18 Aug 2021
Smt. Priyanka asked: B) On a different note, what if a devotee has unconditional love towards God without having the feeling that God is their real husband? A person may think of God as the real father, brother, son, friend, etc. These relationships can still be sweet or 'madhuram' because everything about God is 'madhuram'. Is this type of devotion of lesser value than a female's devotion towards God (Feeling of God as husband/boyfriend) for the above said reasons that they cannot be tested in those departments of breaking justice for the sake of God?
For example, didn't Prahlāda, Bhakta Tukārām, Bhakta Kannappa, etc. attain salvation (broke away from worldly bonds) and reached God's abode? Can we consider that Bhakta Kannappa gave away his eyes for sake of God, thereby breaking his bond with his body also? Bhakta Tukāram attained salvation and went to 'Vaikuṇṭham' due to God's grace in his materialistic body itself! Aren't these souls, who were born as males a real example and inspiration of real love towards God? Or are they exceptions or 'avatāra puruṣas', who were born on Earth to set an example among males itself? Did Prahlāda or others had to take birth as females to prove real love towards God?
Ultimately, do males have to take birth as females in order to truly dissolve their male ego and totally surrender to God, understanding that God is the real and one and only husband for everyone and the entire nature? (Prakṛti or nature being female and Puruṣa being God - male). Nowadays, many females also have same amount of ego. Is female ego a different kind from male ego in today's context?
Swāmi replied:- B) The highest fruit is Brahmaloka or Satyaloka, which is the abode of God. The fruit higher than highest is Goloka, which is specially created and granted to the sages born as Gopikas. It is said that this Goloka is sanctioned to Gopikas only and not to any other devotee as mentioned by you with lot of emotion. The form of God that sanctioned this virtually highest fruit (Goloka) is also said to be Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa is said to be the highest incarnation (Paripūrṇatamaḥ sākṣāt, Śrī Kṛṣṇo Nā'nya eva hi). Sages are highest devotees, Kṛṣṇa is the highest form of God and Goloka is said to be the highest fruit. Of course, there is not much distance from Brahmaloka to Goloka. All the devotees mentioned by you reached Brahmaloka and by just one more birth will certainly reach Goloka. One has reached the destined city and entered its municipal limits after travelling 500 km distance. From the city limits the residence to be reached is just 5 km only. We can say that the traveller almost reached the destiny since he entered the city limits. But, you can’t say that the actual house or goal is reached by entering the city limits. The long journey was taken for 10 hours and within half-an-hour the goal-house will be reached. You are tired by reaching the city limits and you want to treat the city limits as the goal-house since you are reluctant to travel another 5km distance! If the mention of Goloka given to Gopikas is absent, I will not mention about 5km distance.
The procedure followed by Gopikas to reach this highest Goloka is the only clear proof of practical sacrifice of all worldly bonds for the sake of God. The clear proof means that nobody can point out anything that is not sacrificed for the sake of God. If you say that one has sacrificed 99 out 100 worldly bonds except 1 bond and if you say that 99 bonds shall be treated as 100 bonds because such opportunity could not come, we say that one more final birth-opportunity will be given to prove the sacrifice of that one bond. Having succeeded in sacrificing 99 bonds in millions of births, can’t you wait for one more birth to sacrifice that one bond? Why to lose patience in the final step that leads the final goal? Kṛṣṇa tested 1000 Gopikas in all the worldly bonds and only 12 Gopikas passed tests for all the three strongest worldly bonds. 99% of Gopikas passed the test for life partner and out of those 99% only 10% passed the two tests for issues and wealth. If the test for Goloka is only dance at Bṛndāvanam (test for the bond of the life partner) almost all the Gopikas would have reached Goloka! In such case, why to fight for such weakest bond? One can fight for the tests involving strong bonds. The students will make uproar for difficult tests and will never oppose the easiest test! The sages reached the final stage of salvation from all the worldly bonds and they were expected to pass all the tests in the final birth of Gopikas. But, most of them failed when they were born as female mothers and had to sacrifice wealth (butter) preserved for issues. Most of them did not fail as wives, but failed as mothers! You must protest for the failure as mothers and not for the pass as wives! Kṛṣṇa did not repeat this test elsewhere because sages were born as Gopikas in Bṛndāvanam only.
Kṛṣṇa’s birth was mainly for Gopikas in Bṛndāvanam only. Eventhough, He met 16,000 beautiful girls, He married them as per the ethics of pravṛtti. In those days, pravṛtti allows multi-marriages for a king (Rājāno bahuvallabhāḥ). Those 16,000 girls were not the sages born as Gopikas. One should not mistake Kṛṣṇa as having lust for illegal sex because after leaving Bṛndāvanam He never returned nor He repeated this illegal sex elsewhere in His entire life. You need not quarrel that this illegal sex will spoil the entire pravṛtti because before starting the dance at the age of 16 years, He lifted the huge hill on His finger at the age of 7 years so that nobody can imitate God! God has taken care from all sides about this concept. Such test was never performed by God except in the case of Gopikas and this means that even the students tested in this concept were also very very rare. Every female jumping for dance in Bṛndāvanam is not the greatest and most rare sage, who did penance for millions of births and born as Gopika in the final birth. I again and again repeat one point, which is that Goloka can’t be reached by sacrificing mere one bond with the life partner, but, Goloka can be reached only by sacrificing all the worldly bonds (strictly all possible worldly bonds without any exception) to bring the real full meaning for the word ‘total surrender’.
It is true that all top devotees like Prahlāda reached the abode of God. But, we are speaking about the abode present above the God, which is called Goloka. The question is that why Prahlāda didn’t reach Goloka? Prahlāda treated God as his real father leaving the bond with his false father. The devotion with God as Father is also sweet and there is no doubt in this. Now, the question again comes to us, which is not answered and if it is answered, it should not have come to us. The question is, once again I repeat, that is, why Prahlāda didn’t reach Goloka? Just like the Gopika left her false husband and reached the real husband, God, Prahlāda also left his false father and reached the real Father, God. For both Prahlāda and Gopika, the same Goloka must have been sanctioned if your logic is correct. Your logic is certainly correct and I feel that there is something lagging in your logic for which Goloka is granted to Gopika only and not to Prahlāda.
After serious thinking for a very long time doing penance for true knowledge (Jñāna tapaḥ), I found out that the surrender of body to God exists in the case of Gopika and not in the case of Prahlāda. Surrender of activity of the body in the name of service (Karmayoga) does not mean the surrender of the very basic body! One may argue that even Prahlāda might have surrendered the body had he been born as a female like Gopika. Yes. We certainly agree to this point. But, unless it is practically seen, the point can’t get approval from the world of climax devotees. Based on assumption of the teacher that a student will pass the examination even if practically the examination is conducted, if the teacher gives pass certificate to the student, will he not be criticised by the public, which says that the teacher is partial to the student? The devoted hunter surrendered the most important part of the body (eyes) to God and this cannot be equated to the surrender of the total body to God. Total surrender of the body does not mean giving up the entire life of the body. The surrender of the body means surrender of the body by a female entangled in serious social rules and serious threats of sin in the form of horrible punishments in the hell. The two scenes are totally different in every angle. We can certainly take these climax devotees as our goals because we are far below in the spiritual level.
Hanumān is an incarnation of God to preach the selfless service to God. However much the ego of male may be suppressed, it will not disappear completely in the male birth itself unless the male soul is born as female. For this reason only, Rāma asked sages to be born as females in the next birth. This does not mean that the female-birth is always lacking the ego completely. This only means that the male person may suppress his ego totally in his male birth itself, still a trace of ego is leftover, which is inherent of male birth. If it is the case of a female, if she suppresses all her ego, no trace of inherent ego of male birth will be leftover in such female because such trace of ego is inherent to male only. Hence, female-birth as the final birth is inevitable in the path of salvation from worldly bonds. In the case of female, ego can come to zero value, but, in the case of male, the ego cannot come to zero value since the trace of ego inherent to the male nature remains unless the male is really born as female again. For this reason only, the male sages, who have suppressed their entire ego were made to take birth of females so that their trace of ego inherent to their male nature could also disappear and reach the value of absolute zero. Similarly, the trace of ego inherent to their knowledge could also become zero since they were born as uneducated. Similarly, the trace of ego inherent to their caste by birth could also become zero since they were born in backward caste. Like this, ego due to gender, ego due to knowledge and ego due to caste by birth were completely removed when the sages were born as Gopikas. Therefore, even Prahlāda had to be born again as a Gopika to reach Goloka even though Prahlāda reached the abode of God already.
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