Radhanath Swami on the Essence of Damodar Lila

So as the fireworks and the bombs explode, we will try to carry on talking about this very sweet Damodar lila.
Why does Krishna steal butter? Actually Krishna doesn’t steal butter because a thief is usually one who takes
somebody else’s property. Krishna is sarva loke maheshwaram, Krishna is the proprietor of everything that
exits. All the world, all living beings are Krishna’s property– nothing is ours. Whether we are rich or poor or
whatever in between, we understand whatever we have, our intelligence, our abilities, our property, our wealth,
they are all entrusted in our care and we could utilize it for a divine purpose and attain the highest perfection,
or we could use it on so many other levels of material consciousness and entangle ourselves in complexities of
life.
So Krishna is not stealing– because its His– but yet he is Makhanchor, he is the butter thief, because when our
heart becomes soft and sweet like fresh butter, Krishna, who is Hari, He steals our heart, that is bhakti. –
Radhanath Swami
So the residents of Vrindavan, their only desire was to make Krishna happy and in order to exchange the most
intimate pastimes of affection with His devotees, Krishna covered His supremacy and appeared like a little
child. In his Bal lila, he is a baby– he is crawling. When he is only a day or two years old, he is killing Putana,
who is more powerful than all the armies on earth, and Krishna effortlessly just squeezed her and sucked her
and he did it in such a way that nobody even thought that he was strong. They just thought he is a baby and
that God must have saved him. When he was only a year old, Trinavartha took Him high into the sky. He
became heavier than the earth and Trinavartha came crashing down to the earth and then He crawled into
Yashoda Mayi’s arms and the other Gopis. They would just toss him in the air like a little feather and He would
smile. They will toss Him and catch Him, toss Him and catch Him. Just like I see you mothers do with their
babies. So Krishna appeared so ordinary so that he could be loved with intimacy. The love of a mother for a
child, or a friend for a friend, or lover for a beloved is much deeper and sweeter than the love for an almighty
master. And it is in Vrindavan that Krishna gives the facility for the most intimate pastimes of love.

In Vrindavan, Krishna learns how to walk. He is the ability for all of us and Nanda Maharaja is teaching Krishna
how to walk. He is holding out his little finger and little child Krishna is holding on to his little finger and Nanda
Maharaj is saying, “Come, come, walk!” and Krishna takes a few steps and he falls down and starts crying.
Nanda Maharaja says, “Please try again, try again, hold on to my finger!” He falls down and cries and Nanda
Maharaj’s heart is flooding over with affection, “He is my child.” The same love that the great denizens of
Vaikuntha have for Narayan is there but so much deep and sweeter with Nanda and Yasoda who were loving
Krishna as their own child. And actually all the older Gopis and Gopas are loving Krishna in the same way. As
soon as he learnt to walk, He and Balaram and His friends would go to the houses to steel butter from the
Gopis and the Gopis would come to complain to Yasoda Mayi in so many ways but actually their complaining
was not complaining– that was glorification. It was Krishna katha because it was so pleasing to them that
Krishna was coming to their houses because they only made their butter for one reason: so the Krishna would
come to take it. If Krishna didn’t come to take it, they were longing and praying, “Gopal come!” and when then
He would come, He would do in such a way that they would complain, but in complaining it was Hari katha.

Radhanth Swami Tells The Pastimes of Damodar

They were speaking, they were glorifying, they were remembering. So on the day of, there are many stories.
Krishna would even steal butter from Yasoda Mayi. In the Anandavrindavan Champu, it tells how Krishna was
stealing and eating butter and he happened to see, He was just a little tiny child, next to Him was jeweled pillar
and in that inlaid jewel he saw a reflection of himself and he got scared. He told the little boy in the reflection:
“Don’t tell my mother what I am doing.” He said, “if you don’t tell my mother, I will share the butter with you and
you will enjoy it very, very much.” and His mother, Yasoda, in a hiding place, was watching the whole thing,
with great happiness, she was smiling and then she came out and Krishna, very much afraid, He said, “I am
not stealing butter, I am not stealing butter.” He said, actually that, He pointed to the reflection of Himself in the
pillar, He said, “He is stealing the butter! I told him not to do it, I told him that I would be very angry with him if
he steals the butter but he stole it anyway and I am angry with him but I am not stealing butter.” Another time,
Yasoda Mayi went outside and Krishna’s hand was in butter pot and as soon as Krishna saw Yasoda Mayi, He
said, “I am not stealing butter.” He said, actually because His hands are in the pot, He said, “You put these
bangles, these bracelets on me and the bracelets have ruby jewels and they are so hot, they are burning my
hands and I can’t tolerate it, I put my hands just to cool them off.” Yasoda Mayi smiled and she put little Gopal
on her lap and embraced him and looked at his wrist and she said, “Oh just see how your wrist is all burnt! I will
take the bangles off and not put them on anymore.” Sometimes, He would be eating their butter and they
would come to catch Him, so that they could take him to Yasoda Mayi and say, “You see its true! You don’t
believe us, he is stealing our butter!” But as soon as they would come to catch Krishna, He would smile at
them and they would enter into a state of such deep ecstasy they couldn’t move, they just stood there like
paralyzed in transcendental bliss and right there, in front of their eyes, Krishna would eat all their butter. But
one time one of Krishna’s aunts, in India you say aunty, she actually caught Krishna. “Krishna is a little child,”
,she said, “I am going, Yasoda Mayi never believes us but today I caught you and there is butter all over you. I
am going to bring you to your mother and then she going to know what you do!” And then little Gopal looked at
her, very innocent but very firm and He said, ‘I warn you, do not bring me to my mother.” She said, “I am going
to bring you now.” He said, “I warned you.”She pulled little Gopal and she had Gopal holding his hand and she
said to Yasoda Mayi, “You see your Gopal?! I caught Him, there is butter all over Him, you see– I caught Him.
He denies it, you don’t believe, but I caught Him.” Yasoda Mayi looked at her and said, “I don’t understand
what are you talking about.” She [Aunty] said, “I have your son, look!” She [Yasoda Mayi] said, “I don’t
understand what are you saying.” She [Yasoda Mayi] said, “look!” and she looked down–– to her surprise, he
wasn’t Krishna, it was her own son. She was really bewildered, so she walked away with her son and she was
walking down the road and then she heard some laughter and she looked down and in her hand was Krishna!
Krishna said, “I warned you. You see how embarrassed you were?” He said, “If you do this again, next time, I
will manifest myself as your husband.” So the Gopis used to come and they would tell so many incredibly
sweet pastimes of what Krishna would do and Yasoda Mayi would say, “Then I will somehow keep Krishna at
home.” and they said, “No, No! Don’t do that.” They loved Krishna to come to take their butter. He was
accepting their love.

The Damodar Lila

So on the day of Diwali, Mother Yasoda, she sent all of her assistants (she is Vrajeswari) to perform other
duties. And she decided to rise very early, while Gopal was still sleeping, to personally churn the yoghurt, the
dahi, herself. Her idea was, she grew a special kind of grass called Padmagandha, it was sweet and fragrant,
she watered the grass with the best of cow’s milk and that grass was so intoxicatingly fragrant and she had the
very, very best. Nanda maharaja had nine hundred thousand cows, among them there were 108, among them
8, among them, were two and they were the ones that had their milk because they only took this particular type
of grass and they were loved so dearly that it was and it was the ultimate sweetest milk and it was with that
milk that she made yoghurt, dahi and she was churning it with her own hands, with her own personal heart’s
motherly love.And as she was churning, she was singing sweet songs about Krishna. Srila Prabhupada
quotes from the previous acharyas and Sukhadeva Goswami that, in Vrindavan, this was one of the ways that
everybody was always remembering Krishna. Whatever He did, they would make a festival for it. If the wind
made His cloth go up a little, they would make a festival and they would compose songs. Everything He did
was so special, every little detail, every rising of His eyebrows, every smile of His lips, everything was
celebrated with so much love. When the Gopas would come home after herding the cows later, with Krishna or
the calves, they would sing beautiful songs about what Krishna did that day and the whole next day, the elderly
Gopas and Gopis would compose more and more poetry and songs just to remind each other of what Krishna
did the day before. This way there was constant kirtan in Vrindavan.

Golokera prema–dhana, hari-nama–sankirtana,

That this kirtan has descended from the highest realm of the spiritual world, it’s eternal pastimes of the most
loving and elevated devotees, the eternal associates of the Lord. So as Yasoda Mayi was singing songs about
Krishna’s beautiful form, his characteristics, qualities and childlike pastimes, she was keeping rhythm. As she
was churning, the bangles or the bracelets on her wrist were making sounds, keeping rhythm and the sound of
the churning rod in the yoghurt was making different types of rhythmic musical notations and as she was
singing beautiful, flowers decorating her hair would fall and, remembering Krishna, so much motherly love was
awakening in her heart and it manifested with the milk of her love coming out from her breast as an offering to
Krishna. Krishna was in the next home sleeping, but Krishna is always hungry for the sweetness of his
devotee’s love. As that milk was flowing Krishna woke up hungry to receive it to reciprocate with that love. So
He ran towards where his mother was churning and with one hand, He held the churning rod and He said, “No
more churning!” and He climbed on her lap, and she began to feed him her milk, and as she was feeding little
Gopal, she was looking at His face. His eyes were like lotus petals, His nose was like a sesame flower, His lips
were fresh and red like Bimba fruit. His face was round like the moon with the most enchanting complexion––
like a monsoon rain cloud. And around his moon like face was beautiful, beautiful hair, like silk, curling around
His face. He looked so helpless, so innocent, so supremely lovable and as she gazed upon him with tears of
ecstasy in her eyes, the milk flowed as Krishna drink it.

Suddenly she heard. She was boiling some milk for Krishna for later in the day and it was boiling over. This
was the pushpakgandha, padmagandha milk. Padmagandha is the precious milk, that’s special for Krishna. So
she wanted to save it. So she placed Krishna down and ran to kitchen. Krishna bit His lower lip with his upper
teeth because he was angry. His lips were red, His teeth were white. Krishna was giving the world a good
lesson: that the way we control the passion of anger, because raja-guna is characterized by the red color like
the lips and sattva-guna is characterized by the white color like the teeth. So Krishna wanted to show that we
control our anger, we control raja-guna with sattva-guna. This was why we are giving these regulative
principles. We can control our lower modes by learning how to live in the mode of goodness. And the Srimad
Bhagavatam says from the mode of goodness we could actually transcend the modes of nature through bhakti
or the devotional service, from the platform when we come to the mode of goodness, living with character,
honesty, humility, integrity.

When we are engaged in the loving service of the Lord without expecting anything selfish in return then we
transcend the modes of nature forever and attained the highest liberation. – Radhanath Swami

But Krishna was doing it as an act of transcendental anger. He took a stone, which was used for grinding
spices, and he cracked the clay pot that the yoghurt was being churned in. It spread out on the floor and then
Krishna went to another room. Yasoda Mayi came back and she saw the pot was cracked, the yoghurt was on
the floor, and she knew that Krishna had done it. So she followed the little buttery footprints of Krishna into a
courtyard where she saw and she was watching from a hidden place, Krishna had piled a wooden grinding
mortar and He was standing on top of it to reach butter and yoghurt that were hanging from the ceiling from
ropes and He was feeding it to the monkeys. According to some Acharyas, Hanuman, Sugriva, all of these
greats, Susena, Nila, Nala, so many of these monkeys, there were many, they risked their lives to build that
bridge across Indian Ocean. They searched even enduring hunger and thirst to find Sita. They fought an entire
battle and Ram was living in the forest; he never gave them anything in return.

He just accepted their love. That’s all they wanted but he was feeling indebted. So he called those monkeys to
appear like monkeys in Vrindavan. This was his spirit; come, let me give you this fresh butter that was being
churned by my mother and they were all coming. Could you imagine, how happy those monkeys were, taking
butter from Krishna’s hands? That was a festival. All the monkeys were eating and jumping and chattering and
Krishna was giving them more and more and more. Yasoda Mayi, she took a little stick because she wanted to
teach Krishna a little lesson. As a mother, she is thinking, “If I don’t teach Krishna, how will he ever learn?” and
meanwhile Krishna, because He knew that He is doing something naughty, Yasoda Mayi saw Krishna looking,
His little eyes, beautiful lotus eyes, they were darting in different directions and He was turning in fear that He
would be caught by his mother and as Yasoda Mayi came close to him, the monkey started going, and the
crows that were coming in trying to get some butter too. They saw Yasoda Mayi and they started flying and
flying around and Krishna looked behind them and there was Yasoda Mayi with a stick. Krishna jumped off the
grinding mortar to run away. Yasoda Mayi ran after him. Krishna ran and Yasoda ran. As she was running, it’s
impossible to catch the Supreme Absolute Truth but, Yasoda Mayi caught him.

Krishna willingly accepted being caught by His mother because He wanted to show the world that He is
subordinate to the love of His devotee by His own sweet will. When we say God is great, there are so many
levels of understanding it. Yes God is the Supreme creator of everything that exists; yes God, by his will, can
destroy everything that exists, (the controller of all controllers). But the greatest of all the greatness of God is
He is conquered and willingly accepts subordination to intimate love– that is Krishna lila. – Radhanath Swami
Now, Yasoda Mayi was holding Krishna with one hand and she is holding a stick with the other. Satyavarth
muni, he is explaining in this beautiful song the Damodar Ashtakam, Krishna was trembling, His lips were
quivering, He had black ointment kajal in His eyes and His eyes were crying in fear and he was rubbing his
eyes and then black masquerade was flowing down his face, such a beautiful sight and he said to his mother,
“Yes I stole butter, I broke the pots, I did it. Please put down that stick, and I am very afraid.” Queen Kunti
offers her prayers; that although Krishna is feared by fear personified, he is afraid of his mother.

Abhay charanar Vrinda re

One who takes shelter of Krishna becomes fearless forever but Krishna is afraid of his mother. That fear is the
greatest opulence; it’s the ornamentation that makes Krishna supremely attractive to His devotees. –
Radhanath Swami

So Yasoda Mayi throws this stick away and she didn’t want to punish Krishna, but it was her feeling that she
had so many duties to perform for Krishna’s service that day and Krishna was such a naughty child, doing such
naughty things today that she was afraid he may run away from home and get in all kinds of troubles and
dangers. So to protect Krishna with her motherly love, she took a very soft, smooth rope, to put it around his
waist, to tie him to the grinding mortar. But when she placed it around His waist, when she went to tie it, it was
the width of two fingers too short. So she took another rope and tied it to that. When she went to put it around
Krishna’s little waist, it was two fingers too short. She got more and more ropes and no matter how much rope
she got, all the rope in her house, it was still the same distance too short. And the other Gopis, when they
heard about this and saw this, it was so beautiful, they were laughing and smiling and singing Krishna’s glories.
And so many Gopis were bringing all the ropes from their houses, it was a festival of ropes of all different
colors and all different sizes.

There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of meters of ropes being tied together and every time
Yasoda Mayi put it around Krishna’s waist, it was the width of the two fingers too short. The incredible thing
about this pastime, and there are so many dimensions of inconceivable beauty, but Krishna’s waist was not
growing. A rope that was two feet in length could have easily tied against him and now there were hundreds
and hundreds of meters, thousands of meters of rope tied together. Krishna’s waist was not growing; the rope
was not shrinking, but it always the width of two fingers too short. Yasoda Mayi was perspiring. The flowers
were falling from her hair and some of the Gopis, they were all just laughing and smiling and they said,
“Yasoda Mayi, it seems that its not Krishna’s destiny to be tied up today!” and Yasoda Mayi said, “But I have to
protect my child, he is so naughty. I don’t know what trouble he will get into unless I tie him. And besides that, I
am really curious to see how much rope it takes to go around the waist of my little Gopal.” and Gopal by his
own sweet will allowed Yasoda Mayi to tie him with a knot to the grinding mortar.

Radhanth Swami, The Inconceivable Nature of Prema

So many contradictions are apparently within this story. Krishna is the controller of all controllers, He is the
source of Mahavishnu, all the devas (or demigods) get their powers from Krishna but yet He is controlled by
His mother’s love. In the Upanishads, it is described that the Absolute Truth, the Paramatama is faster than the
fastest, faster than the speed of wind, faster than the speed of mind, can never be caught, even the greatest
yogis and jnanis, they cannot catch the Supreme Absolute Truth. Even by lifetimes and lifetimes of tapasya
and penances and acquisitions of transcendental knowledge. But yet that Supreme Absolute Truth, who is the
source of Paramatama, whose bodily rays form the brahmajyoti (or brahman effulgence) is caught by a simple
Gopi, Yasoda– by her love.

Although Krishna is feared by fear personified, He is trembling in fear of his mother, and although infinite
hundreds and thousands of Goddesses of fortune serve Him, He is stealing, stealing to eat something, like
somebody who is in poverty. This beautiful story is a testimony that the greatest power in all the creation is
prema because it is the only power that attracts the all-attractive, Krishna. The name Krishna means all
attractive because he possesses all strength, all beauty, all knowledge, all wealth, all fame and all renunciation
but Krishna is attracted by the simple sweet love of the heart. Hanuman was a monkey, Yasoda Mayi was just
a simple Gopi, the little squirrel that we will talk tomorrow was just a little tiny animal. Every single one of us,
whoever we are, whatever are our race, whatever are our sex, whatever are our education, whatever are our
financial status, whatever are our age, whatever are our background or the present statuses, the power to love
is within us. It’s the intrinsic signature of the soul. It’s so simple and when that love is imbued with intimacy,
Krishna is willing to be conquered by that love.

He is longing, He is hungry to be conquered by that love. Satyavarth muni, in his beautiful Damodarastakam,
he offers obeisances to the rope of Yasoda; it’s the rope of her love.

That love can never be awakened if we try to imitate the great souls but it is awakened when we learn to honor
them, to revere them and to follow in their footsteps. – Radhanath Swami

This beautiful vision of Yasoda Mayi, with a saffron colored sari, beautiful tying up Krishna, churning the
yoghurt for Krishna, the vision of Yasoda Mayi expressing her love for Gopal is a meditation. We place her feet
on our heads,

we want to be the servant of the servant of the servant of the servant of the servants of those who love God
and in that mood Krishna will be pleased to reveal himself to us. – Radhanath Swami

as with the humble heart we chant his holy names:

HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE

HARE RAMA HARE RAMA RAMA RAMA HARE HARE
The Damodar Lila (Part Two)

Yasoda Mayi goes to perform her seva. Krishna is crying because now He is all tied up, but as soon as Yasoda
leaves, he stops crying and He smiles because He had another pastime to perform. He was remembering his
beloved devotee, Narada Muni.

Narada Muni is so beloved of Krishna because he travels forever, wherever he wishes, always chanting the
names of Sri Radhikaraman, the lover of Sri Radha. He saw in the courtyard, two yamalarjuna trees standing
side by side. Now these arjuna trees are formidable, huge trees. They were so big, they were really, really old
and arjuna trees. They have a special type of roots, gigantic roots, that make them so strong that even when
hurricanes and cyclones knock down every other tree in the forest; the arjuna trees stand strong. So there
were two arjuna trees. Krishna understood that they were Nalakuvera and Manigriva.Narad Muni bajaye bina
radhika raman name

Radhanath Swami Explains the Danger of Pride

Sukadeva Goswami, in Srimad Bhagvatam, tells the story, they (Nalakuvera & Manigriva) were the sons of
Kuvera, the treasurer of the devas, and they were the devotees of Lord Shiva. They had beautiful celestial
bodies, incredible knowledge and enormous wealth. They were practically infallible but they were proud and
they were enjoying with some beautiful heavenly ladies, naked in the lake of water. Narada Muni came walking
by. The ladies saw, here is a sadhu coming, Narada Muni, the great rishi and they were very embarrassed and
they got up and covered their bodies with their clothes. But Nalakuvera and Manigriva, they completely ignored
Narada muni, “Who cares.” They were so intoxicated by their own material prosperity. Similar to this morning’s
talk about Sugriva, when Sugriva was helpless, in fear and he lost everything, he was very, very respectful and
attempted to take shelter of Ram. But when he gained his kingdom back and he had incredible wealth,
incredible power and no fears. He forgot. He became overwhelmed by material energy.

Daivi hy esa guna–mayi

mama maya duratyaya
This material energy is very difficult to overcome.
In fact queen Kunti prays:
janmaiśvarya-śruta-śrībhir
edhamāna-madaḥ pumān
That when we have great wealth, great fame and beauty and strength and high birth, we can become
infatuated. In that infatuation, our heart becomes hardened and we cannot humbly take shelter of Krishna or
chant his name in that spirit.

trinad api sunicena

taror api sahishnuna
amanina manadena
kirtaniyah sada harihi
If we want to really access Krishna, through our devotional practice or through chanting his names, we have to
be willing and eager to offer all respect to others and not expect it for us. – Radhanath Swami

Humble like the blade of grass and tolerant and forgiving like a tree. They became so hard hearted not
because they were bad but because they were so distracted by worldly pleasures. They became proud. The
Bible says: “Pride comes before the fall.” and that’s exactly what happened in this story. When we become
proud, when we become arrogant, we are already in the fallen condition. Rupa and Sanatan Goswami, they
revealed to us the highest truths of the spiritual world, but if we want to understand their books, we have to
follow in their footsteps. They presented themselves as more fallen than Jagai and Madhai, as the most
undeserving and the most sinful; And they were offering all honor and respect to all living beings. When we
follow in that path, Krishna reveals through the Holy Scriptures, through the lives of others, even through the
fireworks of Diwali, He reveals the highest truths to us and we will be able to actually take shelter of the holy
names. So Narada Muni saw their condition and wanted to give them medicine to cure their arrogance and he
blessed them with a curse: “Because you are so puffed up, so proud, so intoxicated by your beauty and your
strength and your wealth and your knowledge, you are not respecting anybody, the whole world and everything
is just centered around you–– so selfish, so ego centric–– become trees.”

What is a tree? They can’t move, they just stand there. Nobody is attracted to you. But by Narada’s grace they
were trees who, after living for centuries and centuries as trees, totally humbled by the experience, Krishna
performed His childhood pastimes and they were in His courtyard. And even though they had the bodies of
immovable trees, they had the same consciousness and awareness as they did as Nalkuvera and Manigriva
but the apparent pain of what they were going through completely humbled them.

Damodar Lila (Part Three)

So when they saw Krishna’s pastimes, they were really attracted, they were really taking shelter, they were
falling in love with Krishna. Krishna saw the trees and remembered Narada. Then He crawled and as he
crawled the grinding mortar that was tied behind him was being dragged. He crawled between the trees and
the grinding mortar caught between them and Krishna just pulled slightly with a little crawl, the trees fell,
millions of times louder than these Diwali fireworks. Everyone in the Vrajabhumi, they felt the whole earth
shaking like an earthquake. They heard this enormous roaring sound of the trees falling and collapsing to the
ground and they all came running, what happened, such a great calamity and there they saw these massive
trees laying on the ground on either side–– just inches away from little baby Gopal. He was smiling with the
grinding mortar tied to his waist. Some of the Gopas (the elderly cowherd men) they were asking, “What
happened? What happened?!” And the children, they said, “We saw what happened! Little Gopal, He started
pulling and He pulled the grinding mortar and when he pulled between the trees and the trees fell down and
after the trees fell down, two incredibly, effulgent, beautiful personalities came out of the trees!” And they
described what they looked like, “They were demigods and they had folded palms, crying in great happiness
and they were offering prayers to Krishna and then Krishna blessed them and they flew up into the sky!”
Nalakuvera and Manigriva, they came out of the trees and they surrendered to Krishna and in their beautiful
prayers they told how Narada Muni, being such a compassionate devotee, gave them the greatest ,most
auspicious blessing, by humbling themselves so that they could actually appreciate the Lord and develop a
true taste of hearing about Him and chanting His glories.

HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE

HARE RAMA HARE RAMA RAMA RAMA HARE HARE
The cowherd men were thinking, “How could little Krishna knock these trees over? Why should we listen to
these little children?” The little cowherd boys tried to unlock the knot but they couldn’t do it because it was tied
with Yasoda Mayi’s motherly love, but Nanda Maharaja, he had fatherly love (vatsalya ras), he untied Krishna.
Then he took Krishna on his lap in very protective loving way. Yasoda Mayi along with Rohini, they heard the
trees falling, they heard what happened. Yasoda Mayi was feeling so guilty, “I am the one who tied up Krishna
to this grinding mortar and look the danger that I created for Krishna!” and Krishna, Nanda Maharaja said to
little Gopal, “You see your mother has come for you.” and Krishna wanted to increase her affection. He said, “I
don’t want, I don’t want to sit on her lap, I want to stay with you.” And he wouldn’t even look at Yasoda Mayi
and Nanda Maharaja said, “Why did you tie him up like this? Look at how Krishna is so disturbed with you.”
And Krishna wouldn’t look at her. Nanda Maharaja said, “Your mother wants you.” He (Krishna) said, “No, I
don’t want my mother.” Yasoda Mayi was so heart broken. She was weeping, crying and Rohini came to
Krishna and told what is your mother’s condition. Then Krishna jumped off Nanda Maharaja’s lap and went
running to Yasoda Mayi, “Mata! Mata! Mata!” And she came running to Krishna and they embraced and that
time she resumed with feeding Krishna the milk of her love. This is Vrindavan.

Radhanth Swami Speaks on Damodarastakam

In Padmapurana, Satyavartha Muni, in his conversation with Narada Muni and Saunaka Rishi, has composed
these eight prayers. In one prayer, Oh Lord although you are able to give all kinds of benedictions, I do not
pray to you for the boon of impersonal liberation nor the highest liberation of eternal life in Vaikuntha, the
spiritual world nor any other boon. Oh Lord I simply wish that this form of yours as Bal Gopal in Vrindavan may
ever be manifest in my heart for what is the use to me of any other boon besides this?

Oh Lord your lotus face, which is encircled by locks of soft black hair tinged with red, is kissed again and again
by mother Yasoda and your lips are reddish like the bimba fruit. May this beautiful vision of your louts face be
ever manifest in my heart. Thousands and thousands of other benedictions are of no use to me. The story of
Diwali, the story of the Damodar Lila, are reminders to us.

bhaktya tu ananyaya sakya aham evam-vidho r’juna

Krishna tells in Gita that only by pure love, bhakti, can I be known as I am, can I be seen in my sat-chit-ananda
form. The greatest benediction Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and all of the great acharyas and saints and
devotees prayed for is prema pumartho mahan–– this love.

Sri Ramanujacharya, Madhavacharya, Vallabhacharya, Sri Chaitanya Mahabrahu, all their associates, they
taught us that there is no higher, no more treasured goal to strive for, than the awakening of this love that is
within our hearts. Srila Prabhupada, he saw that potential within all of us and he had complete faith, that:

namnam akari bahudha nija-sarva-shaktis

All the power and the beauty and attraction of Krishna is within the name and by sincerely chanting the names
in a spirit of unselfish loving service, this love is awakened.