Spontaneous Devotional Service 125
fers to the devotee’s particular attitude of association with Krsna.
Every devotee in his perfectional stage has a spontaneous attraction
to the Lord. This attraction is sometimes called the “lusty desire” of
the devotee. The lust is the devotee’s excessive desire to serve the
Lord in a particular capacity. Such desire may seem to be a desire for
enjoying the Lord, but actually the endeavor is to serve the Lord in
that capacity. For example, a devotee may be desiring to associate
with the Personality of Godhead as His cowherd friend. He will want
to serve the Lord by assisting Him in controlling the cows in the pas-
turing ground. This may appear to be a desire to enjoy the company
of the Lord, but actually it is spontaneous love, serving Him by
assisting in managing the transcendental cows.

This extreme desire to serve the Lord is manifest in the transcen-
dental land of Braja. And it is specifically manifested amongst the
gopis. The gopis’ love for Krsna is so elevated that for our under-
standing it is sometimes explained as being “lusty desire.”

The author of Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Kaviraja Krgnadas, has ex-
plained the distinction between lusty desire and the service attitude
in this statement: “Lusty desire refers to the desire to gratify one’s
personal senses, and transcendental desire refers to the desire for
serving the senses of the Lord.” In the material world there is no
such thing as a lover wanting to please the senses of his beloved.
Actually, in the material world, everyone wants mainly to gratify his
own personal senses. The gopis, however, wanted nothing at all but
to gratify the senses of the Lord, and there is no instance of this in
the material world. Therefore the gopis’ ecstatic love for Krsna is
sometimes described by scholars as being like the “lusty desire” of
the material world, but actually this should not be taken as a literal
fact. It is simply a way of trying to understand the transcendental
situation.

Great devotees up to the standard of Uddhava are very dear
friends of the Lord, and they desire to follow in the footsteps of the
gopis. So the gopis’ love for Krsna is certainly not material lusty de-
sire. Otherwise, how could Uddhava aspire to follow in their foot-
steps? Another instance is Lord Caitanya Himself. After accepting
the sannyasa order of life, He was very, very strict about avoiding
