Is It Not Better to Take Inspiration from Rama Than from Krishna?

(This question is part of a mahā satsaṅga or a great spiritual discussion between Swami and several devotees who had come from various places, seeking the clarification of their doubts.)

Swami replied:- Rama is the path to God whereas Krishna is the goal or God. In fact, Rama is also God in the background. Krishna is also path in the external ground for a long period of life. Except the theft of butter and dancing with Gopikas done in Brundavanam, He also behaved like Rama once He left Brundavanam. This should not be misunderstood that He became reformed after leaving the bad association in Brundavanam! This should be understood as that He finished His main special work in Brundavanam for which mainly He incarnated Himself. As Rama, God promised the sages that they shall be born as Gopikas and that He will be born as Krishna to finish the main work related with those sages. This is His promised work for His incarnation and hence, He finished it as soon as He incarnated. His activity in Brundavanam was related to the devotees of Nivrutti to give final salvation to sages after testing their fascination to worldly bonds when God competes with those worldly bonds. After completing this important work of Nivrutti, He never returned to Brundavanam and lived only outside to do the general work for Pravrutti as Rama did. Hence, you will never find such activity anywhere in His life as done in Brundavanam as soon as He left Brundavanam.

Once you understand His earliest activity as His work for Nivrutti-devotees, you can understand Krishna as exactly Rama only in His later activities for pravrutti-devotees. Nivrutti was also limited to Gopikas only and there are no other devotees of climax-Nivrutti level elsewhere to do such activity. Everybody is attracted to Krishna to follow His activity in Brundavanam without being God! Nobody is also of the level of Gopikas, who are so much attracted to God so that all the worldly bonds got dropped for the sake of God. Before criticizing Krishna, one shall think that he is not of the level of Krishna and also not of the level of Gopikas. What Rama practiced throughout His life (Pravrutti) and what Krishna said in the Gita (Pravrutti-part) or what Krishna followed in His life after leaving Brundavanam (Pravrutti) is to be followed by every human being. Krishna is to be mainly viewed as preacher and Rama as practical demonstrator of Pravrutti. Little time is taken to speak a theory and hence, Krishna lived only for 125 years (when Mahabharata war was over Krishna was 89 years old and after that He lived for 36 years more in Dvaaraka). Rama showed every concept of Pravrutti in practice, which took very long time and hence, Rama lived for 11,000 years (Dashavarsha sahasrani, Dashavarsha shataanicha...)!

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