What did Srila Prabhupada Say about "Gopimania?"

Excerpts from letters, lectures and conversations

Dear Nitai:

Please accept my blessings. I have received information that some of our devotees are mixing with the babajis in Vrindaban. This has produced so many problems amongst our men and women who visit Vrindaban. Here in Los Angeles, we have found that there is a group of about 40 devotees who privately meet to discuss the intimate pastimes, artificially thinking that they can enter into the understanding of the gopis prematurely. This will create havoc in our society, and the result will be that if this is allowed to go on, our preaching work will be greatly hampered.

This premature desire to understand the lila of Krishna is due to mundane sex life desire, as we have seen amongst many of the babajis and sahajiyas in Vrindaban. Our Jagannath das came back from Vrindaban asking me that he had heard some babaji speaking about siddha-deha, and he also was listening to these babajis. So I want this immediately stopped. If it continues, this mixing with the babajis, then it will mean spoiling.

In many cases these babajis keep two or three women. Asatsanga tyagi. Their association is to be avoided and prohibited amongst all of our devotees who visit Vrindaban. (Srila Prabhupada to Nitai das, 7 June 1976)

Established means re-establish. It is already established. We have got different types of relationship. That is called svarupa-siddhi. Svarupa-siddhi. When you are perfect in spiritual life, you will understand what is your relationship with Krishna automatically. That is called svarupa-siddhi. You have got original relationship with Krishna. Nitya-siddha krishna-bhakti. Chaitanya-charitamrita. That is a... Just like you are son of some gentleman. That is a fact. It is not that the son becomes father or father becomes son. No. The son is son; the father is father. Similarly, we have got an eternal relationship with Krishna, either as father or as lover or as servant, like that. So that is self-realisation. When you will be perfect in love, in loving Krishna, then in what status of life you will love, that you will under--...That will be revealed. That is called svarupa-siddhi. So svarupa-siddhi is not something artificial. When one becomes perfectly spiritually realised, then he understands what is his relationship with Krishna, and he begins his service in that relationship as father, as friend, as guru or as servant, like that. So this relationship is eternal. (Srimad-Bhagavatam lecture, December 7, 1974, Bombay)

Raga-marga is not artificial. It becomes, svayam eva sphuratyadhah. Sevonmukhe hi jihvadau... Everything, devotional relationship with Krishna, you cannot establish artificially. Everyone has got a particular relationship with Krishna in his original, constitutional position. That will be revealed gradually as you advance in devotional service in the prescribed rules and regulations as they are directed in the shastras and by spiritual master. When you are trained up properly, you come to the platform of raga-marga, then your devotional si--... That is called svarupa-siddhi. Svarupa-siddhi. So svarupa-siddhi is attained at a certain stage. Just like svarupa-siddhi... The desire for sex life is there in every human being, but when the boy and girl come to the mature stage, it becomes manifest. It is... is not learned artificially. Similarly, the raga-marga, svarupa-siddhi, becomes revealed or manifest. Shravandi suddha chitte karaye udaya. Udaya. This very word udaya is used.

Just like sun. Sun becomes visible when the sun rises automatically. You cannot force the sun to rise at dead of night. That is not possible. Sun will rise. You just wait. When the time will be right, morning, six o'clock, you'll find the sun. Similarly, the devotional service, we have to execute with patience, with enthusiasm. (Nectar of Devotion lecture, 20 October 1972, Vrindaban)

PRABHUPADA: The change is taking place in this material world. There all tastes are fixed up, rasa, eternal, eternal rasa. Every one of us has a different taste of associating with Krishna, and that will be realised when one is liberated.

HANSADUTTA: So that's fixed already.

PRABHUPADA: Yes. When you are liberated, you will understand in which way you are related with Krishna. That is called svarupa-siddhi. But that is attained when you are actually perfect in devotional service. Just like in our family we enjoy different rasas. We have got one kind of relationship with wife, one kind of relationship with sons and daughters, one kind of relationship with friends, one kind of relationship with servants, one kind of relationship with property. So similarly, Krishna... The whole creation is His family, and He has got relationship in that way. So why the son will change his relationship into husband and wife?

HANSADUTTA: I see.

PRABHUPADA: Yes. Because every relationship is very palatable.The gentleman, the head of the family, his relationship with wife and his relationship with servant is as much palatable. There is no question of changing. Not that "I am tasting this rasa at the present moment. Then I will get better rasas." No. That is not... Everyone thinks, "My rasais the best." Although there is comparative gradation, but everyone thinks. These things are explained in Chaitanya-charitamrita. Why don't you see?

HANSADUTTA: And Nectar of Devotion.

PRABHUPADA: Yes. Everyone thinks, "My relationship with Krishna is the best."

HANSADUTTA: So it's not a matter of aspiring to some--

PRABHUPADA: No, there is no question of aspiring, because he is already situated in the best of relationships with Krishna. Even the trees in Vrindaban, they want to serve Krishna silently in that way, supplying fruits and flowers. That is their ananda. Everyone enjoying the supreme bliss. When Krishna comes, takes a flower or fruit, that is their enjoyment.(Srimad-Bhagavatam lecture, 10 February 1971, Gorakhpur)

PRABHUPADA: Tirtha-guru, if he's able to take him to the temple, then tirtha-guru. Otherwise he's a goru, cow, tirtha cow, that's all.

TAMAL KRISHNA: Say like that?

PRABHUPADA: Yes [laughs], tell them that. He's unable to show Jagannatha. Then how he's guru? It is guru's responsibility to bring his to... That is upanayana. Upanayana, this sacred thread, means the guru brings him near God.

TAMAL KRISHNA: Yeah. This man gives them some thread, makes them touch his feet, the whole thing, offer coconut--

PRABHUPADA: He's a foolish rascal. What can be done?

TAMAL KRISHNA: Yeah. Jagannath, when he was telling us about this babaji, he said that there's also these babajis, they claim to be a guru for giving initiation into their svarupa.

PRABHUPADA: Svarupa-siddhi.

TAMAL KRISHNA: Yeah, svarupa-siddhi. So we can mention this as also rascaldom.

PRABHUPADA: Yes. What can be done? Cheaters there are. If you want to be cheated, who can save you? He has made guru without asking his guru. He submits to others. Then how we can save him?

TAMAL KRISHNA: What does that do to his relationship with his own spiritual master?

PRABHUPADA: Eh?

TAMAL KRISHNA: How does this affect his relationship with his--

PRABHUPADA: They don't care for his own spiritual master.

TAMAL KRISHNA: But what...? This means their relationship is spoiled?

PRABHUPADA: Yes. Guror avajna, aparadha.

TAMAL KRISHNA: Aparadha.

PRABHUPADA: And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has advised, "Save yourself froma paradha." Some aparadha, and they are going away, just like Nitai. Guror avajna. (Room conversation, April 25, 1977, Bombay)

The science of learning a subject matter seriously is different from the sentiments of fanatics. Fanatics or fools may consider the Lord's activities in relation with the external energy to be useless for them, and they may falsely claim to be higher participants in the internal energy of the Lord, but factually the Lord's activities in relation with the external energy and the internal energy are equally good. On the other hand, those who are not completely free from the clutches of the Lord's external energy should devoutly hear regularly about the activities of the Lord in relation with the external energy. They should not foolishly jump up to the activities of the internal energy, falsely attracted by the Lord's internal potential activities like His rasa-lila. The cheap reciters of the Bhagavatam are very much enthusiastic about the Lord's internal potential activities, and the pseudo devotees, absorbed in material sense enjoyment, falsely jump to the stage of liberated souls and thus fall down deeply into the clutches of external energy.

Some of them think that to hear about the pastimes of the Lord means to hear about His activities with the gopis or about His pastimes like lifting the Govardhana Hill, and they have nothing to do with the Lord's plenary expansions as the purushavataras and Their pastimes of the creation, maintenance or annihilation of the material worlds. But a pure devotee knows that there is no difference between the pastimes of the Lord, either in rasa-lila or in creation, maintenance or destruction of the material world. Rather, the descriptions of such activities of the Lord as the purushavataras are specifically meant for persons who are in the clutches of the external energy.

Topics like the rasa-lila are meant for the liberated souls and not for the conditioned souls. The conditioned souls, therefore, must hear with appreciation and devotion the Lord's pastimes in relationship with the external energy, and such acts are as good as the hearing of rasa-lila in the liberated stage. A conditioned soul should not imitate the activities of liberated souls. Lord Sri Chaitanya never indulged in hearing the rasa-lila with ordinary men.

In the Srimad-Bhagavatam, the science of God, the first nine cantos prepare the ground for hearing the Tenth Canto. This will be further explained in the last chapter of this canto. In the Third Canto it will be more explicit. A pure devotee of the Lord, therefore, must begin reading or hearing Srimad-Bhagavatam from the very beginning, and not from the Tenth Canto. We have several times been requested by some so-called devotees to take up the Tenth Canto immediately, but we have refrained from such an action because we wish to present Srimad-Bhagavatam as the science of Godhead and not as a sensuous understanding for the conditioned souls. This is forbidden by such authorities as Sri Brahmaji. By reading and hearing Srimad-Bhagavatam as a scientific presentation, the conditioned souls will gradually be promoted to the higher status of transcendental knowledge after being freed from the illusory energy based on sense enjoyment.--Purport, Srimad-Bhagavatam, Canto 2, Chapter 7, Text 53

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