Devotion of the Gopis
The gopis [cowherd maidens] of Krishna’s time are synonymous with bhakti [supreme devotion]. In this discourse, Swami expounds on their faith and teaches us how we can attain it.
The meaning of the Krishna avatar [divine incarnation] is beyond your understanding. All the avatars are inexplicable in the language of this world, in the vocabulary of common men. To attempt this is to try to encase the ocean in a canal by its side. You can understand it only when you become lost to the world and its attachments through the expansion of your sympathies and the purification of your motives.
The one God-head was experienced by the gopis as immanent in every being; they steadied their minds and installed Him therein. Veerabhadra Shastry [a speaker who spoke earlier in the Divine presence] said that the Lord would not stay in the heart unless the heart is fixed and not agitated. Of course, when you place a child in the cradle, it must be firm and unmoving; but, once the child is there, the cradle can be swung. Remember, the Lord too is a child, personified sat chit ananda [being, awareness, and bliss], devoid of gunas (qualities).
When Uddhava [Krishna’s friend] came to Gokula, Shastry said, “the cows were fat and full, the gopis were happy and joyful and the place was full of fragrance and music.” But, the facts were different. The place was forlorn and the men and women, disconsolate and helpless; the cattle too were overcome with grief. Uddhava brought them all a fresh lease of life. Krishna told him, “Their hearts are merged in Mine; their minds think only of Me; they have forsaken even bodily needs and they exist only because they hope to see Me again, some day.” So, how could the gopis be as happy and gay as Shastry described? Uddhava himself was humbled at the sight of their complete surrender and the pangs of separation that consumed them. Krishna sent Uddhava to them for that reason, so that he could observe their utter devotion
Gopis were wiser than yogis
Every act of Krishna had a meaning, a purpose, and a sweet aptness. The gopis were convinced that Krishna was the Lord. Many ascetics, many rajas [kings] and maharajas [emperors] among whom Krishna lived had not realized that truth. The unlearned simple cowherds and gopis were wiser. When you are also affected by those pangs, you can understand the gopis, and not till then. For that pain, the message of Krishna is the antidote. “Your grief is caused by your limited artificial outlook; you take Me to be a limited bound entity and so you feel I am far away, I am absent, I am by your side, etc. You are hugging a delusion, awake to the truth and establish yourselves in joy.”
The One does not desire to become many through its own free will. It has no desire. It has no likes and dislikes. It is immanent and transcendent. It is all this and more. What then is the reason for this manifold appearance? The reason lies in the mind of the bhakta (devotee). You declare, “Baba appeared before me in this form; I saw Baba in this form.” But, what happens is that you desire that vision. I do not change into that form. The Lord is sugar, sweetness. You may drop it into tea or coffee or milk or water. Put it in anything and it will make it sweet. That is My nature, sweetness; My signature. But once it has melted, it is not water or sugar, but a third thing, sherbet (syrup). When your tongue is bitter with envy, hatred, and pride, how can you taste the sugar?
Seek God like you seek food
The Lord cares for the motive, not the object offered. The tiny leaf from the cooking vessel given by Draupadi satisfied His hunger and the hunger of the Universe, because she saturated the offering with her bhakti [devotion]. Rukmini [Krishna’s wife] placed the tulasi [holy basil] leaf on the scale and was able to balance the weight of He who has all the 14 worlds in His belly, because her devotion added so much weight to the leaf . The handful of flattened rice that Kuchela took for Krishna was worth less than a paisa [cent] but it was suffused with the true devotion and faith of his wife, so it brought them great good fortune. It is possible to fill a world of feeling in an atom of a deed, and the Lord will value and appreciate that.
Krishna is the causeless conditioning. You cannot discover causes for His acts or deeds; it is sheer waste to search for them. If you keep searching for causes and then try to tread the path, you may not get the chance at all. Remember that you have come as men in order to reach God. People ask, “Why do you go to MathuraBrindavan, to Thirupati, or to Puttaparthi [places of worship]?” Nobody asks you “Why do you eat food?” In fact, one has to seek God just as one seeks food. Both are necessary for happiness. Man is immortal so he seeks to overcome death.
Rise to the level of the gopis
Do not blame the Lord for your failure in sadhana [spiritual practice]; examine yourself. You set the alarm clock for 6 a.m. and go to bed. If it rings at 10 a.m. you infer that something is wrong with its nuts, bolts, springs, wheels, etc. So too, when the expected results do not materialize, infer that something is wrong in yourself, your habits of food, drink, sleep, or conduct or behavior or attitude to others. Everyone, whether he is a brahmin [priestly class] or pundit [learned teacher] or student or artist, has to adhere to a strict code of discipline. Without that, victory is beyond reach. You must become master of the senses and attain the mahashakti (supreme energy) from this basic mayashakti (deluding power). In short you too must rise to the level of the gopis.
The body is assigned to you as a boat to cross the ocean of samsara (worldly life) but you use it for storing things that give worldly joy and do not launch it on the waters. By misusing the body like that, it comes in the way of all activity that is really conducive to happiness. Use it in the way of dharma (righteousness) and success will be yours. Bhima [2nd Pandava] asked Dharmaraja [the oldest Pandava] whether he would agree to another game of dice after the 12 years of exile in the forest and one year of being incognito, if Duryodhana [Kaurava] invited him to do so. Dharmaraja replied, “I can never deviate from the path of dharma.” Because of this attitude, the Pandavas were helped by the continuous grace of Krishna and the blessings of sages like Markandeya and Vedavyasa. The Kauravas, on the other hand, were debilitated by curse after curse from enraged sages and by one ill omen after another.
Gopis are examples of yearning
Your sadhana does not involve reading or writing as much as actual experience. Ravana was a past master in the four Vedas [holy scriptures] and the six Shastras (spiritual sciences); his ten heads were full of them. But to what avail? He had no shanti (peace), nor could he give shanti to his relatives. What good is it if you repeat, “delicious food, delicious food” a thousand times? You have to eat, digest, and assimilate it. You have no deposits in your account in the Bank of Bhagavan’s grace and yet you dare issue cheques, expecting His grace when in distress! Have the deposits or, at least have some property on hand (like service to others, love toward all, nonviolence, etc.) so that you can mortgage it and get help. If you have neither, why blame the bank?
You can realize the Lord through your daily avocations and activities, believe Me! The gopis are the best examples of this, the best proof. Always remember the name of the Lord with the agony of an unfulfilled search and always remember the beauteous form with the agony of forced separation, then you too can see Krishna in your midst. If that yearning is there, the result is certain. The Lord wants sincerity, not imitation.
Prahlada [a great devotee of the Lord] was immersed in that bhava [feeling]. Even when he was thrown downhill, trampled by an elephant, and tortured by the minions of his father, he paid no heed, for he heeded only his Lord, he needed only his Lord. The gopis also lost all attachment to the world, to the senses, and to the manifold objective phenomenal things when they listened to Krishna’s flute. They yearned for the sublime spiritual merging with the Infinite that was always calling on the finite to realize its “finiteness.”
When the impulses are purified, one gets into the higher stage of salokya [realm of spirituality], when the mystery of the Divine is grasped. Then, by contemplation of the Divine, the sameepya and the sarupya (proximity to divinity and likeness of the form of divinity) stages are won. Many great mystic poets attained this height. Jayadeva sang beautifully, but if you sing that song in the same way, Krishna will not appear. He wants sincerity not imitation. The name uttered with sincere faith was the floweroffering of the gopis; that was the bead of their rosary.
Source: Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 3
