In our last meditation, “The Unstable Middle,” we laid out a stark geography of reality. We found two “stable” Poles of Truth:
- The Left Pole (Śūnyatā): The silent, non-dual Emptiness.
- The Right Pole (Pūrṇa): The overflowing, infinitely unique Fullness.
And between them, we found the “unstable Middle Realm”—the Anitya (impermanence) of the causal world we inhabit. We defined this realm as the “maddening confusion” of our normal waking state, and causality as its native language.
This map was complete, but it left us with a burning, terrible question: If the Middle Realm is just “unstable confusion,” why are we here? And if the Poles are “stable,” how do we get there?
That question itself—”how do we get there?”—is a causal trap. The Middle Realm, ever the trickster, invites us to journey from it. But as we’ve discovered, you cannot travel from an illusion. You can only awaken from it.
Our last essay was the map of the prison. This one is the story of the prison break. And the story is a Lila—a divine play. The story is the Makhan Chor, the Butter Thief.
I. The “Most Sought After” Suffering
First, we must correct a misidentification. The “unstable Middle Realm” is not just simple ignorance. It is sophisticated, sought-after knowledge.
The “maddening confusion” is not the state of not-knowing. It is the state of perpetually knowing. It is the “grand spiritual exhibition” of the “knower”—the ego—compiling, explaining, and displaying its “realizations.”
This is the “grandest form of suffering.” Why? Because it is the most subtle, elegant, and “binding” prison cell. The ego, feeling the terror of the silent, stable Poles, builds a fortress out of spiritual concepts. It becomes the “one who understands non-duality.” It explains causality, it maps the Poles, it writes blogs about it.
This knowledge, this “butter” churned from the “milk” of samsara, becomes the very rope we use to try and bind reality. And that is where our story truly begins.
II. The Churning of Yashoda
The Bhagavata Purana gives us the perfect metaphor for this entire process.
- Yashoda (the loving mother) is the Jiva, the individual self, the “I” in the Middle Realm.
- The Churning of Milk is the Causal Process—the endless intellectual and spiritual “process of knowledge.” It is the “torture” we spoke of, the “escape velocity” we try to build. It is our life’s work of churning the “unstable” milk of samsara to extract something “stable.”
- The Butter (Makhan) is the “Knowledge” itself. It is the product of our suffering, the creme of our “spiritual masterclass.” It is the ego’s most prized possession: “my realization,” “my understanding,” “my virtue.”
- Krishna is the Absolute, the “stable view,” the Non-Dual Reality.
Yashoda, out of her love—her free will—churns the butter. She creates this knowledge. And then, proud of her possession, she does the inevitable: She takes her “butter” (her knowledge) and makes it into a rope. She tries to bind Krishna with it.
This is the ultimate, “unfortunate” tragedy of the Middle Realm. We use our “free” will to “bind” reality. We use the very products of our spiritual search as the final, binding chain.
III. The Exhaustion of Agency
Here is the “Yes. And No.” of whether knowledge liberates.
The “Yes”: The churning is necessary. This causal “process of knowledge” is the Lila. Yashoda must churn. We must engage in the “grand spiritual exhibition.” We must gather our knowledge, build our models, and create the butter. This is the script of the play.
The “No”: The butter itself does not liberate. It binds.
Here we find the true meaning of “exhaustion.” It is not that we gather enough knowledge and then “graduate” to the Poles. That is causal thinking.
No. The “exhaustion” is the moment Yashoda fails. It is the total existential collapse of her entire project. She churns, she makes the rope, she tries to tie Him… and the rope is always too short. She exhausts her “free will.” She exhausts her “I-will-bind-Him” agency.
The “escape velocity” we spoke of is not a rocket that reaches the Poles. It is the force of our own suffering that builds until it shatters the “knowledge-prison” from within. The “process of knowledge” does not produce liberation; it produces the intolerable pressure that invites it.
IV. The Theft as the Gestalt Collapse
And then, after we exhaust our will, He exercises His “Ever Free Will.”
The “gestalt collapse” (from our first essay) is the “theft.”
Krishna, the Makhan Chor, does not negotiate with Yashoda. He does not accept her binding. He steals the butter.
This is the non-causal interruption of Grace. It is the “stable view” invading the “unstable Middle.” For the ego, for Yashoda, this is the ultimate “shaming” and “nakedness.” Her most prized possession, her “butter,” her very identity as the “knower,” is stolen.
The “theft” frees Yashoda from her possession. The “shame” of the ego is the “liberation” of the Self. He “steals everything” to “free us truly.”
This is the Lila’s punchline. The suffering of the Middle Realm was a divine setup. The “binding” of knowledge was the necessary prerequisite for the joy of the “theft.”
V. The Final “Steal”
This leads us to the final, critical realization—the “theft” that resolves the entire play.
We were left with a duality: “our free will” (which binds) vs. “His Ever Free Will” (which frees). But the “stable Poles” are non-dual. This distinction itself must be the final illusion of the Middle Realm.
The Makhan Chor doesn’t just steal the butter.
He doesn’t just steal the “knower.”
He steals the very distinction between the “owner” and the “thief.”
The final “gestalt collapse” is the recognition that “our will” was always “His will” playing the game of “getting bound.”
Yashoda is Krishna, pretending to be Yashoda, pretending to churn “butter” that was never real, to tie “ropes” that never existed, just to enjoy the Lila of being “stolen” by Himself.
The “unstable Middle” is the play. The “stable Poles” are the audience and the stage. And the “theft” is the play’s glorious, compassionate, and inevitable reveal.
The “maddening confusion” was, all along, the Makhan Chor’s divine, loving, and intricate invitation to come and play.
Reinvent The Self! 