TLC 10 (1968)
CHAPTER TEN
The Beauty of Krishna
Krishna is known as Madanmohan because He conquers the mind of Cupid. He is Madanmohan by His favors to the damsels of Vraja, and by accepting their devotional service. The Lord is engaged there in the Rasa Dance as the new Cupid, after conquering Cupid's pride. He is Madanmohan by His capacity to conquer the minds of women with His five arrows called Form, Taste, Smell, Sound and Touch. The pearls of the necklace which is hanging on the neck of Krishna are as white as ducks; and the feather of the peacock which is decorating the head of Krishna is colored just like the rainbow. His yellow garment is like lightning in the sky. Krishna is like the newly arrived clouds; and the Gopis are just like footbells on His feet. When the cloud pours rain on the grains in the field it appears that Krishna is nourishing the hearts of the Gopis by calling down His Pastime rain of mercy. The ducks fly in the sky in the rainy season, and the rainbow is also seen in the sky at that time. Krishna freely moves with His friends as a cowherd boy in Vrindaban; and when He plays His flute all the living creatures, mobile and immobile, become overwhelmed with ecstasy, and they quiver and tears flow in their eyes.
His conjugal love is the summit of His various opulences. The Lord is the Master of all riches, all strength, all fame, all beauty, all knowledge, and all renunciation. Out of these, His perfect beauty is His conjugal attraction. The Form of Krishna, the conjugal beauty, is eternally existent in Krishna alone, whereas His other opulences are present in His Narayan Form.
When Lord Chaitanya was describing the superexcellence of Krishna's conjugal attraction, He felt a transcendental ecstasy, and caught up the hands of Sanatan Goswami and began to say how fortunate the damsels of Braja were. He recited in this connection a verse from Srimad Bhagwatam, Tenth Canto, Twenty-fourth Chapter: "How much penance and austerities the damsels of Vrindaban must have undergone, for they are able to drink the nectar of Krishna, Who is All Beauty, All Strength, All Riches, All Fame, and Who is the center of all the beauties of bodily luster."
The Body of Krishna, the ocean of the eternal beauty of youth, can be seen as moving in waves of beauty. And there is a whirlwind at the sound of His flute. Those waves and that whirlwind make the hearts of the Gopis flutter like dry leaves on the trees, and when the leaves fall down to Krishna's Lotus Feet, they can never rise up again from there. There is no comparison with that beauty, because no one has beauty greater than, or equal to, Krishna. He is the Origin of all incarnations, including the Form of Narayan. Otherwise, how could the Goddess of Fortune, who is a constant companion of Narayan, give up the association of Narayan, and engage herself in penance for gaining the association of Krishna? This is the superexcellent beauty of Krishna, the everlasting mine of all beauty. And from that beauty all other beautiful things emanate.
The attitude of the Gopis is just like a mirror on which the reflection of Krishna's beauty develops at every moment. Both Krishna and the Gopis increase their transcendental beauty at every moment, and there is always transcendental competition between them. Nobody can appreciate the beauty of Krishna by proper discharge of his occupational duty, or by austerities, or by mystic Yoga, or by cultivation of knowledge, or by offering different kinds of prayer. Only those who are on the transcendental platform of love of God—who only out of love are engaged in devotional service—can appreciate the transcendental beauty of Krishna. Such beauty of Krishna is the essence of all opulences, and His characteristics in that connection are only appreciable in Goloka Vrindaban and not anywhere else. In the Form of Narayan the beauties of mercy, reputation, etc. are all established by Krishna. But His gentleness and magnanimity cannot be possible in Narayan. They are found only in Krishna.
Lord Chaitanya very much relished all these verses from Srimad Bhagwatam which He explained to Sanatan. In particular He explained the verse from the Ninth Canto, Ninth Chapter, 24th verse, as follows: "The Gopis used to relish the beauty of Krishna as a ceremony of perpetual enjoyment. They enjoyed the beautiful Face of Krishna, His beautiful Ears with earrings, His broad Forehead, and His Smile; and while enjoying the sight of Krishna's beauty they used to criticise the defect of the creator, Brahma, for the separation from their vision of Krishna by the momentary blinking of their eyelids."
The Vedic hymn which is known as Kamagayatri describes the Face of Krishna as the king of all moons. In metaphorical language there are many different moons, and they are all one in Krishna—the moon of the mouth, the moon of the cheeks, the moon-spots of sandalwood pulp, the beauty moon of the fingertips of His hand, and the tip of His toes—in this way there are twenty-four and a half moons, and Krishna is the central figure of all these different kinds of moons.
The dancing movement of Krishna's earrings, eyes, and eyebrows are very attractive to the damsels of Vraja. Activities in devotional service increase the sense of devotional service. What else is there for two eyes to see beyond the face of Krishna? One cannot sufficiently see Krishna with only two eyes; and one feels incapable and thus becomes bereaved. Such bereavement is slightly reduced when one criticizes the creative power of the creator. The unsatiated seer of the face of Krishna then laments as follows:
"I do not have thousands of eyes; I have only two eyes and even these two eyes are disturbed by the movements of the eyelids. So it is to be understood that the creator of this body is not very intelligent. He is not conversant in the art of ecstasy. He is simply a prosaic creator. He does not know how to fix things in different positions for only seeing Krishna."
The Gopi's minds are always engaged in relishing the sweetness of Krishna's Body. He is the Ocean of beauty, and His beautiful Face, His beautiful Smile, and the luster of His Body are always attractive to the Gopi's mind. In the Krishna Karnamrita these three things have been described as sweet, sweeter, and sweetest. When there are three kinds of contamination in the constitutional body, it is called convulsion. So, similarly, a perfect devotee of Krishna attains a stage of convulsion when he is so overwhelmed by seeing the beauty of Krishna's Body, His Face, and the beauty of Krishna's Smile, This ocean of transcendental convulsion before Krishna's beauty sometimes continues without any treatment, just as with ordinary convulsions a physician does not allow one to drink water for relief.
The devotee increasingly feels the absence of Krishna, because without Him one cannot drink the nectar of His beauty. When there is the transcendental sound of Krishna's flute, the devotee's anxiety to hear that flute penetrates the covering of this material world and enters into the Spiritual Sky, and the transcendental sound of the flute enters into the ears of the followers of the Gopis. The sound of Krishna's flute always resides within the ear of the Gopis, and increases their ecstasy. At the time when it is heard no other sound can enter into the ear, and in their family activities they are not able to reply properly because all these beautiful sounds are vibrating.
Thus Lord Chaitanya explained the transcendental constitution of Krishna, His expansions, His bodily luster, and everything connected with Him. In short, Lord Chaitanya explained Krishna as He is. And, Krishna being the essence of everything, He began to explain the process by which one can approach Krishna. He said that devotional service to Krishna is the only process. This is the verdict of all Vedic literature. The sages have declared as follows: "If somebody inquires into the Vedic literature as to what is the process of transcendental realization, or if somebody consults the Puranas (which are considered the sister literature)—in all of them the conclusion is that the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, is the Object of worship."
Krishna is the Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and He is situated in His internal potency, which is known as Swarupshakti or Atmashakti, as described in the Bhagavad Gita. He expands Himself in various multiple Forms. Some of them are known as Personal Forms, and some of them are known as separated Forms. Thus He is enjoying in all the spiritual planets as well as in the material Universes.
The expansions of His separated Forms are called living entities, and they are classified according to the energies of the Lord. Such living entities are divided into two classes: one is eternally liberated, and the other is eternally conditioned. Eternally liberated living entities never come into contact with the material Nature, and they do not have any experience of material life. They are eternally engaged in Krishna Consciousness, or devotional service to the Lord, and they are counted as associates of Krishna. Their pleasure, the only enjoyment of their life, is derived by rendering transcendental loving service to Krishna.
Those who are eternally conditioned, on the other hand, are ever divorced from the transcendental loving service of Krishna, and thus they are subjected to the three-fold miseries of material existence. On account of the conditioned soul's eternally existing attitude of divorce from Krishna, the spell of material energy awards him two kinds of bodily existence: one is the gross body, consisting of the five elements, and the other is the subtle body, consisting of mind, intelligence, and ego. Because he is covered by these two kinds of bodies, the conditioned soul is eternally suffering the pangs of material existence, known as the three-fold miseries. We are subjected to six kinds of enemies, such as lust and anger, etc., and that is the everlasting disease of the conditioned soul.
Diseased and conditioned, the living entity is transmigrating all over the Universe. Sometimes he is situated in the upper planetary system, and sometimes he is travelling in the lower planetary system. That becomes his normal conditioned life. This disease can be cured only when the expert physician, the bona fide Spiritual Master, is met and followed. When the conditioned soul faithfully follows the instructions of such a bona fide Spiritual Master, the material disease is cured and the living entity is promoted to the liberated stage, and again attains to the devotional service of Krishna, and goes back Home, back to Krishna.
A conditioned living entity should come to the consciousness of his real position. He should pray to the Lord: how long and how much will I be under the rule of the different bodily functions, such as lust and anger? As masters of the conditioned soul, lust and anger are never merciful; and there is no cessation of the conditioned soul's service to such bad masters. When he comes to his real consciousness, or Krishna Consciousness, he gives up serving those bad masters and approaches Krishna with a frank and open heart to achieve His shelter. Then he prays to Krishna to be engaged in His transcendental loving service.
In the Vedic literature fruitive activities have sometimes been highly praised, and sometimes the mystic process of Yoga is praised; and, sometimes, the speculative search for knowledge is praised. They are each considered as a different way to self-realization. But in spite of praise for the different paths of self-realization, in every writing the path of devotional service has been accepted as the foremost. In other words, devotional service to Lord Krishna is the highest perfectional path of self-realization, recommended to be performed directly. The effects of fruitive activities, mystic meditation, and the cultivation of speculative knowledge are not direct methods of self-realization. They are indirect methods because without the addition of devotional service none of these recommended paths can lead to the highest perfection of self-realization. Therefore such paths to self-realization are ultimately dependent on the path of devotional service.