In the Brhad Bhagavatamrta, there are other descriptions of demons appearing in the spiritual world. These descriptions appear in the two final chapters after Gopa Kumara attains Goloka Vrindavana.
While there, he had the opportunity of presensing many of Krsna’s pastimes, like Krsna taking His lunch, Krsna playing with His cowherd friends and even some of His pastimes with the Gopis. By these beautiful descriptions, we can have a glimpse of the sweet environment of the supreme abode. However, he also describes pastimes involving demons. On BB 2.6.255–262, for example, it’s described that:
“Once two dear servants of the wicked Kamsa, Kesi and Aristasura, came to Vraja. Kesi assumed the form of a fearful horse, and Aristasura assumed the form of a bull, and they both began terrifying the cowherd boys and the cows. Their bodies were so massive it was as if they could touch the sky, and when they both roared very loudly at the same time, all living entities became terrified and fell to the ground.
Because they were frightened of those demons, the dear friends of Sri Krsna forcibly prevented Him from going near the demons. Still, after consoling them, with pride like that of a warrior He flexed His muscles and went before those demons. First, with great ferocity, the Kesi demon came before Him, and Sri Krsna kicked him
in such a way that he landed far away. Next Aristasura came, and then Sri Krsna pierced his nose, passed a rope through it, and then brought him before the deity of Sri Gopisvara Mahadeva.
After that, the Kesi demon attacked Him again. Then the greatly valorous Sri Krsna forcibly jumped on it and climbed upon its back. To subdue him, He made the demon run in such a way that it was as if it was being trained. In this way, His taming of the demon was immensely splendid.
Then quickly His countles cowherd friends also grabbed the horse with their hands and climbed upon it. Playing with the horse in a marvelous fashion, they made it jump here and there, sometimes in the sky and sometimes on the earth. Having within an instant bridled the horse and brought it fully under His control, for the purpose of enjoying riding pastimes Sri Krsna kept it tied up with a rope in Vraja. He also kept the bull to pull carts.”
Gopa Kumara didn’t go back to the material world after reaching Goloka Vrindavana. These pastimes of Krsna fighting Kesi and Aristasura, as well as Kaliya and other demons that are described in the book happened while Gopa Kumara was in the spiritual Goloka Vrindavana. How can this be? Are the pastimes of Krsna killing these demons part of his Nitya Lila that goes on continuously on the spiritual planets? How could demons reach there to take part in these pastimes? Would they be eternal associates of Krsna who are playing as demons?
Srila Prabhupada makes clear in his purports that there are no inimical demons in the spiritual world. The Srimad Bhagavatam makes mention of demons worshipping the Lord, but these are not envious demons, but just devotees who previously took birth in demoniac families and achieved liberation from there. There is no possibility of anyone challenging Krsna in the spiritual world, such pastimes can happen only here, in the material world. We can see that even when Jaya and Vijaya desired to fight the Lord, they had to come to the material world and take birth as demons for it to happen.
An intelligent reader will notice an apparent contradiction here. If there are no demons in the spiritual world, how Gopa Kumara could experience all these pastimes while there?
The point is that these pastimes don’t happen there, but here, in the material world. Krsna is constantly taking birth in different universes, and during these pastimes, He fights many demons. Krsna never leaves Vrindavana, therefore when Krsna comes to play His pastimes in any of the material universes the whole Goloka Vrindavan comes with Him.
When this happens, the earthly Vrindavana in the universe where Krsna is playing His pastimes becomes a kind of portal, where the realities of the material and spiritual worlds merge. One who sees Vrindavana from the outside may see it as a small village, occupying a finite tract of land, but if one has the opportunity of entering there he will see that the space inside is actually unlimited. This happens because, proportinally to his devotion, when one enters Vrindavana he gains access to the higher reality of the spiritual abode.
Something similar happens with Dwaraka and other holy places. We can see that during the pastime of the disappearance of the Yadhu dynasty, only part of the Yadhus get out of the city and are killed during the bamboo fight. Most of the Yadhus remain inside the city and simply disappear alongside it after Krsna leaves the planet. It’s described that the Yadhus who left the city were incarnations of different demigods who were supposed to return to their posts, while the Yadhus who remained in the city were Krsna’s personal associates who departed with Him. We can see that in this pastime Krsna manifested the whole spiritual Dwaraka inside the Dwaraka situated on this planet, and somehow the nitya-siddhas and the devotees who joined the lila from this planet were interacting there.
The ethernal associates of Krsna can thus see the different pastimes of Krsna kiling demons, Krsna going to Mathura with Akrura, and so on. Somehow or other, these pastimes that Krsna executes here in the material world merge into the eternal pastimes that happen in the spiritual world.
There are many details about these mystical occurrences that we can’t properly understand, like if all associates can witness these pastimes or just a few of them, and also how the pastimes can merge like that if time in the spiritual world is supposed to go infinitely faster than time in the material world. Possibly we can get these answers only when we go there, if ever. However, I tried to explain as far as I could.