One of the great Vaishnav Acharya Srila Bhakti Vedant Narayan Maharaj once explained the ‘chir haran’ pastimes of Sree Krishna, wherein He stole the clothes of Gopis when they were taking a dip in river Yamuna.
Although it may seem so, but this is not a deed of a material person overcome with lust, where a person filled with lust pulls a cloth of a girl. Pastimes of Sree Krishna are not like these because Sree Krishna has always offered adequate respect to women. For e.g. Demon Putna came to kill Him. She picked Him up like a mother and took Him in her lap like a mother. Although she wanted to kill Him by poisoning Him but she fed Him with her milk. Merciful Sree Krishna wondered to give her a position similar to His mother. So, Sree Krishna Who gave Putna a life in Vaikuntha similar to His mother, because she ‘only’ acted like a mother, how can He dis-respect any woman?
In the pastime of Chir-haran, Sree Krishna saved Draupadi from the assembly of men. He punished those who tried to de-robe her or bring defame to women, how He can show dis-respect to any woman?
Maharaj ji also said that Narakasur had held 16000 girls, women as captive to fulfil his desires. Sree Krishna killed him and released all those women. After He killed Narakasura, He said to all of them — You are now free to go back to your place of residence. I can arrange to drop you to the destination. All of them replied in unison — No, no. we cannot go anywhere. We are ready to become your servants, but cannot go back. No one will accept us. Please provide us Your shelter.
Sree Krishna out of His Causeless mercy, accepted their prayers and married them and made them queens. He gave each separate palace to live in.
Such were His pastimes with women, so how can He defame Gopis by taking away their clothes?
We must always go through the appearance pastimes of Sree Krishna which will reveal to us that Sree Krishna is not an ordinary human being. He is transcendental., He is Bhagavan.
Please go through the pastimes of Supreme Lord Sree Krishna, when He stole the clothes. Sree Krishna at that time was about 5 years old and Gopis were of 5 or maximum 6 years old. If we will move back in time, we may recall that, children of 5-6 years used to roam here and there without clothes. So, under these circumstances of a boy lift the clothes of girls, when they were bathing, nothing should be mis-interpreted from such pastime.
Since our minds are polluted, hence we always have polluted thoughts.
Once His Divine Grace Srila Bhakti Dayita Madhav Goswami Maharaj ‘Vishnupad’ was sitting on a stage with a sannyasi of Ramanuja sampradaya. During his lecture that sannyasi explained that Sree Krishna performed such pastime only to convey to worldly people that one must not bathe naked.
Hence one cannot understand pastimes of Sree Krishna, without understanding Sree Krishna.
