STEALER OF HEARTS
The Bond of Love Between Krishna and the Gopis

They were His best friends. They woke up thinking of Him. He woke up thinking of them. They longed to see Him and He longed to see them. He played His flute and they lost themselves in His music. They chanted His name and He lost Himself in their devotion. He was Krishna and they were the Gopis, the cowherd-maidens of Brindavan. That was the Dwapara Age.

Today, after more than five thousand years have passed, when He dons a different form and a different name - Sathya Sai Baba - He still cannot forget the days He spent with them. He stills remembers with fondness, the innocent, pure and selfless love that their hearts emanated. Ask Him to rate His devotees and the Gopis, without a trace of doubt, will top the charts !

Let us know more about them, in His own words.

Who are these Gopis, according to the Bhaagavatha itself? They are the demi-gods who wanted to share in the glory of the Avatar and who came down to the world as witnesses and sharers in the Divine Leela (cosmic sport). They came for a purpose; they are not ordinary village folk, who could be dismissed as a crowd of voluptuous women. They saw in every gesture and gait every word and phrase of Krishna the Divine, not the human at all. They had no occasion or chance to be agitated by a secular Vriththi (thought wave); all Vriththis were awakened by Divine promptings and urges. Like the magnifying glass which catches the rays of the Sun and directs them all to one spot, thus concentrating the heat on one point and helping it to ignite, the hearts of the Gopis collected all the Vriththis and concentrated them and caused the illumination and the flame. The flame burnt all dross; the illumination revealed the Truth. All other interpretations are to be laid at the door of either ignorance or scholasticism, the pompous pride of mere book learning, which scorns the exercise of discipline.

Krishna is condemned as a thief who stole butter from the cowherd maidens; but the butter represents the Bhakthi of the heart that is got after the process of churning. It is a question of a symbol being taken as literally true. He is Chiththachor (the stealer of hearts). The thief steals at night, in the darkness, without awakening the master; but when this thief steals, the master awakens; He wakes him and tells him that He has come. The victim is left supremely happy and satisfied.

Every Gopi had the highest type of Bhakthi in her heart. They saw only Krishna wherever they turned; they wore on their foreheads blue kumkum in order to remind themselves of Krishna. There were many husbands who protested against the colour of the kumkum, but they dared not wipe it off, lest harm should befall them and the sacrilege recoil on them alone. [Here Baba who had filled his hand with petals of mallika (jasmine) flowers pulled apart by Him from garlands given to Him, showered the petals from one palm to another and they fell in a cascade of blue gems]. Even the gems they preferred were of this type, blue, like Krishna. He showed the astounded gathering the gems He was referring to. Each gem had Krishna’s form in it, beautifully clear.]

The Gopis were convinced that Krishna was the Lord. Many yogis and ascetics, many Rajas and Maharajas among whom Krishna moved had not realised that truth. The unlearned simple cowherds and cowherdesses were wiser. When you too feel so, affected by those pangs, you can understand the Gopis, not till then.

The influence of the divine is such that while you are contemplating it, all trace of envy and greed will disappear from the mind. The boy Krishna had entered a Gopi’s house and was just standing beneath the pot of curds when she discovered Him. Krishna ran out into the street and the Gopi pursued Him, and wanted to catch Him soon, for she was so pained that the boy was running in the hot sun. She never worried about the loss of curds or milk or butter, but the very thought of Krishna’s tender feet walking over the hard stones in the sun was something she could not bear. The divine Love that Krishna showered made everyone forget everything else. He too gave such disarming replies to the queries of the mother and the Gopis that no one could have anything but divine love towards Him. That is the characteristic of Divine Incarnations, at all times.

“She was carrying the milk to the temple to be offered to God; perhaps God Himself took the vessel away from her,” He would say, announcing indirectly His own Reality. “I was sleeping by your side, Mother. How then could I have gone away to their houses, to steal their butter?” He would plead,—suggesting that He could be in more than one place at a point of time. When caught in the act of searching for butter, He would say that He had put His hand in the pot, just to find out if a calf that had run away was inside it! With such lovely retorts, He won a place in every heart and the Gopis vied with each other in fondling Him and serving Him.

There was a Gopi, for example, called Suguna, who had no other thought than those related to Krishna. Now every evening, it was the usual routine in Brindavan for every housewife to light the lamp from the flame of the lamp at the house of Nanda; they believed that getting light from the flame of the lamp of the eldest and highest is auspicious. Suguna went with the lamp to Nanda’s house and when she reached the house her mind was lost in the thrill and joy of seeing the very house where Krishna spent his childhood days; to which his pranks and prattle drew all the cowherd boys and girls. She stood there with her unlighted lamp for a long while, near the big oil lamp, illumining the central hall. She was holding the lamp near the flame, but not near enough. She had her finger right over the flame. She was not aware that her finger was being scorched by the flame; she was too full of Krishna Consciousness to be aware of the pain. It was Yasoda who saw her plight and woke her from the reverie, or shall we say, vision? For, to her, the house was alive with Krishna wherever her eyes turned. That is the Thanmayathwam or identification one must achieve. There is no use if the fledgling stays in the nest; it should develop wings and fly into the sky. There is no use if man grovels in the dust; he should see the distant goal, clear and grand; he should take to his wings and fly.

Look at the Gopis (milk maids of Gokulam) and their yearning for the Lord! They never swerved from the path of Bhakti, of continuous Smarana (remembrance) of the Lord. When in pain you shout ‘Ayyo, appa or amma,” but the Gopis always called on Krishna only, whether in joy or in grief. A Gopi was moving along the streets of Brindavan selling butter and ghee and milk; but she was not crying aloud the names of her ware; she was calling aloud the names of Krishna, “Govinda! Damodara! Maadhava!” The Gopis forgot the very purpose of their visit to Brindavan, their very livelihood, their task of selling and earning. They stood watching Krishna, running along with a hoop and ignoring all else, they ran behind Him with a ball of butter in the hand, offering it to the Divine child who had captured their hearts, calling on Him to receive the gift; “Govinda! Damodara! Maadhava!”

When one of them was rolling on the ground in terrible anguish at the separation from Krishna, they sat around her and instead of assuaging her grief by turning her thoughts away from Krishna, they augmented it because they themselves could not think of any other subject to talk to her than Krishna’s glory and Krishna’s Prema! They sat around and sang, “Govinda! Damodara! Maadhava!” Whoever has the thirst, Krishna will quench it; whoever calls on Him in the agony of that thirst, Krishna, the rain-cloud, will answer that call and appear.

Once, Krishna too pretended to be suffering from headache, intense, unbearable headache! He acted that role quite realistically. He wound warm clothes around His head, rolled restlessly in bed. His eyes were red and He was in evident distress. The face too appeared swollen and pale. Rukmini, Sathyabhaama and the other queens rushed about with all kinds of remedies and palliatives. But they were ineffective. At last, they consulted Narada and he went into the sick room to consult Krishna Himself and find out which drug would cure Him.

Krishna directed him to bring—what do you think the drug was?—the dust of the feet of a true Bhakta! In a trice, Narada manifested himself in the presence of some celebrated Bhaktas of the Lord; but they were too humble to offer the dust of their feet to be used by their Lord as a drug!

That is also a kind of egoism. “I am low, mean, small, useless, poor, sinful, inferior”—such feelings also are egoistic; when the ego goes, you do not feel either superior or inferior. No one would give the dust wanted by the Lord; they were too worthless, they declared. Narada came back disappointed to the sickbed. Then, Krishna asked him, “Did you try Brindhavan where the Gopis live?” The Queens laughed at the suggestion and even Narada asked in dismay, “What do they know of Bhakti (devotion)?” Still, the sage had to hurry thither.

When the Gopis heard Krishna was ill and that the dust of their feet might cure Him, they shook the dust off their feet and filled his hands with the same without a second thought. By the time Narada reached Dwaraka, the headache had gone. It was just a five-day drama, to teach that self-condemnation is also egoism and that the Lord’s command must be obeyed without demur, by all Bhaktas.

There was an occasion when Krishna laid His flute aside and declared that He would not play on it again. It is a long story, not found in books; I alone must tell you about it, for it is only the Person who has experienced it, that can describe it.

A bride called Neeraja came to Gokulam as the daughter-in-law of a Gopa family. Her husband and parents-in-law warned her against Krishna and His pranks and threatened her, on pain of dire punishment, to keep away from Him and to avoid Him by every possible means.

It was Govardhana Puja (worship) day and all the Gopas and Gopikas had to go beyond the village limits to circumambulate and worship the Govardhan Hill, a festival they celebrated every year. Neeraja too went with the others and in spite of the severest warning, she peeped into a crowd of enthusiastic Gopis watching the dance of Radha with Krishna, in a flower bower near the Hill. She was so captivated by the Divine Presence that she was no longer the same person.

Another day, while on the Yamuna bank, she saw Krishna fashioning a flute from a reed taken out of vamsi kunj (bamboo bower) and she heard Him play! Oh, it was overwhelmingly ecstatic! It was a call to transcend the material bonds to free oneself from the trammels of earthly endeavours. Neeraja did not care for any one now. She became God-mad. In fact, she was the first to hold the reins of Akrura’s chariot when he was taking Krishna to Mathura away from Gokulam, and try to push the vehicle back!

Well, she was driven out of her house by the mother-in-law for that. She was an outcast. The whole village rose up against her; she spent her days in the vamsi kunj, her whole mind fixed on the Lord whom she had installed there. Years passed. Nandha, Yasodha and Radha left the world. She was now 52 years old. One day, she prayed desperately to Krishna: I can no longer bear this forlorn life. My eyes have gone dry, they have no more tears to keep this Love, green. My heart too is fast turning a wasteland. Come, O Lord, come and save me, take me unto yourself. Krishna heard the prayer.

He responded to her yearning and called her by name, so sweetly that the very Voice filled her with new life. The vamsi kunj was fragrant with Divine glory. Krishna came near and took Neeraja’s palm in His Hand. “What do you desire?” He asked. She asked “What is the purpose of life?” “To merge in God.” “Well let me merge in You—but before that, before my Prema merges in yours, let me hear you play on that flute for a short while.” Krishna smiled and gave the excuse that He had not brought His flute. But seeing Neeraja’s yearning, He plucked a reed from the vamsi kunj and broke it right, and in a trice converted it into a flute. With Neeraja on his lap, Krishna played so melodiously on the flute that the entire Gokula and even the whole world, was bathed in ecstatic joy. When He stopped, Neeraja had attained final beatitude and was no longer a limited individual Gopi separate from Him.

Krishna laid aside His flute and said He will not play on it again. That is the story of one Gopi; the story of every Gopi will be interesting, each in its own way, for they were all so transmuted by the Bhakti they bore towards the Lord. The Gopis were declared by Narada in the Bhakhi Sutras (aphorisms on devotion) to be the greatest among the Bhaktas (devotees).

Radha is the most well known among the Gopis. The Radha-thathwam (principle) is a deep, inscrutable one. She was ever in the contemplation of the Lord and His Glory. She saw the child Krishna as the Divine manifestation, separate from the human form. One day Yasodha was searching for Krishna who had strayed away; she sought almost everywhere and at last, she went to the house of Radha. Radha just closed her eyes and meditated on Krishna for a while and when she called “Krishna,” Krishna was there. Then, Yasodha shed tears of joy. She said, “I love Krishna as a mother; I have a sense of egoism in me that He is my son and that I must save Him from harm and seek to give Him guidance and protection. Your Prema is pure; it has no egoism prompting it.”

One day, Krishna pretended to be fast asleep, with the flute carelessly thrown aside by His side when Radha approached the fortunate flute and asked it in plaintive terms, “O lucky Murali! Tell me how you earned this great good fortune. What was the vow you observed, the vigil you kept, the pilgrimage you accomplished? What was the Manthra you recited, the idol you worshipped?” The flute got a voice through His Grace and said: “I rid myself of all sensual desire, of envy, greed, of ego, that is all. I had no feeling of ego left to obstruct the flow of His Prema through me to all creation.”

You can understand Radha only if you can fathom the depth of that thirst. Radha believed that Krishna is the Adhar (basis); she did Aradh (worship) to Krishna in a continuous dhara (stream); in fact, she is Dhara or Prakruthi, which is another form of the Lord or Purusha Himself. How can those who are full of evil tendencies and impulses grasp that relationship?

The Gopis had that one-pointed Prema (love); unwavering, clear and pure. The relationship between the Gopis and Krishna as depicted in the Bhaagavatha has been unfortunately judged by persons who have not regulated and controlled their Vriththis. This subject is beyond the comprehension of such people. Only Brahmacharis (celibates) of the most ardent and ascetic type like Shukha Maharishi who described it to King Pareekshith and in recent years, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, can appreciate that relationship and pronounce upon its uniqueness. All the rest are apt to see in it only the reflection of their own failings and their own feelings. The language of samsaara (worldly life) is the only language they know; the regions of Thuriya—beyond the regions of wakefulness, dream and deep sleep - to which those experiences relate - are not within their reach. So, they drag the subject down to their own level and claim that they have mastered their mystery.

Through your daily avocations and activities you can realise the Lord, believe Me! The Gopis are the best examples of this, the best proofs. Remember ever the Name of the Lord with agony of unfulfilled search and remember ever the beauteous Form with the agony of being forced to be away—and you too can see Krishna in your midst. That yearning must be there; then, the result is certain.

Let your mind ever dwell on Krishna. Sanctify every word and deed by filling it with Prema of Krishna, or whatever Name and Form you give to the Lord you love. The gold of which an anklet was made, can become the gold for a crown on the head of a temple image; only it has to be melted in the crucible and beaten into shape. The waters of the river might be dirty; but the Bhakta who sips it with a Manthra or a Stotra (sacred sound or prayer) on his lips, transmutes it into a sacred Theertha (sanctified water). The body becomes healthy by exercise and work; the mind becomes healthy by Upasana (devout contemplation) and Naamasmarana (remembrance of the Divine), by regular, well-planned discipline, joyfully accepted and joyfully carried out.