Sri Radhastami

Giriraj Swami: We’ve gathered on the most auspicious occasion of Sri Radhastami, the Appearance Day of Srimati Radharani. The subject of Radha-Krishna is very sacred and also very confidential, it is also a little difficult to understand. Still, I will read one verse. It is the fifth verse of Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta by Srila Krishnadas Kaviraja Gosvami, but it was actually written by a most confidential associate of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu named Svarupa Damodara Gosvami.

TEXT 5 [Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta Ādi-līlā 1.5]

rādhā kṛṣṇa-praṇaya-vikṛtir hlādinī śaktir asmād
ekātmānāv api bhuvi purā deha-bhedaṁ gatau tau
caitanyākhyaṁ prakaṭam adhunā tad-dvayaṁ caikyam āptaṁ
rādhā-bhāva-dyuti-suvalitaṁ naumi kṛṣṇa-svarūpam

TRANSLATION

The loving affairs of Śrī Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa are transcendental manifestations of the Lord’s internal pleasure-giving potency. Although Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa are one in Their identity, previously They separated Themselves. Now these two transcendental identities have again united, in the form of Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya. I bow down to Him, who has manifested Himself with the sentiment and complexion of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī although He is Kṛṣṇa Himself.

COMMENT

Ruchi, it’s time to pay attention to the words. So, janmādy asya yataḥ, Krishna is the origin of everything. Everything that we see is either Krishna or an emanation from Krishna. And in this topic, we are discussing situations that are eternal as if they had a progression. But the progression is not exactly a progression in time, because the realm we are discussing is eternal, which means everything in that realm has no beginning and no end. But still, there is a sort of progression in terms of sentiment.

So, let us imagine that Krishna existed all alone. Now, Krishna contains everything within Him, and therefore, He is completely self-satisfied, ātmārāma. He is completely self-satisfied. He does not need anything outside of Himself to become happy. He Himself is everything, and He includes everything, and He is fully situated in transcendental bliss within Himself. Still, He had the desire to reciprocate in love with another person. Actually, we are all parts and parcels of Krishna, we are emanations from Krishna, so whatever sentiments we have as living beings exist originally in Krishna.

Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s philosophy is acintya-bhedābheda-tattva, inconceivable, simultaneous, oneness and difference. We are one with Krishna in quality, but different in quantity, because He is infinite, and we living entities are infinitesimal. But because we are a small sample of Krishna, by understanding ourselves as spiritual beings, we can understand Krishna. Just like if you take a drop of water from the ocean and you analyze that drop, it has the same chemical qualities as the ocean, but the quantity of the ocean is much greater. So, we have that desire to give love and receive love.

In fact, one Vedic sage has said that the two great human necessities are to give love and to receive love. So, Krishna also wanted to exchange in loving pastimes, but with whom could He engage? There is no one but Him, or everything is Him. But within Him is an energy called hlādinī-śakti. Shakti means energy, and hlādinī means which gives pleasure. So, that pleasure giving potency or hlādinī-śakti, which was contained within Krishna, came out of Krishna, or you could say Krishna separated that part of Himself, and thus the one Krishna became two, Radha-Krishna. Hlādinī-śakti in personified form is Srimati Radharani. And Radha-Krishna is really nothing but the exchange of transcendental love.

Now, what is love? That is another question. And Srila Krishnadas Kaviraja Gosvami, in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, explains what is love and what is lust. In lust, one has the selfish desire to please one’s own senses. And in love, one has the desire to please Krishna’s senses. Although the two may resemble each other, they are vastly different, just like gold and iron. They are both metals, but there is a great difference in value. So, love or prema or prīti basically means the desire to please the other person, to make the other person happy. And lust or karma is the desire to be happy oneself.

Now, what often passes as love in the material world is not really love, or at least not pure love, but it is based on selfish desire for one’s own personal happiness in the bodily concept of life. I think of a line from a Beatles song, and I was a Beatles’ fan, I must admit, along with about 100 million other people of my generation. “Please, please me my love and I will please you.” Now, that is not pure love. That is conditional. Pure love is unconditional. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu prayed,

TEXT 29

na dhanaṁ na janaṁ na sundarīṁ
kavitāṁ vā jagad-īśa kāmaye

COMMENT

And as we just read, after the one Krishna became two, Radha and Krishna, the two again became one as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is a combination of Radha and Krishna. He is Krishna but He has accepted the complexion, the luster, the golden color of Sri Radha and the mood, the sentiment of Sri Radha. So, His prayers, the Śikṣāṣṭakam, the whole philosophy of Krishna Consciousness is contained within the eight verses of the Śikṣāṣṭakam. And in these prayers, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is in the mood of Radharani. There are several prayers, the one I began

TEXT 29

na dhanaṁ na janaṁ na sundarīṁ
kavitāṁ vā jagad-īśa kāmaye

COMMENT

Na dhanam, “I do not want wealth;” na janam, “I do not want followers or the enjoyment of family members;” na sundarīṁ, “I don’t want to enjoy beautiful women;” kavitāṁ, “I don’t even want to enjoy lofty poetry.” “Then what do You want?” mama janmani janmanīśvare, “Birth after birth;” bhavatād bhaktir ahaitukī tvayi, “I want only Your causeless devotional service.” So, that is the mood of pure devotion. He doesn’t want anything in return from His Lord. He simply wants to serve His Lord without any expectation or demand.

And then at the end of the Śikṣāṣṭakam, in very high ecstatic mood of Srimati Radharani, He says, “You may handle Me roughly by Your embrace, or You may make Me broken-hearted by not being present before Me, but You are free to do anything and everything. And You are My unconditional Lord in all circumstances.” And the purport to this verse, it is in an esoteric sense, but the purport of the verse is that Radharani has no experience of happiness outside of Krishna’s happiness. If Krishna is happy, then that is Radharani’s happiness, and if Krishna is unhappy, of course, He ultimately is never unhappy, but still, in that sentiment, if Krishna is unhappy, then that is Her greatest unhappiness. And She goes further and says, “If by My becoming unhappy Krishna becomes happy, then I will consider My unhappiness to be the greatest happiness, because in that situation, I’m making Krishna happy.”

So, obviously, this is a very high stage of consciousness, pure love. It is something we can hardly imagine in the conditioned stage of life, in the bodily concept. If some mundane psychologist heard those sentiments, they would think, Something’s wrong with the person. He is like, “Stand up for your rights. Don’t let people handle you roughly, don’t let people trample on you.” But this is on a completely different platform. This is on the spiritual platform where there is no identification with the body or the mind and where there is no selfish desire.

The only desire is to serve Krishna and please Krishna. And in that service to Krishna, in giving Krishna pleasure, the individual soul or Srimati Radharani, who’s the best servant of Krishna, the best lover of Krishna, that devotee experiences the greatest pleasure, a pleasure that is billions and trillions of times greater than anything we can experience in this material world.

There are a group of impersonal philosophers, you find it in practically every tradition. In Vedic civilization, they are called jnanis. They want to merge and become one with God. Some impersonal yogis also want to merge and become one with God. So, realized authorities, Vedic scriptures say that the happiness of merging into impersonal Brahman, which is called Brahmananda, the happiness of Brahmananda is not even a fraction of a drop compared to the ocean of happiness of Krishna consciousness or bhakti-rasa or pure love, prema. Another verse says that if you take the happiness of Brahmananda and multiply it a trillion times, it is not equal to a fraction of the happiness of prema-bhakti.

So, the happiness that we are discussing here is inconceivable. It’s inconceivable to people in the bodily concept of life, but it is attainable. And Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came to deliver the method by which we, lowly fallen conditioned souls, can attain that exalted state of consciousness. Now, although Radha and Krishna are one in identity, They separated Themselves into two. They are both spiritual entities, there is nothing material about Them. There is nothing in them like a male body or a female body with different hormones and whatever those bags have inside of them, but still, there is a difference in sentiment. Krishna being, you could say, the perfection of the male principle, and Srimati Radharani being the perfection of the female principle. And in Srimati Radharani, we find the perfection of the compassionate nature.

Sometimes it’s said that Srimati Radharani represents the compassionate side of Krishna. The father might be a little strict but the mother might be more lenient with more compassion and more understanding. Both are required, certainly both are required. So, Srimati Radharani has that very compassionate mood and very merciful nature. So, when the two became one, when Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu adopted the mood or the bhava of Srimati Radharani, on one level, the mood was intense love for Krishna. That’s the essence of Srimati Radharani’s mood, intense love for Krishna.

But another part of Her mood is Her compassion. And Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu also had Her compassionate mood. And how is that compassion manifest? It is manifest in the desire to bring people to Krishna, because She knows there is no greater happiness than serving Krishna and pleasing Krishna. So, Her mercy is such that She wants to bring people to Krishna so they can experience the beauty of Krishna, the ecstasy of loving Krishna, and being loved by Krishna. And we, as living entities, as pure spirit souls, by nature, love Krishna. But because we’ve somehow or other fallen into the material world, that pure love has been covered, you could say, perverted, and become lust. Our original sense of love of Godhead by material contact has been perverted and become lust.

So, just as that pure love by material contact was transformed into lust; instead of desiring to please Krishna, we came to desire, in a selfish way, our own happiness in a material way, so by a suitable process, that lust can be transformed into love again. It can be purified. And the process of purification in a general sense is bhakti-yoga, and specifically for the present age of Kali, it is chanting the holy names of Radha and Krishna.

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

So, in the maha-mantra, Hare is the way of addressing Radharani, and Krishna and Rama are ways of addressing Krishna. So, the Hare Krishna maha-mantra is called Yugala mantra. It is a prayer to Radha and Krishna. But what is the prayer? We are calling Their names. So, if They hear us, and They do, and then They ask us, “You called Me, or you called Us. What do you want?” So, what will we say? Na dhanaṁ na janaṁ na sundarīṁ. We are not going to say, “I want wealth, I want followers or popularity or to enjoy beautiful women or art and poetry.” We are going to say, “We want to serve You. That’s our only desire.” That’s the only desire of a pure devotee. He just wants to serve Radha and Krishna and please Them.

So, when we chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, we are praying to Radha and Krishna to engage us in Their service. And if we are sincere in our chanting, that means if we chant with attention, without any offenses or ulterior motives, They will fulfill our desire and They will ultimately purify us and make us fit to serve Them in pure love. So, it sounds inconceivable that people as lowly and fallen as we are, especially in the present age, could reach such an exalted platform that even great jnanis and yogis don’t reach. And even amongst bhakti yogis, very few attain this treasure of love for Radha and Krishna. So, how is it possible?

So, one of our previous acharyas, Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura, has given the answer comparing Krishna to a king. Not Krishna, actually, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Comparing Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to a king who has gotten intoxicated. Actually, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was intoxicated with love for Krishna. So, the king, in his intoxicated state, goes into his treasury and he takes out the most valuable jewels and he goes out on the street and just gives them away to the beggars on the street. Now, who can stop him? He is the king, they are his jewels, he is free to do with them what he wishes.

And so, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, in His intoxicated state of love for Krishna, in the mood of Radha, is distributing these priceless jewels of pure love for Radha and Krishna. And it is just up to us to accept them. But we are so unfortunate in Kali-yuga that even when the most priceless jewels are offered to us, we don’t take them because we are too busy playing in the dirt.

So, that was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mood, to give this most priceless gem of pure love for Radha and Krishna through the pure chanting of the holy names. And so many devotees following him, including Srila Prabhupada, have taken great pains to teach the science of Krishna and to deliver to us the chanting of the holy names. And if we just take that gift and cherish it and protect it, we will achieve the association of Radha and Krishna in that realm of pure ecstatic love.

So, as Srila Prabhupada said, “Chanting is very simple, but the determination to chant is not so simple.” We get together, we chant, we feel blissful, we feel ecstatic, we realize that this is the essence of life, this is how I should be spending my time, this is what my human form is meant for. And as soon as we walk out on the street or get home or wake up the next morning, it’s business as usual. We remember vaguely, it just sort of fades into the background.

So, the chanting is simple, but the determination to chant is not so easy, and therefore, the association of devotees is important. When we associate with devotees and engage in chanting and hearing, then we remember what the real purpose of life is, how we should really be spending our time and energy.

And therefore, Srila Prabhupada in particular traveled all over the world and established the International Society for Krishna Consciousness so people can have the association of devotees, and through the association of devotees, maintain that determination to make this human birth successful by attaining perfect Krishna consciousness.

So, on this auspicious occasion, we pray to Srimati Radharani to be merciful to us, to ultimately fill us with love for Radha and Krishna, for Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and love for the processes that facilitate our love for Them, which is chanting the holy names, reading revealed scriptures such as the Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, love for the Deities, worshiping the Deities, love for holy places like Vrindavan and Mayapur, Jagannatha Puri, or any place where the temple of the Lord is installed and worshiped according to the scriptural injunctions, love for the association of devotees, especially pure devotees, devotees who are more advanced than we are, who are in the same mood of service that we want to develop.

So, we pray to Her to give us love for all of these processes that very quickly yield love and direct service to Radha and Krishna. And practically, it means I’m praying to be able to meet with all of you and chant and hear together with all of you right here in Santa Barbara County, so far away from Mayapur and Vrindavan. But even here, by intense chanting and hearing, offenseless chanting and hearing, we can experience Mayapur and Vrindavan right here. Hare Krishna.