68 Sri Caitanya-caritamrta [Madhya-lila, Ch. 4

ksira laha ei, yara nama ‘madhava-puri’
toma lagi’ gopinatha ksira kaila curi

SYNONYMS

ksira laha—take the pot of sweet rice; ei—this; yara—whose; ndma— name;
madhava-puri—Madhavendra Purl; toma lagi’—for you only; gopinatha—the
Deity of Lord Gopinatha; ksira—the pot of sweet rice; kaila—did; curi—steal.

TRANSLATION

Holding the pot of sweet rice, the priest called: ‘‘Will he whose name is
Madhavendra Puri please come and take this pot! Gopinatha has stolen this
pot for you!”

PURPORT

The difference between the Absolute Truth and relative truth is explained here.
Lord Gopinatha has openly declared herein that He is a thief. He had stolen the
pot of sweet rice, and this was not kept a secret because His act of stealing is a
source of great transcendental bliss. !n the material world, theft is criminal, but in
the spiritual world the Lord’s stealing is a source of transcendental bliss. Mundane
rascals, who cannot understand the absolute nature of the Personality of God-
head, sometimes call Lord Sri Krsna immoral, but they do not know that His
seemingly immoral activities, which are not kept secret, afford pleasure to the
devotees. Not understanding the transcendental behavior of the Supreme Per-
sonality of Godhead, these rascals slur His character and immediately fall into the
category of miscreants (rascals, lowest among men, demons and those whose
knowledge is taken away by the illusory energy). Krsna explains in Bhagavad-gita:

na mar duskrtino madhah
prapadyante naradhamah

mayayapahrta-jAana
asuram bhavam 4asritah

“Those miscreants who are grossly foolish, lowest among mankind, whose knowl-
edge is stolen by illusion, and who partake of the atheistic nature of demons, do
not surrender unto Me.” (Bg. 7.15)

Mundane rascals cannot understand that whatever Krsna does, being absolute
in nature, is all good. This quality of the Lord is explained in Srimad-Bhagavatam
(Tenth Canto). One may consider certain acts of a supremely powerful person to
be immoral by mundane calculations, but this is not actually the case. For exam-
ple, the sun absorbs water from the surface of the earth, but it does not absorb
