God's Friends Relish the Highest Mellows of Sakhya Rasa
When most people think of their relationship with God, they envision a dynamic strictly based on awe, reverence, and fear. They pray to Him as a distant creator or a strict judge. While God is indeed the supreme controller, this majestic conception only scratches the surface of the Absolute Truth. The Vedic literatures reveal a much deeper, sweeter reality: the Supreme Personality of Godhead desires intimacy, and one of His favorite ways to exchange love is through transcendental friendship (sakhya-rasa). Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that in the spiritual world, pure devotees interact with the Lord on a platform of complete equality, playing with Him, sharing confidential jokes, and even lovingly rebuking Him. By understanding the qualifications to become God's friend, the immense pleasure the Lord derives from this relationship, and how this dynamic is the ultimate goal of human life, we can elevate our spiritual practice from formal religion to spontaneous, ecstatic love.
The Sweetness of Spiritual Equality
In the material world, friendships are often marred by envy or hidden motives. In the spiritual world, however, friendship with the Supreme Lord is an exchange of pure, unadulterated love where the majestic opulence of God is completely covered by affection. Śrīla Prabhupāda describes the profound intimacy and equality shared between the Lord and His friends.
- The third stage in the development of transcendental love is called sakhya-rati. In this stage one associates with the Supreme as a friend on an equal level, with love and respect.
- In the spiritual world God and God's son or God's friend or God's lover, anyone is the... They're in the same platform, spiritual. Therefore they are identical.
- Sukadeva Gosvami said, "When He (Krsna) would thus sit amongst His friends, it would appear that He was the whorl of a lotus flower and that the friends surrounding Him were petals."
- The degree of intimacy shared by Krsna and Subala can be understood by the fact that the talks between them were so confidential that no one else could understand what they were saying.
Relishing Spontaneous Love Over Awe
God does not need our formal prayers; He is already full in all opulences. What He truly relishes is the spontaneous, uncalculated love of His pure devotees. Śrīla Prabhupāda highlights how the simple offerings and playful reproaches of the Lord's friends bring Him more satisfaction than the most elaborate Vedic rituals.
- The Lord relishes the reproaches of friends, parents or fiancees more than the Vedic hymns offered to Him by great learned scholars and religionists in an official fashion.
- The cowherd boys brought simple foodstuffs from home, and the Lord, who is constantly served by hundreds and thousands of goddesses of fortune, is always glad to accept such simple foodstuffs from His devotee friends.
- They (Krsna and Balarama) also learned how to splash water in the rivers or lakes while taking a bath among friends.
- Krsna freely moves amongst His friends as a cowherd boy in Vrndavana, and when He plays His flute, all living creatures, mobile and immobile, become overwhelmed with ecstasy. They quiver, and tears flow from their eyes.
The Qualification to Understand God
The deepest mysteries of the Absolute Truth cannot be unlocked by academic study, mental speculation, or mystic yoga. Śrīla Prabhupāda repeatedly emphasizes that Lord Kṛṣṇa specifically chose to reveal the supreme science of the Bhagavad-gītā to Arjuna solely because Arjuna was His devoted friend.
- Lord Krsna instructed Arjuna in the Bhagavad-gita because He found Arjuna to be a devotee and friend. Without such qualifications, one cannot enter into the mystery of the Bhagavad-gita.
- The Lord clearly told Arjuna that it was because Arjuna was His devotee and friend that he could understand the principles of the Bhagavad-gita. In other words, only the Lord's devotee and friend can understand the Gita.
- That very ancient science of the relationship with the Supreme is today told by Me to you (Arjuna) because you are My devotee as well as My friend; therefore you can understand the transcendental mystery of this science.
- In course of time, the same instruction (which was given to sun-god), being wrongly handled and being broken, was again instructed to Arjuna because he was His perfect devotee and friend.
The Ultimate Goal of Human Life
The perfection of existence is not to merge into a void or to attain temporary heavenly pleasures; it is to revive our dormant relationship with the Supreme Lord. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is simply an educational program designed to train conditioned souls how to become the eternal friends and servants of God.
- When one realizes something of his constitutional relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he understands his original position and wants to be reinstated in this position, either as friend, servant, parent or conjugal lover of Krsna.
- The aim of life is God realization, God realization, that "There is God, His name is Krsna, His address is Vaikuntha, His number is this, He has got so many friends, He has got so many lovers." Everything we are giving. But still, the rascal will not take.
- Lord Caitanya, preaching as an acarya, a great teacher, taught that we can enter into a relationship with God and actually become God's friend, parent or lover.
- By rendering service, becoming His friend or His servant and offering Him everything that one possesses, one is able to enter into the kingdom of God.
Conclusion
A systematic study of the Vedic literatures completely transforms the practitioner's understanding of the Absolute Truth from a distant, fearsome creator into the most intimate, loving companion. As Śrīla Prabhupāda clearly explains, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is eternally engaged in sweet, reciprocal relationships with His pure devotees. While the Lord accepts the formal worship and awe-filled prayers of the demigods and learned scholars, He is far more captivated by the spontaneous, uncalculated affection of His friends. In the spiritual realm of Goloka Vṛndāvana, the majesty of God is completely covered by the sweetness of sakhya-rasa (the mellow of friendship). The cowherd boys do not view Kṛṣṇa as the supreme controller; they view Him simply as their beloved playmate. They share their lunches with Him, splash water on Him in the river, and engage in confidential talks, existing on a platform of complete spiritual equality. To become a friend of God requires the absolute eradication of all material desires (anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam). When a soul achieves this purity, the deepest mysteries of the universe are effortlessly unlocked. This was perfectly demonstrated when Lord Kṛṣṇa spoke the Bhagavad-gītā to Arjuna; the Lord explicitly stated that Arjuna could understand the supreme science not because he was a great scholar or mystic, but strictly because he was a devotee and a friend. Ultimately, the entire purpose of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, as inaugurated by Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, is to wake the conditioned souls from their material slumber and train them in the nine processes of devotional service. By learning how to hear about, remember, and serve the Lord, the living entity can burn away their material conditioning and permanently revive their eternal, ecstatic position as a friend of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
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 Friends. We invite you to visit this link to study the complete compilation and experience Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings in their direct, verbatim form.