Parenthood 353

childish propensity of stealing is there even in the Supreme Person-
ality of Godhead, and therefore this propensity is not artificial. How-
ever, in the spiritual relationship there is no inebriety to this stealing
propensity, as there is in the material world.

In the Srimad-Bhagavatam, Tenth Canto, 13th Chapter, verse 39,
Sukadeva Gosvami tells King Pariksit: ‘“My dear King, as soon as the
elderly gopis 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 be-
came almost mad after their children.” In their childhood pastimes,
all these cowherd boys joined with Krsna in stealing butter. But
rather than become angry, Mother Yasoda became wet from the milk
flowing out of her breasts. Out of her affection for Krsna, 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 some-
times to mildly chastise them for their stealing habits. These mani-
festations of parental love are called sattvika ecstasy, wherein mani-
festations of eight kinds of ecstatic symptoms are visible in full. In
the Srimad-Bhagavatam, Tenth Canto, 13th Chapter, 19th verse,
Sukadeva Gosvami tells King Pariksit: “All the mothers of the cow-
herd boys were illusioned by the covering influence of the yoga-maya
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 Krsna. Accepting them as their born sons, they lifted
them into their arms and began to embrace them, resting the chil-
dren’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-madhava, compiled by Ripa Gosvami, Krsna is ad-
dressed as follows: ““My dear Krsna, when You are engaged in herding
