Two Midnight Lessons

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Saint Petersburg, Russia
13 August 2009

"Ekala isvara Krsna ara saba bhrtya" (একল ঈশ্বর কৃষ্ণ আর সব ভৃত্য)—He is the only man, and everybody else is a servant. Krishna Himself shows that He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Once, on the rasa-lila (rasa-purnima) day, Krishna played His flute, and all gopis came to Him in the middle of the night.

"What are you doing here at midnight? Do you have no husband? Do you have no family?" Krishna asked them.

"You played Your flute and we could not tolerate it. We came here at once!"

"OK, since you have already come, you can do some job then."

"What job?"

"Please go to the other bank of the Yamuna, there in a forest called Belvan you will find my Guru Durvasa Muni. He is always meditating and has not eaten anything for so many days. Go there with some mata," Krishna said.

[In Vrindavan, there are twelve forests, or jungles (dvadasa-van), and one of those forests' name is Belvan. "Bel" is a kind of fruit. Before, there was no bel in that forest, but Krishna came to that forest with His friends and ate bel there, that is how that forest became known as Belvan. So, Krishna asked the gopis to go to that forest with some mata. Mata is made from milk and is something like liquid yoghurt, or buttermilk.]

All gopis took some beautiful decorated clay pots with mata and ran to the Yamuna. They ran so quickly thinking, "If I come late, what if I cannot feed him?" but when they came to the Yamuna, they saw that the Yamuna was full of water. They thought, "How will we go to the other bank? It is midnight, there is no boat here now, and so much water..." They returned to Krishna.

"Prabhu, we could not go there..."

"What? Why could you not go?"

"Because the Yamuna is full of water," answered the gopis.

"Oh, so you cannot go... OK, I will teach you one mantram then."

"What mantram?" all gopis sat in front of Krishna, ready to hear it.

"Listen attentively," said Krishna.

"OK, tell us."

"Go to the Yamuna. Stand in front of her with folded palms. Then say to her in a worshipping mood, 'O Yamuna Devi, our Krishna has never seen a face of another man's wife. If it is true, then please dry up."

"What?! What have You just said?!" asked the gopis. "You have never seen a lady's face? Have you never seen our faces? Sometimes You are affectionate with us, and now You say You have never seen our faces?"

"Do not argue with Me, go to Yamuna Devi and do as I told you."

The gopis went there and prayed, "He Surya-vatsa Yamune! O Yamuna Devi, our Krishna has never seen a face of another man's wife, He has never looked at us."

As soon as they said it, Yamuna Devi immediately dried up, and all the gopis ran across it.

When the gopis came to Belvan, they saw Durvasa Muni sitting there, and they lined up to give mata to him. One by one, they put their pots in front of him, and Durvasa Muni ate one pot after another. The gopis were surprised, "How much and how quickly he is eating!" The gopis who stood behind began to worry, "What if he does not eat my mata?" They began to jump out of the line and quickly kept all their pots in front of Durvasa Muni. Having finished all the mata, Durvasa Muni asked, "Any one else has anything?" The gopis were even more surprised, "How much can he eat? He has eaten everything alone!" The gopis answered, "That is all, everybody has finished giving..." Then, Durvasa Muni said, "OK, then you better go now. It is very late now, go back to Vrindavan."

The gopis started off to Vrindavan. When they came to the bank of the Yamuna, they saw that the Yamuna was again full of water. The gopis said the mantra that Krishna had given to them and that they used the first time, but the mantra did not work—Yamuna did not dry up. They began to cry, "How will we go back? What are we to do now?" They came back to Durvasa Muni.

"Why did you not go back?" asked them Durvasa Muni, surprised to see them again.

"Prabhu, we could not go because the Yamuna is full of water again, and even more than before, and there are such big waves..."

"How did you come here then?"

"That time we said one mantra, and the river dried up. We tried to say the same mantra, but it does not work."

"All right, I will give you another mantra then."

Then he told them the mantra, "O Yamuna Devi, our Durvasa Muni has not eaten or drunk anything, he is very hungry. If you believe it, please dry up."

"What?! You have not eaten anything?!" the gopis said in amazement. "Just now you have taken all the buttermilk we brought you!"

Then, one of the senior gopis (Visakha or Lalita, perhaps), said, "It is OK, do not debate with him. We must go there and do as we were told to do."

The gopis went to the Yamuna and said the mantra Durvasa Muni had taught them, and the Yamuna became dry!

When all gopis came back to Krishna, Krishna asked them, "Have you given the food to My Guru Durvasa Muni?"

"Yes, we did, he is paying his dandavat to You. But..."

"What has happened?"

"We do not understand it. Both times we said the opposite and the Yamuna dried up. You said You had not seen another man's wife's face, and if it was true, the Yamuna had to dry up. Durvasa Muni took everything we gave him, and said we had to say to Yamuna that he had not eaten anything..."

"OK, listen to Me. It is very interesting."

[We sing in one of the songs, "Parakiya-bhave jaha brajete prachara: the relationship with Krishna is manifest in Vraja as paramour love." And this is what it means:]

You know that in this brahmanda (universe) Krishna is the only man and everybody else is a woman. So, if Krishna is the only man, how can you be somebody else's wife? There is no other man in the world, that is why Krishna has never seen a face of another man's wife. As for Durvasa Muni, it looked like he took everything, but everything that exists in this world, exists for Krishna, for His bhoga (enjoyment), not for us—everything comes from Krishna, for Krishna. That is why we do not eat anything, we take prasadam, and that is why Durvasa Muni actually did not eat anything. Krishna explained to the gopis, "I took everything, and even though you saw Durvasa Muni eating everything, he did not eat anything, he only took prasadam." This is a fact...

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