356 The Nectar of Devotion

The same friend of Mother Yasoda addressed Krsna as follows:
““My dear Mukunda, if Mother Yasoda, the Queen of Gokula, is forced
to stand on fire, but is allowed to see Your lotus face, then this fire
will appear to her as the Himalayan Mountains: full of ice. In the
same way, if she is allowed to stay in the ocean of nectar, but is not
allowed to see the lotus face of Your Grace, then even this ocean of
nectar will appear to her as an ocean of arsenic poison.” Let the
anxiety of Mother Yasgoda of Braja, always expecting to see the lotus
face of Krsna, be glorified all over the universe!

A similar statement was given by Kuntidevi to Akrira: “My dear
brother Akrira, my nephew Mukunda is long absent from us. Will
you kindly tell Him that His Aunt Kuntt is sitting amongst the enemy
and would like to know when she will be able to see His lotus face
again?”

In the Srimad-Bhagavatam, Tenth Canto, 46th Chapter, 2nd verse,
there is this statement: “When Uddhava was present at Vrndavana
and was narrating the activities of Krsna in Dvaraka, Mother Yasoda,
while hearing this narration, began to pour milk from her breasts and
shed tears from her eyes.” Another incident demonstrating Yasoda’s
extreme love for Krsna occurred when Krsna went to Mathura, the
kingdom of Kamsa. In separation from Krsna, Mother YaSoda was
looking at Krsna’s makeup utensils, and she fell down on the ground
almost unconscious, with a great sound. When she was rolling over on
the ground, there were many scratches on her body, and in that
piteous condition she began to cry, “O my dear son! My dear son!”
And she slapped her breasts with her two hands. This activity of
Mother Yaégoda is explained by expert devotees as ecstatic love in
separation. Sometimes there are many other symptoms, such as great
anxiety, lamentation, frustration, being stunned, humility, restless-
ness, madness and illusion.

As far as Mother YaSoda’s anxieties are concerned, when Krsna
was out of the house in the pasturing ground, a devotee once told
her, “Yasoda, I think your movements have been slackened, and I see
that you are full of anxieties. Your two eyes appear to be without
any movement, and I feel in your breathing a kind of warmth which
is bringing your breast milk to the boiling point. All these conditions
prove that out of separation from your son you have a severe head-
