Posted on: 29 Jul 2021
[Swāmi, forgive me for asking this question. You mentioned in the 'Pravṛtti-Nivṛtti Sūtram' that legal sex is divine in the service of God and hence, it is depicted on the walls of temples as holy subject. But when I see some erotic sculptures on Khajuraho monuments, they seem to resemble orgies (indiscriminate illegal sexual activity) rather than legal sex. Please enlighten me. -At Your Divine Lotus Feet, Laxmi Thrylokya]
Swāmi Replied:- All the sculptures depicting legal sex indicate Pravṛtti, which is meant for the general lot of souls as said in the Gītā (Dharmāviruddhaḥ kāmo'smi…– Gītā). This is generally found everywhere. But in Nivṛtti, the illegal path of sex is mentioned because Kṛṣṇa did dance in the midnight at Bṛndāvanam with married Gopikas. Even King Parīkṣit questioned Śukayogi about this (Sa kathaṃ Dharmasetūnāṃ, vaktā kartā'bhirakṣitā, pratīpamācarat Brahman, paradārā'bhimarśanam?– Śrīmad Bhāgavatam). This question means “O Great Sage! Kṛṣṇa is the preacher, builder and protector of the bridges of justice. How He acted in the opposite way by involving in illegal sex with married Gopikas?” He means that Kṛṣṇa told in the Gītā that He is incarnated to establish justice in the world (dharmasaṃsthāpanārthāya… Gītā). The answer for this question was given by Me on several occasions. The same Kṛṣṇa in the end of the Gītā told “You have to leave even justice for My sake. I will protect you from the sin of going against justice”. Here, Kṛṣṇa does not mean that He will protect the devotee from the punishment of sin by using His omnipotent power. It only means that Kṛṣṇa will protect the devotee by paying penalty from His pocket, which is transferring the punishment onto Him. Actually, as I told that this Nivṛtti is proposed and developed by devotees only.
Fighting against justice for the sake of God indicates the mad climax of love of devotee to God. Even though God opposes Nivṛtti, the devotee succeeds by crossing all the divine hurdles and using the hurdles as culverts in the water canal to increase the speed of the devotion-water flow. In this fight with justice, the sin is inevitable for the devotee for which also the devotee does not care. Seeing all this climax madness of devotion, God gives not only the highest fruit (Nivṛttistu mahāphalā), but also undergoes the punishments of the sin of devotees to protect them granting an eternal accountless bond with Him. The devotees are already prepared to undergo the punishment by going to hell for the sake of God and this was told by Gopikas to sage Narada. God told in the Gītā that He will liberate the devotee from the sins (ahaṃ tvā sarvapāpebhyo…) but did not tell about the way of liberation from sins. If God tells the way that He will undergo the punishment of sin, the devotee will not agree. The devotee thinks that God will liberate the devotee from sins using His ultimate power to cancel the sins. But, the actual way is that God undergoes the punishments of the sins and liberates the devotee from the sins! In such fight against justice, involving sin, the illegal path of sex of Gopikas was presented by Sage Nārada in His Bhaktisūtram (Jāravat ca). The important point to be noted in this illegal path of sex is that in this path strongest opposition force exists by which strongest resistance-force is developed by the devotee as per human psychology.
In the legal path, since congenial force exists, such strongest resistance-force is not developed since there was no such necessity. Hence, Sage Nārada took this illegal path as an example to say that God shall be attained by such strongest force only. However, confining to this path of sex only to attain Goloka is wrong. Gopikas did not attain Goloka just due to the illegal path of sex fighting against the legal path. They fought with justice for the sake of God in all the worldly bonds. The three strongest worldly bonds are with life partner, issues and wealth. Nowadays, you can find everybody confining entire worldly life to these three strongest worldly bonds only. If these three strongest worldly bonds are defeated for the sake of God, it means that the devotee defeated all the worldly bonds for the sake of God. Hence, remember that Goloka is obtained by the devoted Gopikas because they crossed all the worldly bonds for the sake of God and not by crossing one mere worldly bond, which is bond with life partner. Stealing the butter preserved for issues is a test for the bonds with children and wealth (Butter). Only 12 Gopikas, who passed in all the three tests, reached Goloka and not the Gopikas who merely danced with Kṛṣṇa. Many Gopikas failed in the test of stealing butter also attended the dance at Bṛndāvanam!