The Transcendental Reality of God's Rasa-līlā
Śrīla Prabhupāda expertly guides us through the deepest mysteries of the Supreme Lord's intimate pastimes. By studying his instructions, we can understand the pure spiritual nature of the rasa-līlā, the severe danger of imitating it, its true purpose of attracting conditioned souls, and why it is an exchange reserved strictly for liberated personalities.
The Highest Spiritual Bliss
Śrīla Prabhupāda establishes that the rasa-līlā is the ultimate expression of spiritual exchange. Because the Supreme Lord is full of eternity, knowledge, and bliss, He eternally enjoys these transcendental mellows with the expansions of His own internal potency.
- He (the Lord) likes every part and parcel of His different potencies to take part in the blissful rasa because participation with the Lord in His eternal rasa-lila is the highest living condition, perfect in spiritual bliss and eternal knowledge.
- Since God is sac-cid-ananda-vigraha He likes every part and parcel of His different potencies to take part in the blissful rasa: participation with God in His eternal rasa-lila is the highest living condition perfect in spiritual bliss and eternal knowledge.
- The Supreme Lord's pastimes are more attractive to liberated souls than to mundane people. He is of necessity not impersonal because it is only possible to carry on transcendental rasa with a person.
- The pure devotees of the Lord, however, can equally relish the nectar in the form of the profound philosophical discourses and in the form of kissing by the Lord in the rasa dance, as there is no mundane distinction between the two.
The Danger of Imitation
Śrīla Prabhupāda strictly warns against the mundane imitation of the Lord's most intimate pastimes. Conditioned souls who try to jump to the rasa dance without proper philosophical qualification commit great spiritual blunders.
- Foolish people who are not in the transcendental disciplic succession commit great blunders by trying to understand the highest transcendental rasa known as the rasa dance without following in the footsteps of Sukadeva Gosvami.
- In many instances they (the Mayavadis) were checked by the government, arrested and punished. In Orissa, Thakura Bhaktivinoda punished a so-called incarnation of Visnu who was imitating the rasa-lila with young girls.
- There are professional Bhagavata reciters who abruptly go to the rasa-lila chapters of Srimad-Bhagavatam, as if other portions of Srimad-Bhagavatam were useless. This kind of discrimination and abrupt adoption of the rasa-lila pastimes of the Lord is not approved by the acaryas.
- Since it is recommended in this verse (2.2.13) that one should gradually progress from the lotus feet up to the smiling face, we shall not jump at once to understand the Lord's pastimes in the rasa dance.
Attracting the Conditioned Souls
The Supreme Personality of Godhead does not perform the rasa-līlā for material sense gratification. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that its true purpose is to attract the fallen souls away from their degraded material attachments and toward the supreme spiritual reality.
- The reason the Lord displays the rasa-lila is essentially to induce all the fallen souls to give up their diseased morality and religiosity, and to attract them to the kingdom of God to enjoy the reality.
- When the Lord manifested Himself on this earth He partially displayed the activities of His pleasure potency in His rasa-lila just to attract the conditioned souls, who are all after the phantasmagoria pleasure potency in degraded sex enjoyment.
- The Supreme Personality of Godhead is therefore described in the sruti-mantras, Vedic hymns, as "the fountainhead of all rasas." When one associates with the Supreme Lord and exchanges one's constitutional rasa with the Lord, then the living being is actually happy.
- The gopis are predominated expansions of the internal potency, and therefore the Lord's participation in the rasa-lila dance is never to be considered like the mundane relationship of man and woman.
Reserved for Liberated Souls
To truly understand the rasa-līlā, one must be completely free from the material modes of nature. Śrīla Prabhupāda emphasizes that great sages like Śukadeva Gosvāmī relish these pastimes because they operate entirely on the platform of pure transcendence.
- Despite his (Sukadeva Gosvami) being a completely liberated person situated in the transcendental position above the three material modes, he was attracted to this transcendental rasa of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is adored by liberated souls who sing Vedic hymns.
- Liberated souls can join in this blissful reciprocation of predominator and predominated without materially concocted ideas. example of such a transcendental exchange between the predominator and the predominated is the Lord's rasa-lila with the gopis.
- Without having the Vedic knowledge one can hardly understand the transcendental nature of the Lord's rasa dance and music.
- According to the Bhagavata school, the Lord's rasa dancing is the smiling face of the Lord.
Conclusion
Śrīla Prabhupāda rigorously defends the absolute purity of the Supreme Lord's rasa-līlā, drawing a distinct line between transcendental bliss and mundane lust. The Lord's intimate dancing with the gopīs is an exchange among liberated souls, completely devoid of material inebriety, representing the pinnacle of spiritual reciprocation. By publicly displaying these confidential pastimes, Śrī Kṛṣṇa mercifully invites the materially exhausted souls to abandon their diseased attempts at worldly sense gratification and turn toward the genuine, eternal pleasure found only in His association. However, Śrīla Prabhupāda strongly cautions against premature exploration or imitation of these topics. Unless one approaches the rasa-līlā through the authorized disciplic succession—first purifying the heart by studying the Lord's philosophical instructions and lower lotus feet—one risks falling into the trap of degraded material imitation. True understanding of the rasa dance is the reward of pure devotion, accessible only to those who have transcended the modes of material nature.
Dive Deeper into Śrīla Prabhupāda's Vani
Śrīla Prabhupāda lives within his instructions. This article is a summary of the profound truths found in the Vaniquotes category God's Rasa-lila. We invite you to visit this link to study the complete compilation and experience Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings in their direct, verbatim form.