VMA 1.49 :: Even while in Vrindavan, you wander about in externals!

Durvasa Muni's ashram, about two kilometers across from Vishram Ghat in Mathura. (P.C. Pure Bhakti)

Oh mind! My brother!
Here you have come with a little hope
to this raremost Vrindavan forest,
which is such a supreme essence
of the ocean of Krishna’s blissful rasa,
such a form of variations of the ujjvala-rasa
that even those who have gone through
all the topmost Upanishads
have not had even the slightest glimpse of it,
and yet you constantly wander around in externals,
driven by the witch of petty aspirations. (1.49)

kṛṣṇānanda-rasāmbudheḥ parataraṁ sāraṁ vicitrojjvalā-

kāraṁ pāra-gatair api śruti-śiro-vṛndasya nekṣyaṁ manāk |

śrī-vṛndā-vipinaṁ sudurlabhataraṁ pratyāśam āsādya bhoḥ

kṣudrāśā-kupiśācikā-vaśa-gato bambhramyase kiṁ bahiḥ ||

Commentary

Prabodhananda has already mentioned the Upanishads in 1.12 and 1.22. Here he speaks of the śruti-śiraḥ, which is a reference to Gopāla-tāpanī, as indicated in Gautamīya-tantra. The ujjvala-rasa is the romantic affection that is found in Radha and Krishna. The Gopāla-tāpanī does in fact mention the ujjvala-rasa in the first part of the Uttara-tāpanī where the famous story of Krishna being a brahmachari is told.

After spending the night with Krishna, the gopis ask him which Brahmin should be fed as an act of pious giving. Krishna tells them to go to the famous Durvasa Muni whose hermitage is just across the Yamuna. The gopis prepare a meal for the sage, but they have to ask Krishna how to cross the river, which is wide and deep due to the rainy season. Krishna tells them, “Just say that Krishna is a brahmachari and the Yamuna will part to let you pass.”

Even though the gopis find it hard to believe, they follow the instruction and the river does indeed part and the gopis serve Durvasa a sumptuous meal. After he has finished eating to his great satisfaction, the gopis were faced with the same problem of crossing the Yamuna to get back home, and so they asked Durvasa for advice. Durvasa told them that he simply had to say “Durvasa has eaten nothing” and the river’s waters would part.

The incredulous gopis were puzzled, and so they pushed Radha to the forefront to ask for an explanation on their behalf: “We understand that the power of a truth statement is very great, and so the river responded by giving way. But Krishna said he is a brahmachari even after spending the night with all of us, so he is hardly a brahmachari. And now you tell us you have been fasting after we have watched you eat as much as a hundred men could eat. So please tell us what this all means.”

Durvasa then gave a lengthy explanation based on detachment. He tells them that being the transcendent Self, beyond the interaction of the senses and the sense objects, he could not be the bhoktā, “the enjoyer,” and that this was his meaning when he said he had not eaten. So similarly, Krishna is transcendental to material sense interactions; the point being that though Krishna’s relation to the gopis appears to be one that is a physical erotic relationship, in particular one that is extramarital in nature, a relationship based in purely sexual desire, lust or kāma, it is not. It does not entangle the "enjoyer" (i.e., Krishna) in material suffering.

Again, it is the one ātmā that becomes both the senses and the sense objects, so one who understands the fundamental unity of all things cannot be an enjoyer, because such a mentality requires making a distinction between subject and object, whereas Krishna is the cause of both the subtle and gross bodies and is beyond them. He is the witness, the non-enjoyer as in the famous verses from the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad (3.1.12), which even has its antecedent in the Rigveda (1.164.20) :

dvā suparṇā sayujā sakhāyā

samānaṁ vṛkṣaṁ pariṣasvajāte

tayor anyaḥ pippalaṁ svādvatty

anaśnann anyo’bhicākaśīti

samāne vṛkṣe puruṣo nimagno

nīśayā śocati muhyamānaḥ

juṣṭaṁ yadā paśyaty anyam īśam

asya mahimānameti vīta śokaḥ

"Two fair-plumed creatures, who are friends, are sitting in the same tree. Of them, one is eating the tree’s sweet berries, the other observes without eating. In the same tree [of the body], the individual soul is helplessly bewildered and constantly grieving. When he wisely turns to the Other, who is always served by his devotees, and looks upon hi as his Lord, he gives up his suffering and realizes his glorious birthright."

In this teaching, Durvasa has presented both the Brahman and Paramatma concepts of the Absolute, identifying both with Krishna, and himself with Brahman, but not as the Paramatma. After saying this, Durvasa turns to an explanation of the līlā itself.

yo ha vai kāmena kāmān kāmayate sa kāmī bhavati |

yo ha vai tv akāmena kāmān kāmayate so’kāmī bhavati |

"A sensualist is one who wishes for sense gratification with a desire to enjoy. A non-sensualist is one who desires sense objects without any such motivation." (GTU 2.21)

This is why it is said that the love of the gopis and Krishna that was manifested is sometimes called kāma because it resembles the sensual love of this world, but that this is just a matter of nomenclature (premaiva gopa-rāmāṇāṁ kāma ity agamat prathām) .

Durvasa then completes the teaching by saying,

janma-jarābhyāṁ bhinnaḥ sthāṇur ayam acchedyo’yaṁ,

yo’sau saurye tiṣṭhati, yo’sau goṣu tiṣṭhati, yo’sau gāḥ pālayati,

yo’sau gopeṣu tiṣṭhati, yo’sau sarveṣu vedeṣu tiṣṭhati, yo’sau sarvavedair gīyate,

yo’sau sarveṣu bhūteṣv āviśya bhūtāni vidadhāti, sa vo hi svāmī bhavati ||

This Krishna who is beyond both birth and old age, who is immovable, who cannot be cut, who is situated in the effulgence of the sun, who resides among the cows, who herds the cows, who associates with the cowherds, who is established in all the Vedas, who is glorified by all the Vedas, who enters into all living beings and brings them to life, that Krishna is verily your husband. (GTU 2.22)

By saying that Krishna is Radha and the gopis’ husband, he is establishing that in view of the non-duality of the Supreme Truth, there is no possibility of any real separation between Krishna and the gopis, who are his energies. It is only an appearance for the sake of līlā.

So the only place that there is an explicit mention of Radha and Krishna’s madhura-rasa in the Upanishads is here, where its underlying siddhānta has been given, accepting the reality of the Supreme Truth as Brahma, Paramatma and Bhagavan. But there is no elaborate description of this rasa itself. And certainly, though it names Radha as Gandharva, she is not explicitly glorified with the name Radha, which is the great revelation of Vrindavan.

So here Prabodhananda exhorts his mind to make the most of this most rare opportunity of living in Vrindavan. If living in Vrindavan is such a great opportunity, then one should make the most of it. If you are in Vrindavan, what greater misfortune than to be absorbed in anything other than Vrindavan, being in Vrindavan physically and not mentally?

VMA 1.49 : Even while in Vrindavan, you wander about in externals!
VMA 1.48 : Never leave Vrindavan
VMA 1.47 : What can Vrindavan give you?
VMA 1.46 : Vrindavan: The ripe fulfillment of Krishna prema
VMA 1.45 :: Vrindavan, worshiped by munis, gods and divine beings
VMA 1.43 :: Those who die in Vrindavan are the greatest Vaishnavas
VMA 1.42 :: The Abode of the King of Rasa
VMA 1.41 :: The treasure house of the flavors of devotion
VMA 1.40 :: Only after lifetimes of piety can one live in Vrindavan
VMA 1.39 : May Vrindavan protect and transform me.