One of the most popular "Baalaleelaas" or childhood pranks of Krishna is stealing butter from the house of Gopikaas. Even though it appears as a description of the naughtiness of young Krishna, this has a much deeper meaning.
Butter is made by churning the yogurt made from cow's milk. Milk represents Upanishads which are the essence of Vedaas represented by cows. The starter to transform the milk to yogurt or curd is the "desire to know about the Absolute". The extreme heat of ones spiritual sacrifice boils the milk and the desire itself acts as the starter and transforms the milk into curd.
Churning represents the hard spiritual disciplines of a Dhaka to separate the butter representing the Absolute truth. Just like the truth is beautiful and pure, butter is pure, tasty and soft. After attaining this stage a devotee' or sadhu'KA'sst melts like butter with pure Bhakthi and attitude of surrender.
This is what Krishna symbolically stole from the Gopikaas.
So in all Krishna temples and especially in Guruvayoor, offering of butter is considered as very auspicious. Many devotees do butter offering everyday and some do Thulaabhaaram with butter. If one offers butter to Krishna, imagining that it is a symbol of his/her selfless love, He will accept it and will keep stealing our hearts filled with the love for Him until all our butter melts and joins his love for the whole Universe!
2) Some minor thoughts:
(i) Stealing is to take something unlawfully or to take something that belongs to somebody else, illegally or without the owner's permission. But all in the universe belongs to Lord Krishna.
(ii) Lord Krishna is Bakthavatsala. Lord Krishna took voluntarily beaten rice from Kuchala brfore before it was offered to Him (SB 10.81.3 to SB 10.81.8).
(iii) During Krishna?s mission as messenger Lord Krishna declined Duryodhana's invitation for dinner, He went to Vidura's house where He dined and took rest.
(iv) Accoding to Dharma Sastra one sixth of the earning is to be given as Daana.
More over Gopikas did not give butter even as prasad to Lord Krishna. These gopis were rishis earlier and prayed Lord Vishnu to live along with Him future.
They made tapas and attained a stage similar to transferring from milk to butter. Lord Krishna accepted their prema and took the butter symbolically. Inreturn gave moksha to all the gopis (Rishis) later.
Here also Lord Krishna took butter voluntarily and in exchange gave moksha later, a good bargain! Rasa Lila was the immediate benefit for the gopikas!!
Krishna was ma khan ch or, stealer of butter. Butter is from milk. Milk is fermented to get curd and the curd is churned to get butter. Life is a process of churning. Your mind is being churned by so many things, events, happenings, and instances.
Finally what comes up is butter which is the saintliness in you. And Krishna steals the butter, the saintliness. It means he loves this mind which is like butter, which is not hard. This means infinity is coming towards you, loves you so much that it steals you at any cost. He seeks you out, wherever you are.
He is also a thief. If Krishna did, it is a fatwa and if anyone other do, he is a thief. wonder..wonder..He also theft girls cloths. what is that fatwa madam ?
Lord Sri Krishna is sometimes described as a thief. He is very famous amongst His pure devotees as the Makhana-Cora. He used to steal butter from the houses of neighbors at Vrndavana in His early age. Since then He is famous as a thief. But in spite of His being famous as a thief, He is worshiped as a thief, whereas in the mundane world a thief is punished and is never praised. Since He is the Absolute Personality of Godhead, everything is applicable to Him, and still in spite of all contradictions He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
http://vedabase.net/sb/1/10/19/en2
In enjoying K???a's attitude of stealing butter very stealthily, mother Ya?od? experienced the ecstasy of maternal love by smelling His head, sometimes patting His body with her hand, sometimes offering blessings, sometimes ordering Him, sometimes gazing at Him, sometimes maintaining Him and sometimes giving Him good instructions not to become a thief. Such activities are in maternal ecstatic love. An important point to be observed in this connection is that the childish propensity of stealing is there even in the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and therefore this propensity is not artificial. However, in the spiritual relationship there is no inebriate to this stealing propensity, as there is in the material world.
Nectar of Devotion, by Srila Prabhupada, translation of Bhaktirasamrta Sindhu by Srila Rupa Gosvami
Krishna is known as "the butter thief." But Krishna's stealing and our stealing are different. Because we are materially contaminated, our stealing is abominable, whereas on the spiritual, absolute platform the same stealing is so nice that it is enjoyable. Mother Yasoda therefore enjoys Krishna's activities of stealing. This is the difference between material and spiritual.
Teachings of Queen Kunti.
In His village of Vrindavana He enjoyed Himself with His mother, brother and friends, and when He played the role of a naughty butter thief, all His associates enjoyed celestial bliss by His stealing. The Lord's fame as a butter thief is not reproachable, for by stealing butter the Lord gave pleasure to His pure devotees. Everything the Lord did in Vrindavana was for the pleasure of His associates there. The Lord created these pastimes to attract the dry speculators and the acrobats of the so-called hatha-yoga system who wish to find the Absolute Truth.
http://vedabase.net/iso/15/en1
Krishna's Lila (spiritual pastime) as the butter thief, for example, shows how God is the source of all human tendencies, even mischief. Krishna's stealing, however, is free from greed and envy, and serves only to enhance the love of his devotees. For centuries, such stories have captured the hearts of millions of Hindu people.
The Vedic culture of India is steeped in esoteric knowledge, and has developed to such a degree that the sages in this culture have discovered the soul.
They have also discovered God within and without, and through research into the Supreme Personality of Godhead, they have even discovered and realized different relationships with God. We can never imagine or realize transcendental relationships with the Supreme Personality of Godhead through our imperfect material senses and knowledge. However, the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna Himself transmits transcendental knowledge through an unbroken succession of spiritual masters and disciples and the true nature of devotion in this book describes those pastimes.
Hinduism - What is the Tatwa behind the stealing the butter by the Baby Krishna ?
