Paranthood
२८२
childish propensity of stealing is there even in the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and therefore this propensity is not artificial. However, in the spiritual relationship there is no inebriety to this stealing propensity, as there is in the material world.
In the  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam , Tenth Canto, 13th Chapter, verse 39, Śukadeva Gosvāmī tells King Parīkṣit: “My dear King, as soon as the elderly  gopīs  saw their sons coming, there was an inexpressible sign of parental love, and all of them became absorbed in affection. At first they were planning to chastise their sons for stealing butter, but as soon as the sons came before their eyes, they lost all of their angry attitudes and became overwhelmed with affection. They began to embrace their sons and smell their heads. While doing this, they became almost mad after their children.” In their childhood pastimes, all these cowherd boys joined with Kṛṣṇa in stealing butter. But rather than become angry, Mother Yaśodā became wet from the milk flowing out of her breasts. Out of her affection for Kṛṣṇa, she began to smell His head repeatedly.
The general activities of all the mothers of the cowherd boys were to kiss them, to embrace them, to call them by their names and sometimes to mildly chastise them for their stealing habits. These manifestations of parental love are called  sāttvika  ecstasy, wherein manifestations of eight kinds of ecstatic symptoms are visible in full. In the  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam , Tenth Canto, 13th Chapter, 19th verse, Śukadeva Gosvāmī tells King Parīkṣit: “All the mothers of the cowherd boys were illusioned by the covering influence of the  yoga-māyā  potency of the Personality of Godhead, and as soon as they heard the flute-playing of their boys, they immediately stood up and mentally embraced their sons, who had been created by the direct internal potency of Kṛṣṇa. Accepting them as their born sons, they lifted them into their arms and began to embrace them, resting the children’s bodies upon their own. The emotions created by this incident were sweeter than nectar turned into a palatable intoxicant, and the milk flowing out of their breasts was immediately drunk up by the children.”
In the  Lalita-mādhava , compiled by Rūpa Gosvāmī, Kṛṣṇa is addressed as follows: “My dear Kṛṣṇa, when You are engaged in herding