Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrī Caitanya Caritāmṛta Antya 5.45-46

vraja-vadhū-sańge kṛṣṇera rāsādi-vilāsa

yei jana kahe, śune kariyā viśvāsa

hṛd-roga-kāma tāńra tat-kāle haya kṣaya

tina-guṇa-kṣobha nahe, 'mahā-dhīra' haya

SYNONYMS

vraja-vadhū-sańge — in the association of the damsels of Vrajabhūmi; kṛṣṇera — of Lord Kṛṣṇa; rāsa-ādi-vilāsa — pastimes like the rāsa dance; yei — which; jana — person; kahe — describes; śune — hears; kariyā viśvāsa — with great faith; hṛt-roga — the disease of the heart; kāma — lust; tāńra — of him; tat-kāle — at that time; haya kṣaya — becomes nullified; tina-guṇa — of the three modes of material nature; kṣobha — agitation; nahe — is not; mahā-dhīra — very sober; haya — becomes.

TRANSLATION

"When one hears or describes with great faith the pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṇa, such as His rāsa dance with the gopīs, the disease of lusty desires in his heart and the agitation caused by the three modes of material nature are immediately nullified, and he becomes sober and silent.

PURPORT

Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura comments in this connection, "Any person seriously inclined to hear about the pastimes of Kṛṣṇa's rāsa dance, as mentioned in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, with great faith and a transcendental, spiritually inspired mind, is immediately freed from the natural lusty desires found within the heart of a materialistic man."

When a pure Vaiṣṇava speaks on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and another pure Vaiṣṇava hears Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam from such a realized soul, both of them live in the transcendental world, where the contamination of the modes of material nature cannot touch them. Freed from the contamination of the modes of nature, the speaker and hearer are fixed in a transcendental mentality, knowing that their position on the transcendental platform is to serve the Supreme Lord. The class of men known as prākṛta-sahajiyās, who consider the transcendental pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṇa something like the behavior between a man and a woman in the material field, artificially think that hearing the rāsa-līlā will help them by diminishing the lusty desires of their diseased hearts. But because they do not follow the regulative principles but instead violate even ordinary morals, their contemplation of rāsa-līlā is a futile attempt, which sometimes results in their imitating the dealings of the gopīs and Lord Kṛṣṇa. To forbid such habits of the prākṛta-sahajiyās, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu has excluded their material intelligence by using the word viśvāsa ("faith"). In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.33.30), Śrīla Śukadeva Gosvāmī says:

naitat samācarej jātu manasāpi hy anīśvaraḥ

vinaśyaty ācaran mauḍhyād yathā rudro 'bdhijaḿ viṣam

"Certainly one who is not the Supreme Personality of Godhead should never, even within his mind, imitate the activities of the transcendental rāsa-līlā of Kṛṣṇa. If out of ignorance one does so, he will be destroyed, just as if he were to imitate Lord Śiva, who drank poison produced from the ocean."

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness