Why did Sage Vyaasa expose His defect in the second verse of the Bhaagavatam?

[Shri JSR Prasad asked:- Swami, after bowing to God in the first verse of the Bhaagavatam, sage Vyasa told about his defect in the second verse. He told that he ran after his son called Shuka who was going into the forest immersed in the memory of God. Why did sage Vyasa expose his defect while he is having simultaneously several divine merits?]

Swami replied:- The scripture says that in the beginning, God must be bowed or indication of the subject of the book must be done (Ādau namaskriyā vastu nirdeśo vā'pi tanmukham). After bowing to God, Sage Vyasa is indicating the main essence of the subject of the Bhagavatam book. He described about his defect, which is the highest fascination for the bond with children. He was mentioning about this point by telling that even he, the king of Sages, could not defeat this bond (Putreshanaa). The subject is that almost all the Gopikas failed in the joint test for the joint bond with money and children. For the Gopikas, their money was only butter, which they sold and earned their livelihood. They preserved some butter (Dhaneshanaa) for the sake of their dearest children (Putreshanaa). God Krishna stole this butter, which was the joint test of children linked with wealth. Every human being earns and saves money for the sake of its child only. This is the doubly strong joint bond involving both earned money and child. The money earned by the Gopikas was only butter. They used to save some butter in a pot for the sake of their children. When God Krishna stole this butter, it became a joint test to test both these worldly bonds with child and money.

Here, one important point to be noted is that all Gopikas knew that Krishna was God. Sage Narada also says this point in his book called ‘Bhakti Suutram’, in which he says that one should not forget the main point here, which is that Gopikas (sages in previous births) did not forget that Krishna was God (Na tatrāpi māhātmya jñāna vismṛtyapavādaḥ). In this joint test, almost all the Gopikas failed because their fascination for their children became greater than the fascination for God. This main point is reminded in this beginning verse by mentioning about his own defect, which is the fascination to his child being more than God. Sage Vyaasa’s son, Shuka, was going into the forest to do penance for the sake of God. Sage Vyaasa should not have run after Shuka because God is greater than his child and in such case only, the bond with child (Putreshanaa) gets defeated before the bond with God. Similar to the failure of sage Vyasa in this test, all the other sages as Gopikas also failed in this test. Among all the worldly bonds, only three worldly bonds are the strongest, which are bond with wealth, bond with children and bond with spouse. Out of these three strongest worldly bonds also, the real strongest is the bond with children. Since almost all the Gopikas failed (except 12), all of them went to the mother of Krishna called Yashoda and complained to her about the theft of Krishna. This means that every human being will fail in defeating the fascination for the child (Putreshanaa). You must take this verse in this angle.

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