Diwali meditation 5 – Damodara-lila – May the love that conquers the Supreme conquer our heart
Hare Krishna One of the festivals that is celebrated during Diwali is actually a month long celebration and that is a celebration when the devotees offer lamps not just on one day outside their homes lighting the homes but lamps are offered everyday to the Lord and this is the pastime of the Damodar Leela now the pastime itself is that Krishna once on committing some mischief on breaking the pots of butter, stealing butter feeding butter to the monkeys he annoyed and angered Mother Yashoda and when she decided to chase him and tie him and punish him, discipline him he fled after great effort she caught him and eventually after great effort she was able to tie him both this extraordinary activity of that Lord whom no one can catch, that Lord whom no one can tie, that Lord who can catch and tie everyone by the infallible inexorable laws of karma that Lord gets caught by Mother Yashoda that is the power of her devotion and her devotion is such that she can not only tie the Lord but she can induce fear within him within that person who the whole world turns to become free from fear she induces fear within that person from whom fear runs away in fear so the inversion of all the principles of normal operation material existence and inversion of the principles in which normally the pious persons interact with God, the complete inversion of those principles is manifested in this past time wherein God flees, God gets caught, God becomes fearful God becomes bound and such is the power of devotion in fact the Bhakti tradition describes that the kingdom of God is actually not the kingdom of God in the sense that in that kingdom God is not the king it is love that is the king, it is devotion that is the king and the devotion in the hearts of the devotees is so powerful that by that devotion even God becomes bound so in the kingdom of God it is love that reigns supreme and the tying of Krishna by mother Yashoda represents the triumph of devotion even over the object of devotion and on this day when devotees offer lamps to the Lord each day of the month of Damodar this is a festival the highlight, the central incident of this festival happens during the month of Damodar on the day of Diwali but that is celebrated throughout the month and we offer lamps to the Lord to worship that extraordinary past time where love reigns supreme even over the supreme such is the supremely attractive nature of the Lord whom we worship by remembering this attractiveness of the Lord we can energize and intensify our devotion and thus prepare our hearts to enter into this eternal world of divine love thank you Hare Krishna.