41 / Fraternal Devotion

When a devotee is permanently situated in devotional service, and
by different symptoms of ecstasy he has developed and matured a
fraternal mellow or flavor in relationship with the Personality of
Godhead, at that time his feeling is called fraternal love of Godhead.

The impetus for such fraternal love of God is God Himself. When
one is liberated and discovers his eternal relationship with the Su-
preme Lord, the Lord Himself becomes the impetus for increasing
fraternal love. The eternal associates of the Lord in Vrndavana have
described this as follows: “The Lord, Hari, whose bodily hue is like
the indranila jewel, whose smiling is as beautiful as the kunda flower,
whose silk dress is as yellow as golden autumn foliage, whose chest
is beautified with garlands of flowers and who is always playing upon
His flute—this enemy of the Agha demon is always attracting our
hearts by wandering about Vrndavana.”

There are similar statements of fraternal love expressed outside the
jurisdiction of Vrndavana. When the sons of Pandu, headed by
Maharaj Yudhisthira, saw Krsna in His fourhanded form on the
battlefield of Kuruksetra, holding His conchshell, disk, club and lotus
flower, they completely forgot themselves and became merged in the
ocean of nectarean happiness. This shows how the sons of Pandu—
King Yudhisthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva—were all
caught up in fraternal love for Krsna.

Sometimes the different names, forms, paraphernalia and transcen-
dental qualities provoke fraternal love: For instance, Krsna’s nice
dress, the all-auspicious symptoms on His body, His strongly-built
body, His knowledge of different languages, His learned teachings

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