Nåtya and Lunthan: Dancing and rolling on the Ground
Small children are prone to beg for attention from their fathers. A child will put his arms up in the air, dance around and call out to the father, who will respond by taking the child into his lap and fondle him lovingly. But if the father does not respond right away, the child cries and rolls on the ground. Seeing this is intolerable for the kind father, who certainly picks the child up. In this mood, dancing and rolling on the ground are an integral part of the performance of saìkértana. They are meant to petition the favor of the all-merciful Lord Çré Kåñëa, the Supreme Father.
Of course, this does not mean that devotees should abandon all sense of proper decorum, cry like banshees, and roll madly down the sidewalk on street saìkértana. In certain appropriate settings, such as Navadvépa Dhäma parikramä, devotees may, if they truly feel inspired, spontaneously cry out in ecstasy “Hariiiiii bol!” and madly roll in the dust of the Dhäma. Remember that in the beginning, Mahäprabhu held His nocturnal kértana parties behind locked doors in Çréväsa Äcärya’s house to prevent the faithless from committing offenses to the devotees.
Besides pleasing the Lord, a devotee’s dancing creates auspiciousness for the world as confirmed in Padma Puräëa and Hari-bhakti-sudhodaya [20.68]:
“O king, when the devotees of Lord Kåñëa dance, their steps crush the inauspiciousness of the earth, their glances destroy the inauspiciousness of the ten directions, and their upraised arms push away the inauspiciousness of the demigods’ planets.”
“O Lord, I am just like a puppet in Your hands. So if You have brought me here to dance, then make me dance, make me dance. O Lord, make me dance as You like.”
(Çréla Prabhupäda)
“In the Dvärakä-mahätmya, the importance of dancing before the Deity is stated by Lord Kåñëa as follows: ‘A person who is in a jubilant spirit, who feels profound devotional ecstasy while dancing before Me, and who manifests different features of bodily expression can burn away all the accumulated sinful reactions he has stocked up for many, many thousands of years.’ ” (NOD)
