Krishna teaches “Contribution without position” – Janmasthami meditation 1

Transcript

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taught us how we can grab opportunities wherever and whenever they present themselves so Krishna he is the supreme lord who descends to this world for the purpose of establishing dharma paritranaya sadhuna vinashaya duskrtana dharma samsthapnathaya sambhavami yuge yuge so when Krishna descends thus he is god when he comes in this world especially in the avatar of Krishna he does not take the position of a king he is a member of the of among the most formidable dynasties in his time he is he is a member of the Yadu dynasty and the Yadu and the Kurus they are among the most powerful dynasties in their times so Krishna although he is born in this dynasty and although he is disempowered initially because he has to flee for his life and stay in a pastoral setting in Vrindavan for the first few years of his life still when he comes back he exhibits extraordinary power and he overthrows the tyrant Kamsa who had terrorized the whole community of Kshatriyas for a very long time and yet after this dramatic overthrow Krishna does not take power himself although Krishna demonstrates the tremendous resourcefulness tremendous strength tremendous skill in overthrowing Kamsa which nobody else was able to do and yet after that he does not take power now Krishna he does the role he does the service of a ruler without taking up the privilege of a ruler so he focuses on contribution without position and this we see again also with respect to his relationship with Yudhishthir Yudhishthir would very well have subordinate himself to Krishna if Krishna had chosen to become the world emperor but Krishna did not do that Krishna instead encouraged and helped Yudhishthir to become the king so Krishna did not look for chase for even endeavor for any position in fact he focused on contribution now this is in sharp contrast today with today’s social leaders many of whom why for position and so for example even if we have some legislative assemblies where the throughout the sessions the legislators simply quarrel over various resolutions without doing any constructive work and most often the resolution that they unanimously pass is a resolution to increase their post retirement salaries so the contribution that they do is minimal but even after that they want to hold on to the position if not of the legislator then after being the legislator it is a retired legislator I should have lots of benefits now this is of course a very external example why does Krishna do such a role why does Krishna not take any position there are reasons that Krishna was born in a particular dynasty or particular lineage within the dynasty in which he was the dynasty was cursed that nobody would become the king and others would directly become the king but Krishna is not subordinate to any curse Krishna can drown any curse if he wants to so what does Krishna do then why does Krishna not take up a position actually Krishna is Bhakta Vatsala Krishna is the is the is a lord who loves his devotees and he wants to promote his devotees he wants to glorify his devotees so for glorifying his devotees what does he do he actually elevates them so look at how he deals with Ugrasya and how he deals with Yudhishthira so after Krishna comes back and overthrows Kamsa at that time all the Yadus come forward and they offer the crown to Kamsa in fact among all the people who come this past time he is describing Gopalachampu even Yudhishthira even Ugrasya is there they offer the crown of the Monarch to Krishna and Krishna very humbly and yet firmly says that I am not worthy of this the crown should go to the eldest among us and the eldest is Ugrasya Ugrasya Maharaj was the king and he was usurped by Kamsa now that Kamsa has been removed the crown should go back to Ugrasya so even from material perspective Krishna is from material perspective Krishna is actually focuses on treating the elders with respect Krishna’s past times have multiple lessons so this is one important point with respect to how Krishna deals with his devotees he teaches even a culture of mutual respect another point he teaches is that Ugrasya is not a very formidable ruler but still by Krishna’s power he becomes a formidable ruler and in contrast we see with Yudhishthira, Yudhishthira is already a great king but by the help of Krishna, Yudhishthira becomes the emperor of the world so Yudhishthira that by the grace of Krishna Krishna himself is a simple peacock feather but he puts a he puts the crown of the world on Yudhishthira and thus through them through Ugrasya who is the eldest and through Yudhishthira who is a very virtuous king, Krishna fulfills the mission of establishing Dharma Krishna is not concerned whether I am the king or not, he is concerned whether the mission of Dharma is established or not and as long as that contribution he is able to make he is not concerned about the position thus he teaches through the example that we should focus more on contribution rather than the position Hare Krishna Hare Krishna