391 The Nectar of Devotion

the damsels of Vrndavana who had the opportunity of enjoying
Krsna’s kissing must be the foremost of all the fortunate women in
the world.” In this example, the ecstasy of fraternal devotional ser-
vice is the whole, and the ecstasy of conjugal love is the part.

The following statement was made by Krsna to the gopis: “My
dear enchanted, don’t gaze at Me with longing eyes like this. Be satis-
fied and return to your homes in Vrndavana. There is no necessity of
your presence here.” While Krsna was joking in this way with the
damsels of Braja, who with great hope had come to enjoy the rasa
dance with Him, Subala was also on the scene, and he began to look
at Krsna with wide and laughing eyes. Subala’s feeling contained a
mixture of fraternity and laughter in devotional service. Fraternity
is considered here as the whole, and the laughter is considered as the
part.

The following example contains a mixture of ecstatic fraternity
and laughter, taken respectively as the whole and part. When Krsna
saw that Subala, in the dress of Radharani, was silently hiding under
the shade of a beautiful agoka tree on the bank of the Yamuna, He
immediately arose from His seat in surprise. Upon seeing Krsna,
Subala tried to hide his laughter by covering his cheeks.

There is also an example of a mixture of parental love and com-
passion in devotional service. When Mother Yasoda was thinking that
her son was walking in the forest without any umbrella or shoes, she
became greatly perturbed to think of how much difficulty Krsna
must have been feeling. In this example the whole is the paternal
love, and the part is compassion.

There is the following example of a mixture of parental love and
laughter. A friend of Mother Yagoda told her, ‘“‘My dear Yagoda, your
son has very cunningly stolen a lump of butter from my home. And

to make me blame my own son for His mischief, He has smeared
some of the butter on my son’s face while he was sleeping!” Upon

hearing this, Mother Yasoda shook her curved eyebrows. She could
only look at her friend with a smiling face. May Mother YaSsoda bless
everyone with this smiling attitude. In this example the whole is the
parental love, and the part is the laughter.

There is an example of a mixture of several humors with devo-
