Posted on: 19 Oct 2022
[Ms. Thrylokya asked: Swami, You said that Gopikas maintained the devotion based lust towards Krishna because they were the highest sages doing penance for God from several billions of births. When they could maintain such devotional love based lust towards God, how did the majority of them fail in petty bonds like money and children?]
Swami replied: You are perfectly correct in saying that the Gopikas, who are actually sages maintained such devotion based lust instead of hormonal lust based lust towards God. I said that Gopikas maintained such devotion in the test of their attachment to the bond of spouse. I did not tell that all Gopikas maintained such devotional based lust to God. Some of them might have failed even in that test. We have the best example of sage Vishwamitra, who failed in that test when the heavenly dancer called Menaka danced before him. Okay, let us assume that all Gopikas passed in such test. The success in the three tests of the three worldly bonds (spouse, children and money) is going to give the final result. If a candidate passes even in all the examinations and fails in one subject, the result is declared as failure only.
Hence, the point of their passing the other joint test of children and money (butter) also decides the final result. Moreover, this joint test is the hardest of the two tests (one is the test of the bond with spouse and the other is the joint test of children and money). As I have already told that among these three strong worldly bonds, the bond with children is the strongest and could not be succeeded by any soul so far. This bond with children lies in the heart, which is the central main abode of love and fascination to worldly bonds. In this place lies the Anahataa chakra with the deity of Vayu or air. Anahataa means that this chakra (cycle) is not crossed by anybody so far. The deity Vayu is also said by the Veda to be very fast, and the strongest angel (Vāyurvai Kṣepiṣṭho devatā). Even sages are not exceptional in the case of fascination to this bond. Sage Vyasa is greatest among all the sages. When his son Sage Shuka left the house immersed in spiritual knowledge, Sage Vyasa was running after him crying (Dvaipāyano viraha kātara ājuhāva – Bhagavatam). Hence, I told that even though all Gopikas succeeded (assuming that all succeeded) in the test of the bond with spouse, they failed in the joint test and only twelve Gopikas passed in both the tests reaching Goloka.
I want to add the answer for one point of the question asked by Hrushikesh. He told that Rukmini reached Brahma loka or Vaikunta loka as Goddess Lakshmi serving the Lord and is fortunate to have the fortunate association of God in that loka or upper world. Here, one must remember that in Goloka also, God Vishnu exists as God Krishna in association with Radha and the other successful Gopikas.