Was Putana delivered because of destiny?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
How Krishna delivered Uttana. Let’s mention this briefly.
So your question is that, was it destiny that she became Krishna’s mother? She was delivered in the spiritual world. Or was it because for any reason she comes, when somebody comes to Krishna and offers something to them, to him, they will be delivered. Definitely it’s not destiny.
Generally we have this idea of what is destiny. Destiny basically is, you could say, the kind of situations that befall us in our life. How we respond to those situations is up to us.
Sometimes we also use the word destiny in another sense. That somebody is just trying for greatness. A small child is just a mathematical prodigy.
Then he is fulfilled his destiny. He will become a great mathematician. So we use it in a different sense also.
That what somebody is meant to achieve. So was Uttana meant to achieve Krishna? No. In this case, it was Krishna’s extraordinary mercy.
Now, is it true that anybody who approaches Krishna for any purpose, they get purified? Yeah, that is true. It is said that, So different people come to Krishna for different reasons. And because they become personally absorbed in Krishna, they become purified by that absorption.
Now in the case of Uttana, so for example, Kamsa was constantly absorbed in Krishna out of fear. Kamsa Krishna will come and kill me. Krishna will come and kill me.
So it is said he was so absorbed that at night, when he would be lying down and his wife would come near him, Krishna has come. So he would not see his wife would see Krishna. It was a level of absorption.
And similarly, Shishupala also was absorbed in envy. There’s no description specifically that Uttana was absorbed like that in Krishna. So different characters illustrate different principles of Bhakti, different principles of life.
So when Kamsa is eventually delivered or when Shishupala is delivered, that illustrates the principle of the fruit of absorption. That if one is anyway absorbed in Krishna, they will be elevated. It is not just approaching Krishna.
Approaching Krishna is the beginning. It is absorption in Krishna. So it is, they were absorbed in Krishna, so they were elevated and liberated.
In the case of Uttana, there is no description that she was that absorbed in Krishna constantly. She is just deputed by Kamsa to kill Krishna. So in the case of Kamsa, in the case of Uttana, her deliverance is a demonstration, not so much of the potency of absorption as the potency of Krishna’s mercy, Krishna’s extraordinary reciprocation.
So normally, there is a word called causeless mercy. Now, what does causeless mercy mean? It means that the cause is too less for the mercy. There is a cause, but normally we have reciprocation.
If person A gives somebody $100, then they give some product which is $100. There is equal to no. Mercy means that it’s completely disproportionate.
Something which we don’t deserve, we are giving. So causeless mercy doesn’t mean there is absolutely no cause. There is a cause, but there is no proportionality.
The cause is very little and the result what is given is very, very large. In the case of Uttana, Krishna saw that there is a spiritual principle and there is a material principle. And both can work in parallel.
Say, for example, if somebody has got diabetes and they see some Gulati and it’s prasad. Oh, this is prasad. How can I refuse it? Now, they take the prasad.
Now, you can say prasad always purifies. Yes, it always purifies. The purification is at the spiritual level.
At the material level, if somebody has diabetes, there will be a result at the material level. Isn’t it? So if you wanted purification only, then you could have taken rice and chapati also. Why did you take gulab jamun specifically? So if you are taking it for purification, then that particular thing which we took, that might be inappropriate because it has some effect at the material level also.
So in the case of Uttana coming toward Krishna, at that time, at the spiritual level, because she had this spark of maternal affection, at least maternal action that she did. So because of that, Krishna appreciated it. He has done some maternal actions.
And it is described that she was, in her previous life, Kuttamala. And she was the sister of Bali Maharaj. And when she saw Vamana at that small time, she was so happy.
She said, this is nice. And she had some maternal affection to her. But then immediately the maternal affection changed.
When she saw that Vamana has taken everything away from Bali Maharaj, she became very angry. So from that previous life also, from this life also, there was a small amount of positive action or positive intention, whichever way you want to look at it. And Krishna appreciated that.
But this was at the spiritual level. At the spiritual level, Krishna took it small. Oh, you have acted as if you want to give milk to me.
I will give the facility to forever or permanently. That was at the spiritual level. But at the material level, because she acted in terms of a murderess, so she got the result at the material level.
The material level, the result was that she tried to kill Krishna. And then the normal principle is, if someone tries to assassinate you, kill you. Then in self-defense, you can kill that person.
So she got the result at the material level because of her evil actions. But because her evil actions were done in a way that there was some maternal affection over there, she was elevated. So it’s Krishna’s causeless mercy.
It’s not destiny in that case. There were some factors which had come from a previous life. But just the previous life’s factors were not enough.
It was Krishna’s special mercy that led to her elevation.