Adi-lila, Chapter 4 247

Krsnaloka, where the original Personality of Godhead, Krsna, fully manifests His «
pleasure potency in free loving affairs. Since the devotees in the material world
know almost nothing about these affairs, the Lord desires to show theselaffairs to
them.

In Goloka Vrndavana there is an exchange of love known as parakfya-rasa. \t is
something like the attraction of a married woman for a man other than her husband.
In the material world this sort of relationship is most abominable because it is a
perverted reflection of the parakiya-rasa in the spiritual world, where it is the highest
kind of loving affair. Such feelings between the devotee and the Lord are presented
by the influence of yogamdyd. Bhagavad-gitd states that devotees of the highest grade
are under the care of daiva-mdya, or yogamdyd. Mahdtmdanas tu marh partha daivith
prakrtim asritah (Bg. 9.13). Those who are actually great souls (mahdtmds) are fully
absorbed in Krsna consciousness, always ‘engaged in the service of the Lord. They
are under the care of daivi prakrti, or yogamdyd. Yogamdyd creates a situation in.
which the devotee is prepared to transgress all regulative principles simply to love
Krsna. A devotee naturally does not like to.transgress the laws of reverence for the
Supreme Personality of Godhead, but by the influence of yogamdyd he is prepared
to do anything to love the Supreme Lord better. ;

Those under the spell of the material energy cannot at all appreciate the activities
of yogamaya, for a conditioned soul can hardly understand the pure ‘reciprocation
between the Lord and His devotee. But by executing devotional service under the
regulative principles, one can become very highly elevated and then begin to
appreciate the dealings of pure love under the management of yogamayad.

In the spiritual loving sentiment induced by the yogamayd potency, both Lord Srf
Krsna and the damsels of Vraja forget themselves in spiritual rapture. By the
influence of such forgetfulness, the attractive beauty of the,gopis plays a prominent
part in the transcendental satisfaction of the Lord, who has nothing to do with
mundane sexology. Because spiritual love of Godhead is above everything mundane,
the gopis superficially seem to transgress the codes of mundane morality. This
perpetually puzzles mundane moralists. Therefore yogamdyd acts to cover the
Lord and His pastimes from the eyes of mundaners, as confirmed in Bhagavaa-gita,
where the Lord says that He reserves the right of not being exposed to everyone.

The acts of yogamaya make it possible for the Lord and the gopis, in loving
ecstasy, to sometimes meet and sometimes separate. These transcendental loving
affairs of the Lord are unimaginable to empiricists involved in the impersonal feature
of the Absolute Truth. Therefore the Lord himself appears before the mundaners
to bestow upon them the highest form of spiritual realization and also personally
relish its essence. The Lord is so merciful that He Himself descends to take the
fallen souls back home to the kingdom of Godhead, where the erotic principles of
Godhead are eternally relished in their real form, distinct from the perverted sexual
love so much adored and indulged in by the fallen souls in their diseased condition.
The reason the Lord displays the rdsa-/i/a is essentially to induce all the fallen souls
to give up their diseased morality and religiosity, and to attract them to the king-
dom of God to enjoy the reality. A person who actually understands what the.
rasa-lila is will certainly hate to indulge in mundane sex life. For the realized soul,
