User:David G Brault/ Rasa lila

The  Rasa-lila, also known as the “rasa dance” and as the “Dance of Love”, is a pastime of Krishna in which the gopis of Vrindavan, upon hearing the sound of Krishna's flute, sneak away from their households and families to the forest to dance with Krishna during the night, which Krishna supernaturally stretches to the length of one Night of Brahma, a Hindu unit of time lasting approximately  4.32 billion years.

Famously described in both the Bhagavat Purana and the Gita Govinda, Krishna's rasa-lila is considered to be one of the highest and most esoteric pastimes honored in the Krishna Bhakti traditions, according to which romantic love between human beings in the material world is seen as a perverted form of the soul’s original, natural, spiritual love for Krishna, God. In the Bhagavata Purana it is stated that “Anyone who faithfully hears or describes the Lord's playful affairs with the young gopis of Vrindavana will attain the Lord's pure devotional service.” (Bhagavat Purana 10.33.39)

Name
The name comes from the Sanskrit words  rasa and lila, with rasa meaning “juice”, “nectar”, "emotion" or "sweet taste" and lila meaning "pastime". So literally, this is the “nectar pastime”. It is often freely rendered as “the dance of love''.

Imitation
Ras Lila is also the name of a romantic and graceful dance in Classic  Manipuri dance which revolves around the same story of the love between Krishna and the cowherd girls and tells the divine love story of Lord Krishna and Radha, his lover. This form of dance was started by Maharaja Bhagya Chandra in 1779 and in some parts of India is still performed every year on Krishna’s birthday. According to different traditions, the rasa-lila is performed either by boys and girls, or by boys only who play as the gopis. The dance is performed holding dandi or sticks and is often times accompanied with folk songs and devotional music.

Negative views
The imitation of Krishna’s Rasa Lila (as in, running of in the middle of the night to dance with cowherd girls) is strongly condemned in the Bhagavata Purana, which strongly emphasizes the difference between Krishna’s transcendental pastimes and the romances of ordinary people, which are thought of as contaminated with selfishness. In this scripture it is stated that due to the unique position of Krishna such actions are correct for him, while for us, “One who is not a great controller should never imitate the behavior of ruling personalities, even mentally. If out of foolishness an ordinary person does imitate such behavior, he will simply destroy himself, just as a person who is not Rudra would destroy himself if he tried to drink an ocean of poison. (Bhagavat Purana 10.33.30)