SENSUAL ATTRACTION
\nThis extreme desire to serve the Lord is manifest in the transcendental land of Vraja. And it is specifically manifested among the gop\u012bs. The gop\u012bs\u2019 love for K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a is so elevated that for our understanding it is sometimes explained as being \u201clusty desire.\u201d
\nThe author of \u015ar\u012b Caitanya-carit\u0101m\u1e5bta, Kavir\u0101ja K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47ad\u0101sa, has explained the distinction between lusty desire and the service attitude in this statement: \u201c\u2009\u2018Lusty desire\u2019 refers to the desire to gratify one\u2019s personal senses, and \u2018transcendental desire\u2019 refers to the desire for serving the senses of the Lord.\u201d In the material world there is no such thing as a lover\u2019s wanting to please the senses of his beloved. Actually, in the material world, everyone wants mainly to gratify his own personal senses. The gop\u012bs, however, wanted nothing at all but to gratify the senses of the Lord, and there is no instance of this in the material world. Therefore the gop\u012bs\u2019 ecstatic love for K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a is sometimes described by scholars as being like the \u201clusty desire\u201d of the material world, but actually this should not be taken as a literal fact. It is simply a way of trying to understand the transcendental situation.
\nGreat devotees up to the standard of Uddhava are very dear friends of the Lord, and they desire to follow in the footsteps of the gop\u012bs. So the gop\u012bs\u2019 love for K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a is certainly not material lusty desire. Otherwise, how could Uddhava aspire to follow in their footsteps? Another instance is Lord Caitanya Himself. After accepting the sanny\u0101sa order of life, He was very, very strict about avoiding association with women, but still He taught that there is no better method of worshiping K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a than that conceived by the gop\u012bs. Thus the gop\u012bs\u2019 method of worshiping the Lord as if impelled by lusty desire was praised very highly even by \u015ar\u012b Caitanya Mah\u0101prabhu. This very fact means that although the attraction of the gop\u012bs for K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a appears to be lusty, it is not in the least bit material. Unless one is fully situated in the transcendental position, the relationship of the gop\u012bs with K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a is very difficult to understand. But because it appears to be just like ordinary dealings of young boys and girls, it is sometimes misinterpreted to be like the ordinary sex of this material world. Unfortunately, persons who cannot understand the transcendental nature of the love affairs of the gop\u012bs and K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a take it for granted that K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2019s love affairs with the gop\u012bs are mundane transactions, and therefore they sometimes indulge in painting licentious pictures in some modernistic style.
\nOn the other hand, the lusty desire of Kubj\u0101 is described by learned scholars as being \u201calmost lusty desire.\u201d Kubj\u0101 was a hunchbacked woman who also wanted K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a with a great ecstatic love. But her desire for K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a was almost mundane, and so her love cannot be compared to the love of the gop\u012bs. Her loving affection for K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a is called k\u0101ma-pr\u0101y\u0101, or almost like the gop\u012bs\u2019 love for K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SENSUAL ATTRACTION This extreme desire to serve the Lord is manifest in the transcendental land of Vraja. And it is specifically manifested among the gop\u012bs. The gop\u012bs\u2019 love for K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a is so elevated that for our … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 18:40:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37879\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}