16 May 2025
O Learned and Devoted Servants of God
Shri Phani Kumar asked:- Please explain the entire background of the psychology of Lord Rama, which is diagonally opposite to the psychology of Lord Krishna.
Swami replied:- The time gap between Lord Rama and Lord Krishna was about two Yugas. In this time gap, the fall of justice was tremendous. The time of Rama was the beginning of Tretaa Yuga, which is almost Kruta Yuga. The time of Krishna was the end of Dwaapara Yuga, which is almost Kali Yuga. Kruta Yuga was completely filled with good qualities and Kali Yuga is completely filled with bad qualities. This can be illustrated by a practical example. Sages came to Lord Rama and offered to hug Rama by transforming into female forms with the help of their power of penance. It is not the complete birth of a soul as female. It is almost like a male in the dress and role of a female in the drama. Even this was treated as bad quality by God Rama. It means that there is no trace of deviation from a good quality. God Rama refused such hug of sages also. The sages thought that they have defeated all the worldly bonds before God except the bond with the spouse. By this type of hug offered by them to God Rama, they thought that they can defeat the bond with spouse for the sake of God. But, the atmosphere in the time of Rama did not allow this also treating it as the bad quality. Rama told them to be born as Gopikas in the future in the time of Krishna so that all the three strongest tests with the three strongest worldly bonds can be completed to give them the certificate of salvation from all the worldly bonds. In fact, the strongest worldly bond among these three worldly bonds is the joint bond with children and wealth (Putreshanaa and Dhaneshanaa). The weakest bond is with spouse, which alone has the facilities of divorce and remarriage.
The sages thought that this joint bond is the weakest and the bond with spouse is the strongest. Here itself, the sages slipped from the true concept. They realized this truth only when they were born as Gopikas in the time of Krishna. All the Gopikas went to Brundaavanam to dance with Krishna, very easily breaking the bond with spouse. When Krishna stole the butter (their wealth) preserved for their children, almost all the Gopikas went and complained to His mother Yashoda. This means that almost all the Gopikas failed in the test of joint bond with children and wealth, whereas all of them passed in the test of spouse-bond. The fantastic point here is that all this happened while all Gopikas knew that Krishna is the ultimate God (Kṛṣṇastu Bhagavān svayam).
Coming to the era of God Krishna, all souls were completely filled with bad qualities. God Krishna is like the government and for the sake of facility of administration of the changed surrounding atmosphere, the divine constitution has to be amended. If you say that people having bad qualities will certainly go to hell as per the divine constitution, the souls will be frustrated since they can’t change their strongest bad qualities into good qualities. If you say that a murderer will certainly be hanged to death after twenty days, the criminal will commit twenty murders in twenty days. The logic of his brain will be that even if he commits any number of murders or do not commit any murder, after twenty days, he will certainly be killed. With this psychology, souls having the strongest bad qualities of demonic nature will get spoiled and will create havoc in this world. Hence, God Krishna had to modify the divine constitution to protect this world bringing peace. Even now, the governments amend the constitutions as per the changed atmosphere of the public and such a right is provided in the constitution itself. Therefore, God Krishna prepared a highway road from hell to Goloka. This is a special road extended on both sides because Goloka is above Brahma Loka (the abode of God) and hell is a lower sub-world in view of its status.
God said that one need not change the unchangeable bad qualities anymore and the soul can divert its bad qualities towards God. Any quality is considered to be good or bad by the direction of the quality. If a quality is diverted to God (Nivrutti), it is a good quality and if a quality is diverted to the world (Pravrutti), it is a bad quality. By this policy, the soul will be controlled from the influence of bad qualities to a great extent and this will very much contribute to the peace of the world. There are three stages:- i) Maintaining good qualities, ii) Controlling bad qualities, iii) Diverting uncontrollable bad qualities towards God. As the time advances from Kruta Yuga to Tretaa Yuga to Dwaapara Yuga and to Kali Yuga, these three stages appeared gradually. Hence, at the time of God Krishna, the third stage was very much predominant.
In the time of God Krishna, we find three types of devotees belonging to these above-mentioned three stages:- i) Wives of sages, who went to God Krishna along with the cooked food violating the rules of sacrifice and they wanted to remain with Krishna. They and their husbands belong to the first type, who were with good qualities. Hence, Krishna told the wives of the sages to go back to their husbands assuring good treatment to them from the sages. ii) The 16,000 daughters of kings, who loved Krishna and were imprisoned by king Narakaasura because they were not willing to marry anyone in the caste of Kshatriyas except Krishna. When they were released by Krishna, they threatened Krishna that they will commit suicide if He doesn’t marry them. They belong to that second type, who controlled their bad qualities and prayed God to marry them. They maintained the legality (justice) of the sexual life through marriage and Krishna was obliged to them. iii) Gopikas, who were married and were having children. They should not cross the justice by leaving husband and children. But, all worldly bonds including the justified worldly bonds should be broken for the sake of God to get salvation (Moksha) from all the worldly bonds.
Even though crossing the justice is a tremendous bad quality, it is not bad when justice competes with God in which case God has to be voted and not the justice that is protected by God. In fact, these Gopikas were those sages born with illegal bad quality to demonstrate the way to the souls having bad qualities. For the sake of these Gopikas, God Krishna created multiple illusory forms of Himself, who appear and behave exactly like Him. No human eye can catch the distinct illusory Krishnas apart from the real form of Krishna and this is the most unimaginable omnipotent power of God called Mahaa Maayaa. We need not be worried with the word ‘illusory’ because this entire creation, which is inherently unreal is also illusory only. What I mean is that Gopikas were not cheated by God Krishna since Gopikas themselves including their past forms as sages are part of the world and are illusory only. Moreover, the medium of real form of God Krishna, which is also a part of the world, is also illusory only.
Why a devotee shall weep that Gopikas were cheated without understanding the original clue of spiritual knowledge? You may argue that the original form of Krishna has the God-component whereas other forms are without the God-component. This God-component is the unimaginable God (Parabrahman), whose nature is not known by anybody and only His existence can be known by anybody (Astītyeva upalabdhavyaḥ). Only unimaginable God knows the nature of Himself (Brahmavit Brahmaiva bhavati) and the knowledge of His existence alone can be attained by any soul in this creation.
Only Parabrahman knows about Himself and not even His medium, which is a part of the creation and has spatial dimensions. The reason is that even if the medium knows the nature of Parabrahman, the medium cannot explain it to any other soul. When there is no use, why should we assume that the medium knows. The medium is also made of nature (Prakruti) of this world only and has limitations of spatial dimensions of normal capacity. If you insist that the medium of God knows the nature of God, even then, we can assume that the medium does not know since it cannot explain to us. Therefore, this point is completely irrelevant with reference to any soul. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa told that even the highest soul, sage Shuka is still travelling in the infinite empty space (Mahaa Shuunyam) and he is unable to reach the unimaginable God. Therefore, the mediated unimaginable God alone is our ultimate goal, which is called as Saguna Brahman from whose medium we are experiencing the creation having spatial dimensions (The medium is a part of the creation, which alone is seen by us and through which we can experience the unimaginable God through His unimaginable events called miracles.). Hence, don’t bring the unimaginable God (whose nature cannot be experienced except His existence only) into this picture and get confused to weep about Gopikas!
God Brahma told that the real celibate (Askhalita Brahmacaari) in this creation is God Krishna, who is having 16,108 wives and had illegal affairs with a thousand Gopikas! About this point only, king Parikshit also questioned sage Shuka. With the help of illusory Krishnas created by God Krishna, we can explain about all the wives and all the Gopikas. What about Rukmini, who is the inherent power of God Krishna/God Vishnu as Goddess Mahalakshmi? What about Radha, who is the incarnation of God Shiva, who is God Vishnu or Krishna Himself? Here, there is no real dualism between Krishna and Rukmini/Radha. Real form of Krishna happens to be with Radha and Rukmini since there is only internal monism here.
Hence, such happiness obtained by the unimaginable God from the sexual union with His own power is equal to the happiness obtained from Himself just like in the case of Adi Shankara, who did not marry at all and obtained bliss from His own self. But, when we see the energetic incarnations of God like Datta, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, we find their wives Anaghaa, Sarasvati, Lakshmi and Parvati, who are their inherent powers only appearing as separate personalities. The bliss obtained by these original forms of God is the same self-bliss experienced by Adi Shankara because there is real monism between the couples here also. Hence, God Krishna is a real celibate like God Rama. Therefore, the word of God Brahma that God Krishna is the real celibate is the ultimate truth. If the complicated God Krishna is understood, simple Rama can be very easily understood.
Now comes the question that when Rama had only Sita, why did Krishna have both Radha and Rukmini? Even Rama had Hanuman, who was the incarnation of God Shiva, but in male form. The time of Rama allowed only one wife and hence, Hanuman had to be male. In the time of Krishna, the policy of polygamy was allowed for kings (Rājāno bahu vallabhāḥ) and Krishna was the king of Dwaaraka city. Even then, God Krishna did not use the facility of polygamy because He is always a real celibate, by creating illusory Krishnas. Then, why did He require both Radha and Rukmini as wives? (In fact, Radha married Krishna in the presence of God Brahma as priest in a garden present between the two villages of Krishna and Radha). Rukmini was required to manage the 16,108 wives of Krishna and it is noteworthy to know that all of them were married wives like Rukmini. Radha was required for the sake of managing 1000 Gopikas, who showed their rebel nature by breaking their justified spouse-bonds for the sake of God. Since Gopikas were the sages doing penance for millions of births, they could develop such daring nature for the sake of God, which is impossible for any ordinary human soul.
God Shiva has such masculine daring nature. If you see the nature of Radha, she did not touch the duly married husband (Ayanaghosha) and remarried Krishna. She became an example for Gopikas by this most daring jump-over-justice and hence, she was selected as their leader. Radha is far greater than Gopikas, who could not reject their husbands and remarry Krishna. Even then, Radha stands in the first place because she did not touch her married husband for the sake of her beloved God Krishna. Gopikas were having husbands and children in this brave path. Rukmini, the embodiment of Sattvam quality is incapable even to become a member of this rebel path, not to speak of becoming a leader! This ferocious path exactly represents the stage of the present Kali Yuga. God paved the road from hell to Goloka, which is suitable to this Kali Yuga. By introducing this new path to reach God for souls having bad qualities, the souls are pacified and controlled their criminal nature of bad qualities so that the peace of the world can be maintained. God showed Goloka as greater than even His abode so that these daring souls will have greater satisfaction than the previous souls of the time of Rama.
Finally, I want to advice to the devotees not to misunderstand God Krishna or any human incarnation of God. Every human incarnation of God is the real celibate because there is nothing to be attained or non-attained in the case of God. He is an infinite ocean of bliss. He doesn’t require any happiness from any inert item of the world or from any non-inert worldly soul. All your confusion will disappear if you understand the fact that Radha and Rukmini belong to the staff side and not to the student side. Staff is the giver of fruit and student is the receiver of the fruit. Don’t bring Radha and Rukmini to the side of students and start weeping for Gopikas! God Krishna is the Professor, Radha is Associate Professor (almost equal to Professor in real sense and Radha was submissive to Krishna as per the role of devotee) and Rukmini is the Reader (she also acts as junior to Professor Krishna in the sense of role as wife). Some Gopikas may be PG students or research scholars.
The twelve Gopikas out of thousand Gopikas were research scholars and are eligible for teaching. They accompany every human incarnation to help the divine mission. In the time of Rama, Hanuman was used to punish bad qualities and Sita was standing as a leader for the souls having only good qualities. Therefore, there is no trace of difference between Rama and Krishna in view of their different surrounding atmospheres of public according to which they had to act. This is My message today, which is your birthday (4th May 2025).
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