Be that as it may, we have come to you because we love you. We are doing only what the wise are doing. KRISHNA, remember, this love of ours for you has been there birth after birth: it must be, or else the intensity of our Love cannot be explained.”
“All these days we were absorbed in our Household duties and were fairly happy and contended: or, so we thought until you came. You stole our hearts and ever since then we cannot become absorbed in the things which interested ud before. It is very strange but true. Our eyes seek only for a sight of you. Our ears are ever willing to hear the music of your anklets when you walk. You ask us to go back to our homes but our feet are firmly planted and they refuse to move from here. We are aching for the smiling look from your eyes, for your misic, for an embrace from You which will assuage this thirst for You.”
“Once our minds have been led towards Your feet, they can think of nothing else and every action of ours is guided only by the thoughts of you. Please look kindly on us. We are Your slaves. Tell us, which Woman, after seeing You and Your Handsomeness, Your smiling Eyes, Your face, Your broad chest and Your long and lovely arms: which Woman, we say is able to resist You? Please have some compassion on us, our condition and accept our Love.”
KRISHNA smiled kindly on them and accepted their offering. KRISHNA who was the incarnation of NARAYANA, who was the Lord of Lords, who was the Eternal Soul, who was the Parabrahman, who had no desires to be fulfilled, pretended to be an ordinary human being and allowed the Gopis to make Love to Him.
KRISHNA looked like the Moon surrounded by the stars. He sang with them. He danced with them. With the fragrance of Vaijayantimala filling the air, with His Hair flying in the breeze, He played with the Women as though He was enjoying it immensely. After a while, the Gopis were so full of Krishna that they thought that KRISHNA belonged to them and to them only.
Each one of the Gopis thought to herself: “This KRISHNA has fallen in Love with me and He loves no one else. He belongs to me and only to me.”
Pride found a corner in every one of them. KRISHNA had to teach them a lesson and he suddenly vanished from their presence.
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Krishna Unlimited
United States
suresh