UDDHAVA VISITS VRNDAVAN

Reading "Krishna Book" Chapter 45
This is the first time we get to visit Vrndavan after Krishna and Balarama leave. Uddhava takes us there. This is a very instructive section. How to understand Krishna's absence and yet presence. Krishna empowers Uddhava, a resident of Mathura, to make this understanding possible.

I became aware that there were two ways to look at the situation. At first I was only seeing people lamenting that someone they loved and who gave them great pleasure was now gone. It was not just Krishna who left it was also Balarama. Thinking about how much they loved Them and missed Them. The things They did, the places They had been to together, Their exploits, Their bodily features etc. Not available now. Like anyone would feel about someone they loved who had gone away.

But then then I saw it a different way, after Uddhava began speaking with Nanda Maharaja. They talked about Krishna all night. Uddhava. the resident of Mathura speaks about Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the source of all creation, the supersoul. Then the focus for me shifts. What the residents of Vrnadavan were lamenting was not that they would not enjoy Krishna anymore... but how "they would not be able to serve Krishna." All their activities with Krishna were for Krishna's pleasure. Because Krishna was accepting and enjoying their service, they were happy and feeling pleasure. How could they serve Krishna now?

Srila Prabhupada explains that the advanced devotees have concluded that Krishna was still present in Vrndavan by His bhava expansion. Which means He was accepting their service in that form. He was accepting and enjoying their service in the mood of separation. And they also were experiencing transcendental ecstasy in the same way. Krishna Himself desires to know what they are experiencing in the mood of service in separation. Evidence for that is His appearance as Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

"While describing the uncommon activities of Krishna before Uddhava, Nanda Maharaja gradually became overwhelmed and could not speak anymore. As for mother Yasoda, she sat by the side of her husband and heard the pastimes of Krishna without speaking. She was simply crying incessantly, and milk was pouring from her breasts . When Uddhava saw Maharaja Nanda and Yasoda so extraordinarily overwhelmed with thoughts of Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and when he experienced their extraordinary affection for Him, he also became overwhelmed and began to speak as follows . "My dear mother Yasoda and Nanda Maharaja, you are most respectable among human beings because no one but you can meditate in such transcendental ecstasy." KB 45

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