Krishnachandra Bhagvan delighted everyone in Vraja, especially all the gopis, cowherd girls, with his unending lilas, sports, of sweetness. He would sneak into the homes of the gopis and drink all milk and eat the curd and butter – not a pat but pots of butter! Sometimes, he would even break those pots. At other times, he would feed the milk and curd to the monkeys. This was one of his favourite pastimes, for all the monkeys were his friends who helped him during his Ram avatar. Actually, for all the butter he stole, he himself ate very little. Most of it, he simply gave away to others.
Every day, the gopis would rush to Yashoda’s house with endless complaints. Even so, all these complaints overflowed with love. The joy we feel when we give our children something to eat is far greater than eating it ourselves. And when a child comes sneakily, his eyes darting watchfully from here to there to ensure he does not get caught – this playful scene itself gives us immense joy.
Yet people call Bhagvan a thief – butter thief. Who is the real thief? The entire universe is his, so from whom is he stealing? Actually, we are the thieves. We have forcibly taken everything that is his and now insist that ‘this is mine’ and ‘that is mine’.
Butter is the culmination of churning curd; it is the primary purpose for churning curd. The Lord looks only for the main objective or essence in everything. The gopis would make butter with great love, and this is what the Lord saw and accepted. He accepts our pure intentions, our unconditional love, and our sincere efforts.
The gopis would milk their cow, boil the milk, make curd from the milk, and churn butter from the curd. And then? After all that work, they would keep it aside and not readily give it. We too, put forth much effort and enjoy the fruits of our actions, but we also create and collect more vasanas or innate impressions, along the way. After performing so many actions, what do we really gain in the end? Just a collection of vasanas that we are not ready to give up. So, the Lord tells us to give him all our collected vasanas, or he will come and take them away himself. What unfathomable compassion this is!
Now, if not this Lord, who else will you love? That Lord who steals away all our vasanas with his own hands, who liberates us, we call a butter thief, when his only concern is to grant us ultimate salvation.
Thus, one significance of stealing butter is that the Lord sees only the intention behind our actions. Another is that he frees us from all our vasanas.
The third significance is that in actuality, he does not come to steal milk, curd, or butter. In the Bhagwad Gita, Krishn says, “With whatever sentiment one looks upon me, in that form he attains me.” He is that Lord who comes to steal the hearts of all. Each and every gopi always kept hoping and waiting that the Lord would come to her home to steal the butter. If we turn to him with love, he in his compassion will surely fulfil that desire.
The writer belongs to Chinmaya Mission
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