The nature of divine humor

Goswāmī Mahārāj: Any questions? The young lady in the front raw.

Question: Mahārāj, could you please explain the phenomena of humour, like why does it hold such a special position, almost in the same level with Beauty and Love. And why Gurudev valued it so much?

Goswāmī Mahārāj: Hare Kṛṣṇa. That’s a very good question. We know there five primary rāsas: śānta, dāsya, sakhya, vātsalya, mādhura. Passive relationship, servitorship, friendship, familiar affection, conjugal love. Within we hear there are seven subordinate rāsas. Viriya. How’s that translated, sometimes as chivalry. Courageous I think would be better. Gaura—what’s dreadful. Some of these things are peculiar, because we’ll read in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu of Rūpa Goswāmī, that it’ll even mention something like disease as being some subset of ecstasy or horror and he’s like, “How can that be?” But then when Rūpa Goswāmī or Viśvanāth [Chakravartī] gives examples, then you can understand how it’s in ecstatic position.

So, one of them is “hāsya”, hāsya-rāsa. And we were just visited by Hāsya Priya Prabhu, which I might have mentioned in London, when Gurudev was leaving once or to go, cause I verified that this was Hāsya Priya Prabhu, and he’s going to Soquel, we’re in England, do going by British Airways, or whatever it was, so some news came in from Hāsya Priya. Gurudev was a little anxious about all the travel arrangements and everything going well. When I said, “Hāsya Priya”, he said, “Hāsya Priya or Krandan Priya, or any other Priya”. And krandan means ‘crying’, hāsya means “laughing” as well, so he’s saying, “Or Krandan Priya”. I mean there just couldn’t be a name “Krandan Priya”.

So, I’m not an expert on this, and here I mean in literary sense, but humor occupies a very position in literature. Even the Mighty Shakespeare has comedies. And Oscar Wilde the famous wit, “Importance of being earnest”. It’s a double entendre or it’s ironic, “the importance of being earnest” means sincere, but Earnest is also man’s name. And in that play, this man, who has falsely introduced himself as Jack, he wants to marry this girl and she said, “I could never marry someone with a name so common as Jack. I’ve known all my life that I will marry a man named Earnest.” And his name was actually Earnest, but he was lying, it goes on and on. But the point is about being ironic. Because it’s saying, “The importance of being earnest”, to marry her you have to be earnest, your name has to be Earnest, you have to be sincere, you have to not lie, you have to tell the truth. So, everything sprang out of that.

So, the word that’s used in literature, in the analysis of literature is “irony”. Like, it’s ironic when someone wins the lottery, some poor person wins the lottery but their whole life gets ruined. They get all these money and it ruins their life. That’s irony. And modified in a certain way it can have a comedic element to it. But hāsya-rāsa, as a specific quantity. Humor. What is funny? We’ll see in a playful banter or dialogue between Kṛṣṇa, Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī and Vraja-gopīs. So much humor, but it’s ironic what is being said. For example, there are so many prayers glorifying Kṛṣṇa as patita-pāvan or the savior of the world, He descends in His many incarnations to rescue the fallen souls. But they will speak sometimes ironically, like, “What about us? It’s said, “You’ve descended in this world to relieve the fallen souls of their suffering.” But their suffering is separation from Kṛṣṇa. So, in a teasing playful way, they say, “You’ve descended to relieve the suffering of the fallen souls but we’re the exception?”

So, there’s that sort of thing, but also we hear, that sometimes, they are extremely clever, as Guru Mahārāj says, “Disguised as half-civilized stupid jungle girls they’re the most clever.” So, in words of praise to Kṛṣṇa sometimes they take the last syllable of one word and make it the first syllable of the next word, they break them in different places, and then it changed the whole meaning, and what was some sort of effusive praise of Kṛṣṇa turns into a type of loving insult. Same words but with a little different emphasis. So, it’s humorous, it’s ironic, it’s humorous and it’s līla-anukūl, it make the pastimes happier, they’re more fun, this playful banter.

And I’ve pointed it out the other times, Śrīla Gurudev, I mean, no less, than Śrīla A.C. Bhaktivedanta Prabhupād identified Śrīla Bhaki Sundar-Dev Goswāmī Mahārāj as a quote in quotes as a “transcendental humorist.” Cause Gurudev wrote some article [called] Choler Pathe and Prabhupād said, “This is so perfect, because the average person, they are not inclined to read some philosophical article, but here you’ve told the story, it’s funny, but all the philosophy is there. So, you’ve made it entertaining and even humorous but there’s spiritual substance there.

What comes to mind immediately in Bhakti-rāsamrta-sindhu the Sanskrit word for ‘residence’ it can mean different things, like ‘address’. So, Rūpa Goswāmī gives an example, it’s a play on double meaning of the word, when Rādhārāṇī is asking, “Where is Kṛṣṇa? Where does He live?” and He says, “In your eyes, that’s my residence”. So, it’s playful, but it’s sweet and it’s lovingly charming.

So, Śrīla Gurudev did this so many times. I think of one when he’s quoting the maxim, talking about one of his followers, who had a tendency to mishear and then on the basis is that what was misheard to represent that. So, Gurudev once said about him, “To err is human. And he is very human”. So, he is not saying he says things very wrong he just said, “To err is human. And he is what? Very human.” So, indirectly to make that point.

We just celebrated the Govardhan Puja and Go-pūjā, the worship of the cows and we know on Śrīla Gurudev’s veranda, he is sitting there, if anyone will walk before him with a bag of something, whatever it might be, he has to know what’s inside, you can’t just walk by, he’ll stare, he’ll want to know. So, those who are his permanent servitors, his veranda servitors, like Bhakti Lalita, she would just show him all of her stuff without him asking, knowing that he wanted to see it. So, one of the things that, there is the refrigerator that she uses and some others, so she would get her whatever she was eating for that day and have to walk in front of Gurudev. So, she would just turn and show him. And he’d look. Especially he had some interest in extraordinary interest in different types of food. So, she showed him one day, and there was like different types of lettuce and celery and green things, and Gurudev looked down like this and he said, “I can see that your Lord is Kṛṣṇa.” And she looked at me like, “What’s that?” “I can see your Lord is Kṛṣṇa”. And he looked at me to see if I caught this. And I just started smiling and laughing, and what he meant was. Who is Kṛṣṇa? Cause we’ve just celebrated the Govardhan Puja, Gava Indra—Govinda, the Lord of the cows. So, he’s saying, “When I looked at what you’re about to eat it looks like cow food to me”. But to say that, that would be insulting. So what did he say? “I can see that your Lord is Kṛṣṇa”.

And I think of another time. As his health deteriorated the range of the different types of prasādam, that he could take narrowed. There were certain things, his servitors were told not to give him, but they are still cooking them downstairs, and sometime they’re bringing that like to me and other Mahārājas, putting on the plate, but they have to walk in front of Gurudev and do it secretly, because if he sees it, he’s going to ask and are you going to tell, “Śrīla Bhakti Sundar Govinda-Dev Goswāmī Mahārāj, you can’t have this”. That’s not good for him. That’s not going to happen. So, they have to kind of secretly do. And it might surprise some, just a point to notice, Gurudev never spoke when he took prasādam and didn’t want anybody to speak. And don’t say everybody has to follow that, I am just informing you, he did not, it’s prasādam taking, it was very serious with Gurudev. So, he didn’t speak a word unless it was related to that, and expected everyone else to maintain silence also, only prasādam related. But this one day he started singing the song. And I felt, he wants me to ask. So, I broke his singing and prasādam is covering his hand. And I said, “Oh, Mahārāj, what is that song you’re singing?” and he went, “Oh!” Like he was just waiting for the queue. “Rādhārāṇī is in a very difficult position.” And we say, “What?” “She is so upset because She is on her veranda and She can see that Kṛṣṇa is going to the house of another gopī. And She is thinking, “That’s bad enough that He is going to the house of another gopī, but that He has to go through my courtyard to go there it’s too much.” So, what is he saying? It’s bad enough that he can’t take that prasādam, but that they have to bring it right in front of him and put it on our plate.

So, one thing that is extraordinary, we’ll think, “Oh, this is a very ordinary event, we always expect extraordinary personalities to do extraordinary things at extraordinary times, and that happens, but the mahābhāgavat devotees, the rāga-bhaktas, even an ordinary, seemingly ordinary trivial events can become laden with spiritual conception. So, for them there is almost the inverse, very simple things, that’s a very simple thing, you can say, a very human response to a situation, but where does his mind go? His heart. To some place very high. So, ordinary events are reminding him a very high things. So, there is an element of humor and irony. But spiritual substance profundity at the basis of it all.

Does that answer your question somewhat? Ask more.

Question: Once in the lecture you’ve said that humor is one the things that are not possible to prove, and does it have connection some spiritual source? That it’s subjective.

Goswami Maharaj: Yes, it’s subjective, I’ve mentioned that before. And just to give it a little back story to what you’ve said, the reason I made that point is that people who deny the existence of God or believe that you can’t prove that God exists, they believe in all kinds of other things that you can’t prove. And they don’t apply the same sort of analysis to those things. That’s why that police officer, who was with his superior. They were visiting the Math, I’ve mention sometimes every Bengali has a little Guru on them. And they want to show, they know Vedanta, or they’re philosophical, so, they like to get an opportunity to demonstrate it, or what they’re up on the latest scientific theory. So, we had a little discussion going perhaps about that subjective evolution of consciousness and the one man says to me, “It’s all quarks. Everything’s just quarks.” And I said, “Oh, really, is your wife a quark?” And his boss went, “Haha!” Because he must have to deal with this man like every day. And because he went, “Oh, yes!” I said, “Oh, she’ll be very unhappy to hear that”. And he was perplexed what to do.

So, my point introducing it is there is always criteria they wanna apply to prove or deny the existence of God, but when it comes to things like love, which cannot be proved they will say that they love their wives, their children, their dog, their school, their university, or whatever. And humor is subjective. Someone’s laughing hysterically, and someone else is not cracking a smile. And says, “Why do you find that funny at all, I find it insulting.” So, many things [have] the subjective aspect. So, what did you say particularly?

I think you could make a case for that, and it’s also something that’s almost unique to human society. I know there’s someone somewhere going, “No, there is a gorilla in a zoo, who is laughing right now.” That could be, closer to human. But things like this are uniquely human. And Guru Mahārāj likes to quote this Chandidas, where is, it’s a particular quote that atheists use, but Guru Mahārāj uses it as well, it’s just a question of interpreting, like, there was our friend Nietzsche who says, “There are no facts, there’s just interpretation.” Chandidas is saying, “There is nothing higher than human being, than human life.” So they say, “See, he is denying God.” He’s not denying God, he’s pointing out that the human aprākṛta-līla, the human-like pastimes of Divinity, there’s nothing higher than that. And part of human range of emotional expressions are thing, humor plays a part of it. It’s something unique and distinct to human being. And to Kṛṣṇa. So, I think you could make a case, that you can trace it, because of its subjective nature, so, then you have to go to the Subjective World. But we that’s the beginning and we have super Subjective, Vaikuntha, and the Super-super Subjective, Goloka, aprākṛta-līla of Kṛṣṇa.

Any other questions? And also remember the dialogue, comedic dialogue between Nityānanda Prabhu and Advaita Āchārya. And it’s very much like Gurudev style, that a way it appears to be an insult but it’s a glorification. So, when Advaita Āchārya, Nityānanda Prabhu is known as the avadhūt means he can’t be classified, can’t be classified socially, ashramically or any other way, so what is Advaita Āchārya say to him, “I’m eating lunch with a person whose social position is unknown, sannyāsis can do that, because they have to travel and preach, but a householder has to be very careful about the company that he keeps. So, I’m sitting here with somebody who we don’t know where is from, what he is, who or what he is, so who knows what result I’m gonna get from that.” So, it seems like an insult, but really what he is saying, is the avadhūt, he is beyond, he transcends all social and āśramic designations. And the unknown destination means the spiritual domain, by coming in connection with Nityānanda Prabhu, you’ll achieve the highest position. What is his question?

Question: He’s asking to tell more of the gradation of the elements in both material and spiritual worlds. In this world earth is considered to be the grossest element and the sound is the subtlest. And in the spiritual world it’s the opposite. Could you explain this more?

Goswami Maharaj: Well, it could be a very deep subject. But what it means is when we have water, fire, air, ether, that, the gross manifestation of earth, we hear in Bhagavad-gītā, “puṇyo gandhaḥ pṛthivyāṁ cha,” (Bg: 7.9), Kṛṣṇa is saying, original fragrance of the Earth, I am that. So, it’s when material elements achieve the earth stage substantially that aroma can be generated. But Guru Mahārāj he is making very unique and interesting point by saying that on the basis of what’s in the Antya-līla of Charitāmṛtam, talks about divine madness of Mahāprabhu and the Rādhā-bhāva, how the fragrance of Kṛṣṇa’s body is driving him mad, and so there as Prabhu said, sound is the grossest element in Spiritual world, that’s why it becomes accessible spiritually, but as it develops higher and becomes more substantial, Guru Mahārāj says, that the subtlest thing there would be fragrance. And in this instance, the fragrance of Kṛṣṇa, and that’s why it’s described in the very end of Antya-līla, but it’s something very high, very deep, and I don’t feel the inspiration or qualification to say more about it.

It’s saying, water allows for taste. You can find this sequence in the second canto of the Bhāgavatam, it might repeat again in the third and different places. But also in parallel, as we mentioned dāsya-rāsa, or śanta, dāsya, so it’s taken that dāsya containes śānta and dāsya, sakhya containes śānta and dāsya, vātsalya has the elements of śānta, dāsya and sakhya. And mādhura-rāsa contains all of them. So, in one place Śrīla Guru Mahārāj mentions Madhavāchārya’s saying, giving a sequence in this way, saying, “There is a thing, the Guru, devatā of that thing, then the Guru aspect mean Balaram, Nityānanda, and then it goes to Rādhā-Govinda chid-līlāmṛtam, this is the way you can trace something to the central conception of the Infinite. But Guru Mahārāj says, “I say just the opposite. Begins Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa chid-līlāmṛtam, then to Baladev, then to Guru-devatā, then to the thing. So, everything here has sprang out of that conception, that plane, that soil, vaikuṇṭhera pṛthivy-ādi sakala chinmaya (Cc: Ādi, 5.53), also in the beginning of the Bhāgavatam, says, janmādyasya yataḥ, like the Vedānta-sūtra aphorism, but janmā adi, janmā, etc., birth, maintenance, annihilation, but Viśvanāth Chakravartī Ṭhākur says, actually adi here means ādi-rāsa, or the mukya-rāsa, from which everything is sprang out, and that is mādhura-rāsa, so it contains all the elements of others. So, just this cut this off, Śrīla Guru Mahārāj is saying, and he can say that and I could only repeat what he said, but that fragrance of Kṛṣṇa contains all the other things, beginning with this divine sound.

Anything else?

In one place Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī is lamenting, it’s a divine lamentation, She is saying, “I heard the sound of the flute and it captures my whole existence, but then I’ve heard the Name of Kṛṣṇa, and that totally captured me, but then I smelled the aroma of Kṛṣṇa and I was completely captured. She’s saying, “This is my situation, it would be even better for all to be one, but now I am fragmented into three, so although it’s really one, She is saying, it’s if I fragmented myself.” So, if this world is the perverted reflection of that plane, then that inversion will work in that way.

bhūmir āpo ’nalo vāyuḥ
khaṁ mano buddhir eva cha
ahaṅkāra itīyaṁ me
bhinnā prakṛtir aṣṭadhā
(Bhagavad-gītā: 7.4)

Interestingly, Guru Mahārāj’s using this śloka to refute prākṛta-sahajiism, he says, earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence, ego, these are “bhinnā prakṛtir aṣṭadhā,” eight different types of prākṛti, material energy, what is one them? Mind, intelligence, these are material energies. So, then he says,

But there’s another type of prākṛti, that’s superior to all of these.

jīva-bhūtāṁ mahā-bāho
yayedaṁ dhāryate jagat
(Bhagavad-gītā: 7.5)

It’s the jīva-śakti, who is infusing the Universe. So, Brahma, Paramatma, Bhagavan, can also be though as Jīva, Paramātmā, Bhagavān, the reason Guru Mahārāj uses this as a refutation of sahajiism is their idea is by reconditioning the mind, reconditioning mundane elements you can achieve spiritual substance. I compare this to the Stanislavsky acting method. Stanislavsky is the Guru of acting and his idea is that through imitation, by imitating the character, dressing like them, walking like them, talking like them, by totally observing oneself in their identity, that a transition can take place, you’ll have an epiphany and suddenly you’ve become that character, it’s like you’re not acting anymore you’ve become that character, so, it’s sometimes known in shorten form as ‘the method’ and those actors are called ‘method actors’.

But it’s acting and Rūpa Goswāmī warns us in Bhakti-rāsāmṛta-sindhu, he said, two types persons who cry, taking the Name of Kṛṣṇa, or hearing the pastimes of Kṛṣṇa, one is someone who is by nature sentimental, they cry for all kinds of things, so they also cry about Kṛṣṇa, he’s saying that’s not tears of prema, of divine love, it’s sentiment. The other one is acting, imitation, the director can tell the actor, “Okay, in this scene, you just break down, you have an emotional outburst.” And they go, “Okay, give me a second. Ready. Camera. One, two, three.” Tears start coming, they have a system how to achieve that, and it can make everyone else start crying, but they’re acting. So, the prākṛta-sahajiist think that by imitating the behavior of a particular divine spiritual personality, dressing like them, walking like them, talking like them, absorbing yourself in everything what they do, you’ll have an epiphany one day and realise you become them, or you become like them.

But Guru Mahārāj’s saying, “All you’re doing is reconditioning the mundane elements, it’s not spiritual, so you have to dissolve a material body, this is a shadow representation of the self, chayābhāsa, chidābhāsa, a shadow covering of the souls, made of ahaṅkār, intelligence, mind, body, senses, etc. So, that has to be dissolved and then golden genuine svarūp, spiritual body from within can manifest. Or it says,

sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ
tat-paratvena nirmalam
hṛṣīkeṇa hṛṣīkeśa-
sevanaṁ bhaktir uchyate
(Nārada-pañcharātra)

Upādhi generally means designations, but also in this context it can mean context, so there are layers of coverings, acquired prejudices, false ego, etc., covering the soul, gradually through the culture of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the layers, or you become unlayered, the layers vanish, then the svārūp starts to manifest. So, it’s not reconditioning this mind, like neuro-linguistic programming. You know what that means, so, I knew some devotees, they though, “You put on headphones and listen to Kṛṣṇa-nām or the Bhāgavatam, and then wake up enlightened.” It’s not a question of having the music, when we have Kṛṣṇa-conscious music and then wallpaper, and just surrounding yourself with external paraphernalia, that will induce some sort of spiritual awakening, bhaktyā sañjātayā bhaktyā, only devotion can ignite devotion in another, there is no formula, no method, no step-and-repeat procedure, that will generate spiritual substance.

So, Guru Mahārāj and his point was that, “No amount of finite can generate the Infinite.” Matter cannot generate spirit, but spirit can manipulate matter. Spirit can express itself through, but not that by reconfiguring the mundane we can achieve the spiritual. In the prayers of the personified Veda the eighty seventh chapter of the tenth canto, this question occurs, that if we’re using the fleshy tongue and the voice box and the body to vibrate sound, Vedas are supposed to be spiritual sound. But how can we vibrate spiritual sound? If we’re using mundane elements. And this has to do with the nature of what is genuinely spiritual. So, the Guru Mahārāj liked to quote Bhaktivinod Thakur in Śaraṇāgati, where it says, “When the heart is under the influence of Kṛṣṇa conception, the power, the influence of that conception comes outward from the heart and expressed itself as sound, not that we make a sound, listen to that sound and then it purifies our heats. Saying that rather the heart under the influence Sādhu, Śāstra, Guru, Vaiṣṇava, expressed spiritual sound and it has to deal with what is the actual original function or purpose of the senses, of sense perception. Beyond just navigating the mundane world, what really is the ultimate purpose of seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, feeling?

In the second canto of the Bhāgavatam, when the Śukadev Goswāmī begins speaking to Parīkṣit Mahārāj answering these questions, there is a series of verses, five or six verses, that are very heavy, where he says, “If the tongue isn’t used for vibrating the Holy Name of Kṛṣṇa or glorifying Kṛṣṇa, it’s like the croaking of frogs. Like we hear in the āśram, when it rains, have you ever heard the frogs? I mean, how could you not. Unbelievable. Before they cut the grass, it sounds like there are thousands of them out there. So, he is saying, “All of these, whatever it is, if it’s not for glorifying Kṛṣṇa, it’s like tumultuous croaking the frogs, which we all heard. Then it says those ears, that don’t hear are like earholes of a snake. It has earhole, but they can’t hear, they use vibration and, their tongue, I think, to sense. The eyes, that don’t behold the divine form of Kṛṣṇa are like the eyes on the peacock plume. So, each one of the senses is denigrated in that way. And we think, this that sweet boy, sixteen year old boy, Śukadev Goswāmī suddenly saying these very heavy things. Is he cruel, is he mean? Is it some fanatical brahmachārī speaking? Who is just insulting everybody?

Rather, we should see this as the, it’s brutal, the description, because of the intensity of feeling in the inverse, that how beautiful is the form of Kṛṣṇa, how sweet is the sound of Kṛṣṇa’s Holy Name, the sound of the flute, how soft is the body of Kṛṣṇa and extraordinary is the fragrance, the scent of Kṛṣṇa. All of these things are so wonderful, that someone will say, “If you’re not using it for that, you’ve wasted your life. What are your senses for?” Even in this world we have people who say things like that. They say, “Oh, if you haven’t done this you haven’t lived”. It means, it’s a particular level of intensity, a feeling of appreciation. And interestingly, so that’s in the second canto of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, in the Madhya-līla, the second chapter of Madhya-līla, which is the summary synopsis of the whole of the end of Chaitanya-charitāmṛta: it’s called śeṣa-līla, the final pastimes, divided in two sections, Madhya and Antya. So, this is the summary, because Kavirāj Goswāmī he is arthritic, he can’t see, it’s a miracle that he is writing, and he thinks, “Maybe I won’t be able to finish this, so, I’m gonna give you a summary right now and then hopefully, I’ll live long enough to finish it. Tell you the details.” But there, when it comes to talking about the beauty of Kṛṣṇa and what does it say? The sound of Kṛṣṇa’s flute, “Vaṁśī-gānāmṛta-dhāma, lāvaṇyāmṛta-janma-sthāna,” (Cc : Madhya 2.29). It’s quoting Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī’s saying, “The face of Kṛṣṇa is so beautiful, it’s lāvaṇyāmṛta, janma-sthāna means birthplace, here she says lāvaṇyāmṛta, the nectar, the crème de la crème, of all beauty, the birthplace of all the beauty is the face of Kṛṣṇa. Lāvaṇyāmṛta, the nectar of all beauty is born from the face of Kṛṣṇa and vaṁśī-gānāmṛta-dhāma, that face which is, what else comes from that face? The flute song. So, She is praising the beauty of Kṛṣṇa, the scent of Kṛṣṇa, the sweetness of His Name, the sound of the flute. And then She says, just like Śukadev did before, but now with even greater intensity, “If you don’t use your senses for seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, feeling, smelling Kṛṣṇa, why do you have them?”

So, that question about whether or not through the senses you can achieve anything spiritual, at the heart of the matter actually that’s all that they’re really meant for. It’s not that it’s only possible, this is actually their only function, this is the only reason why we have them. Really is for this. And in forgetfulness we’re using them for other purposes.

śrutvā guṇān bhuvana-sundara śṛṇvatāṁ te
nirviśya karṇa-vivarair harato ’nga-tāpam
rūpaṁ dṛśāṁ dṛśimatām akhilārtha-lābhaṁ
tvayy achyutāviśati chittam apatrapaṁ me
(Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 10.52.37)

The Queen Rukmiṇī. Look, even in this world, when we deal with romantic love, people will meet someone and they’ll say, “I have always and only loved you.” And you’ll say, “You mean, did you say that to your ex-girlfriend?” “No, I have always and only loved you. I only existed in anticipation of meeting you. Now when I’ve met you, my life has meaning. I don’t know how I existed before I’ve met you.” I mean, I am not actually mocking these things, well a little bit, but no. But my point is that we say that and we mean it, and we believe it. And let’s not get into how often it turns out to go otherwise. But that’s what we want, is that person that you meet, coming in connection with them gives meaning and purpose to your whole existence. Everything before that now suddenly become adjusted because you’ve met them, love of your heart. Then you’re happy, that, “Now, I know I have eyes, ears, everything is focused on the object of love, the beloved.” If we can feel that way, and we want to feel that way, if we can feel that way about someone in this world, then magnify that to an infinite degree and you can begin to understand what we’re dealing with in the Kṛṣṇa conception. The compelling, irresistible, all attractive beauty, seductive charm, sweetness of Kṛṣṇa.

“Kandarpa-koṭi-kamanīya-viśeṣa-śobhaṁ,” (Bs: 5.30). So, Rukmini’s saying, “Śrutvā guṇān bhuvana-sundara śṛṇvatāṁ tesruddva bhuvana-sundaram,” hearing about You, nāma-rūpa, from sound the form comes, remember, back to the beginning, sound, then form, quality etc. so, from sound your form came to me, and now I can understand, You’re the most beautiful thing in the world. That’s Bhuvana Sundara. And now I know, why we have ears, the reason we have ears, hear your Holy Name, now it all makes sense, “nirviśya karṇa-vivarair harato ’nga-tāpam,” and now all my suffering is vanished, “rūpaṁ dṛśāṁ dṛśimatām akhilārtha-lābhaṁ,” and seeing your divine form, akhilārtha-lābhaṁ, means, now I’ve got everything. This is parallels the samadhi-śloka in Bhagavad-gītā, it says,

yaṁ labdhvā chāparaṁ lābhaṁ
manyate nādhikaṁ tataḥ
(Bhagavad-gītā: 6.22)

When you reach this stage, think there is nothing greater than this, you’ve got everything. “Yasmin vijñāte sarvam evaṁ vijñātaṁ bhavati,” (Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 1.3) as Guru Mahārāj says, “Try for this one thing,—quoting the Upanishads,—Try for that one thing upon getting which you get everything. Try to know that one thing, upon knowing which everything is known.” This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the pursuit of Kṛṣṇa conception.

“Rūpaṁ dṛśāṁ dṛśimatām akhilārtha-lābhaṁ/tvayy achyutāviśati chittam apatrapaṁ me,” so, Rukmini says, “Shamelessly, in the presence of such beauty how can you... ahaituky apratihatā, irresistible, shamelessly, I am just inviting you, demanding, that you kidnap me. And we can take it, surrounded by karmic circumstance, if we’re fortunate we’ll come to the position of realizing, and expressing the aspiration, that Kṛṣṇa kidnap us. They’d say, “How you gonna become Kṛṣṇa conscious? By inviting Kṛṣṇa to kidnap you.” Otherwise karmic forces they are saying, “You owe me. You owe me, you don’t even remember, but you owe me. Those things you did before, you don’t remember, I’ve come to collect.” “But I don’t understand why!” For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. But shouldn’t I have to remember? No. Like the drunken driver, who wakes up in jail goes,
“Why am I here?”
“Oh, you’ve killed three people”
“I don’t remember.”
“Oh, okay, then you can go.”
No. It doesn’t matter whether you remember or not, we do.

Hare Kṛṣṇa. Munindra Mohan Prabhu in Italy, our leader there, along with Kṛṣṇa Kanta didi, when he was initiated, generally at that time, previously in ISKCON there would be the time, when they say, you would recite the four regulative principles, or awareness of them. But things shifted so much, he said when he was initiated, Gurudev turn, and this was a time, when he would say, “Don’t do this and that”, Gurudev turned and said, “Don’t kill anybody.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you do that?”
“I’ll try.”

“Mā hiṁsyāt sarvā bhūtāni.” But the gopīs are saying, “Kṛṣṇa is killing all these women with His beauty!”

Hare Kṛṣṇa