Damodarashtakam 3 – The unique loveliness of the Krishna conception of God

[Talk at Irvine, California, USA] Video:

Hare Krishna. Thank you for coming today evening.

And now is the sacred month of Damodar going on. So, I'll speak on the theme of the unique loveliness of Krishna as God. That there is a unique sweetness and loveliness to this this conception, this vision, this revelation of Krishna as God.

I'll speak this based on a song that we sing in this month, the Damodar Ashtakam. I'll specifically take the third text from the Damodar Ashtakam. And we will meditate on that and we'll look at this theme.

So, the third text is Itthidruksva leelabhir anandakunde that in this way Krishna performed pastimes. And what is the pastime? This Damodar is the pastime where the Lord becomes tied by Mother Yashoda. So, he is performing such pastimes Suvaleelabhir.

And what is he doing? Anandakunde. He is drowning his devotees in an ocean of ecstasy, in an ocean of joy. Kunda is a place where we go to take a bath.

So, Anandakunda is a place where we bathe in joy. So, what is that about these pastimes that bring such joy? We'll discuss that. Let's look at the verse.

Swaghosham nimajantam akhyapayantam That Swaghosham with his own associates, intimate associates who are Vrindavan. Itthidruksva leelabhir anandakunde Swaghosham nimajantam akhyapayantam With his pastimes close devotees, he is proclaiming to the world. What? Tadiyeshita geshu bhaktairjitatvam Tadiya Ishitageshu Those of his associates who are aware of his greatness.

He is telling them that he is conquered not by those who adore his greatness. Tadiyeshita geshu bhaktairjitatvam That I am conquered by love. punaprematastam shatavritivande At that Lord who is conquered by love, I offer him hundreds of obeisances.

So, I'll talk about this class in three broad parts. One is I'll talk about how the various traditions talk about God's greatness. The second is how the bhakti tradition reveals his sweetness.

And lastly how this sweetness is especially enduring and enrapturing if you want to develop a personal relationship with the Lord. So, basically when we function in the world sooner or later we start realising that we are not in charge of the world. You know when a small baby is there, the baby cries and for the baby it appears the whole world has come running to them.

The mother comes running, the father comes running, the nurse comes running. So, the baby thinks that the whole world revolves around him or her. But as the baby starts growing he starts realising that so many things happen that I don't want them the way to happen.

And over a period of time we realise that our thoughts and our desires have very little consequence on the world. Suppose somebody was awake at night and we ask them, deep in thought he says, what are you thinking? I am thinking whether the sun should rise tomorrow or not. Laughter Whatever you think the sun is going to rise.

So, now if somebody says like that, you will say that's absurd. What is the use of thinking like that? But many times our thoughts are like that. We think about so many things over which we have so little control.

We think, oh okay, in the Indian elections which political party will win or the cricket World Cup which country will win and how much control do we have over that? So, over a period of time we start realising that we are not in control. And then gradually we start thinking, is there someone in control? And there is a you could say there is a evolution in understanding. First people when they see the world things happening chaotically in the world there is no God.

There is no God at all. And then that idea is there is this wrong and that wrong and that wrong. So many things are going wrong in the world.

And it's true there are many things going wrong in the world. But actually when people, one of the strongest arguments that the atheists have against theists is that what they call the problem of evil. Why do bad things happen to good people? Well, recently I was in Canada so one six year old boy came and he asked me this question.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Normally when somebody asks this question the first thing you want to know is where are they coming from? What do they have in mind? So I asked what happened? And he said today morning I was eating my biscuit in my milk and my biscuit dissolved and fell into the milk. So that is the bad thing that happened to a good person. I lost my biscuit.

How will I taste it? It's a bad thing. So for all of us there may be different ideas of what bad things are. But that's a universal question that everyone has sooner or later.

And it's a serious philosophical question. before we address that question we can question the presumption underlying that question. The presumption is why should bad things not happen to good people? What do you mean? No, good things should happen to good people and bad things should happen to bad people.

Why? Who said that? That's the right thing. But why should the right thing happen? If your presumption is there is no God then why should there be a correlation between what we do and what we get? If the very problem of evil presumes a natural correlation between actions and it is because naturally we do see actions produce the results. We do see that if a student studies well they get good marks.

If we do exercise our body becomes healthy. If we eat in regulated way we can become fitter. So we do see a correlation between action and result.

And when we don't see that correlation that's when we ask the question why is the correlation not there? But within an atheistic world view there is no justification why should the correlation exist at all? So in that sense atheism requires the foundation of theism that there is the very fact that there is correlation between action and action and result and that is the basis on which we all function. If somebody is very angry we ask what happened? You know I am just angry. If somebody says I am just angry that simply means that they are just not ready to tell why they are angry.

They may feel that I will not be understood or they may want us to be a little more disturbed about why they are disturbed. Whatever reason but we understand that there is a cause-effect correlation and that's how we function. The whole of science presumes the existence of cause-effect correlation.

Without it there is no cause-effect then there will be no science. When Newton saw the fruit falling the apple, some people say it fell in front of him, some people say it fell on him. Wherever.

So he asked at that time what made this fruit fall? It's his brilliance that he came up with the answer of gravity. But fundamentally the idea that when he asked what makes this fruit fall that means he is presuming that things don't just happen in a random way. They happen in an orderly way and what is the pattern of that order? He was trying to find out.

So that's the basic point that when we look at the world we may say things are not happening according to my plan and we may think there is no God. There is no order. But if we think a little more deeply Blaise Pascal said that a little of science takes people away from God.

But immersion in science brings them right back to God, brings people right back to God. So we start realising there must be some God. Can we have questions toward the end? So then from now people may say okay things are in charge.

Maybe there are different people in charge. That there is no God from that there might be next step might be there are many Gods. So there is atheism and what is the word for there are many Gods? Polytheism.

And then there are so many things in control and how can one person control all of it? It must be many many people in charge of many many different things. Now polytheism is a reasonable inference because the world is very complicated. But then the problem would come that if there are many there is the Greco-Roman tradition, there is the idea of many Gods and then all these Gods are very territorial and they are all fighting for their turf and the universe will be chaotic.

So we do see so we evolve further then we say okay there are not just many Gods. There may be many Gods with a small g but there has to be someone who brings order to all of it. So then there is one God.

That is what? What is the word for that? Monotheism. So atheism, polytheism and then monotheism. Now in this way gradually we start perceiving that there must be some person.

Some controlling principle and if that controlling principle is coordinating everything in the world then surely he must be awesome huge extraordinarily powerful and thus through natural theology. Natural theology means understanding of God that is derived from observing nature. We understand that in nature there are forces far bigger than ours.

So through that we start gaining a reverential conception of divinity. There is some divine being who is far far bigger than me and well we especially if we live close to nature then we regularly see powers which are far greater than the powers of our own. People may build a whole civilisation and one earthquake occurs everything is over.

People may build a whole city next to a next to a coast and one tsunami comes and everything is gone and we see this kind of changes have happened in history. So then we start understanding that this nature and whatever is there above it that can make or break my life in one moment and therefore I need to be reverential towards it. So understanding the greatness of God is very important and then that leads to okay then what do I do? I try to live in harmony with that divinity.

I try to live in a way that won't provoke that divinity. I will try to live in a way that will appease that divinity and then different traditions have come up with different ideas of how to propitiate that divinity. But this is important to understand that actually there is a power far greater than mine and I have to be careful.

So in the Bible it is said fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. There is a power far bigger than me. It can break me at any moment.

So let me be careful and it is said that if someone doesn't have fear of God that is the person we need to really fear because if somebody has fear of God they will have some boundaries. If I do something which will make God angry then hell can descend on me. So fear of God is the greatest civilising force in the history of humanity.

We can have police as a civilising force. We can have various law enforcement agencies. They can civilise and it's all important.

It's essential but the greatest civilising force. Ultimately you can have police who supervise citizens but then who supervises the police? And even if you have somebody whom do you supervise that? So you can unless there is some understanding of some overseeing divinity what is the reason for people to stay civilised? We all have impulses. We all want pleasures.

So this understanding of God's greatness is not to be trivialised. It is something which is very important and that is what civilises people. So this is the understanding which is being talked about in practically all the religious traditions of the world.

Even in the Vedic tradition, even in the Bhakti tradition. We have read in the Bhagavad Gita in the 11th chapter Arjuna sees Krishna's Virata Rupa and we see that Virata Rupa that form is it's called Vishwarupa there but it's also Virata. It's huge.

And Arjuna was treating Krishna as a friend. That mood suddenly changes. In English there is not much gradation with respect to respect.

With respect to respect. What that means is that in Hindi you have a second person reference as Tu which you can use with ordinary people. And if somebody is very respectful, what is the second person reference? A. So in Sanskrit you have Tuam and you have Bhavan.

So in English we just have one common word You. So if somebody calls us, we say who's there? And then it's our boss speaking. Oh yes sir, yes sir.

We will change immediately because so what happens, Arjuna even when he surrenders to Krishna, he uses Tuam. when Krishna exhibits his universal form and then he asks Bhavan Rupa. Who are you? So he changes completely.

So from Tuam becomes Bhavan because he is in a very reverential mood over there. So God's greatness is so awesome that even those who are devoted to him can become awed by seeing his greatness and it's important to understand that. However, there is more to God than just his greatness and that is his sweetness.

So that brings us to the second point that Krishna, that the law that God, just like if you see from a distance you see a mountain, you see the outline but you go closer and closer. From a distance if we look at say the Rocky Mountains or the Andes Mountains or the Himalayan Mountains in many ways they might look similar but if you go closer and closer you will see each has its own kind of vegetation, each kind of its wildlife maybe each kind of topography. So we go closer and closer we see distinctive features so that God is great is a generic understanding but if you get a closer and closer vision of God we get a more and more specific understanding and that more specific and more personal, this more distinctive understanding is what is revealed in the bhakti tradition and the most intimate understanding of divinity is in the Krishna conception of divinity.

It is revealed in the bhakti tradition that here there is God who is the greatest of all great beings and he is manifesting as a small child not just as a small child, a small child who can be tied so what happens in the world that all of us when we relate with someone there is one kind of relationship which is based on awe and reverence say somebody is a superstar, somebody is a movie star, somebody is a celebrity when people follow a celebrity often they develop an inability they become intoxicated such a great person but then sometimes we get close to a celebrity and then we find that they are not all that great sometimes they may be irritable sometimes they may be rude they may just take their not everyone, not all celebrities but sometimes it's a meeting of celebrities can be an anticlimax because they are not all that we thought they were but if they are truly great then the closer we come to them we get a different kind of appreciation there is an appreciation as a fan and appreciation as a close associate so if we come closer and closer to Krishna then we understand that he doesn't delight in his greatness he doesn't delight in all of you are subordinate to me, bow down to me that's not his interest he wants to reciprocate love and for reciprocating love he is ready to do anything and everything that is where we have the concept of Leela Leela is like a play in which Krishna voluntarily chooses to subordinate his divinity to our furthering intimacy that he makes all his devotees forget that he is God once I was giving a class in India and I explained how the Vrajvasis they don't consider Krishna to be God and one person in the audience raised his hand I also don't consider Krishna to be God so I said there is not considering Krishna as God because of ignorance and there is not considering Krishna to be God because of transcendence so the Vrajvasis it's not that they are ignorant that Krishna is God, they are aware but because they love Krishna so much and they love Krishna not because he is God but because he is Krishna because he is so lovable see when we love God for his greatness what that means primarily is that God can greatly bless me or God can greatly curse me so the interest is not so much in God it is what he is going to do to me whereas the Vrajvasis they are interested in Krishna for Krishna's sake and they love Krishna because he is so lovable are they aware that Krishna is God yes they are aware but that is not prominent in their awareness it is like in the day time also there are stars in the sky but the sun is so bright that the stars can't be seen similarly for the Vrajvasis their love for Krishna is so great that is like the sun and the stars are like the knowledge of Krishna's divinity it is there but it is overshadowed so we see this intense dynamic the Gopis for example in the Gopi Gita they pray they are meditating on Krishna's lotus feet at one point they pray that Pranatdehi Naam Paapakarishanam Trunacharanugam Shreemiketanam Vaipanarpitam Taipadambujam Krunakumcheshuna Krundiruchayam they are meditating how Krishna's lotus feet they crushed the ferocious serpent Kaliya Kaliya was able to not just bite and kill just by the by his presence the toxicity was so much the birds over it would die all and done and that Kaliya was trying to bite Krishna and Krishna with his feet when he danced on Kaliya Kaliya felt those feet to be like thunderbolts pounding on his wounds he was devastated by that that is the power of Krishna's lotus feet and the Gopis are aware of that the Gopis poetically say that Krishna you offered those lotus feet to Kaliya Fani Fana Arpitam Fani is the one with hoods, the one with hoods to his hoods you offered your feet so they are saying in a poetic way this is what you did so please offer us also your lotus feet but then a few verses later it will come a few verses later same Gopis pray maybe all of you can come a little ahead also so a few verses later the same Gopis pray Nalin Sundaram Nathate Padam Shila Tronankurai Sita Tithina Kaliya Thammana Kanta Gachhate Kaliya Thammana they are praying Krishna your lotus feet are so tender they are softer than the softest lotus petals and when we think that you are walking in the forest of Vrindavan and the twigs the pebbles, the brambles they are piercing your feet thinking that your feet are being pierced our hearts are being ripped apart Krishna please come back so now if Krishna's feet are not heard by the fans of Kaliya how can thorns hurt his feet but this is the nature of love they are aware of Krishna's power that Krishna has crushed Kaliya but their love for Krishna is so great they are concerned for Krishna all over the world the Vrajavasi people pray to God the Vrajavasis pray for God they worry and fear and pray that may no harm come to Krishna Yashoda Mahishi offers protective mantras for Krishna all these demons are coming and attacking Krishna please may he be protected so Krishna loves this kind of love love is attracted by various things sometimes when somebody is very great say if we want to form a relationship with someone we want that person to be distinctive in some way, very attractive looking very wealthy, very intelligent very powerful when we want to form a relationship the person has to have something attractive something impressive in some ways the person has to be great so God is great and most people want to form a relationship with Him based on that greatness however when we form a relationship one aspect of a healthy relationship is that we want to feel needed in that relationship if that other person can do everything without us and they never need us then well okay it's a relationship it's good but it's more compassion than affection like okay you are doing some favour to me by relating and nobody wants to feel that way in a relationship if there is a sense of connection and belonging we all want to feel needed so and especially it's very fulfilling to the heart to feel needed by someone very important if say if you are a doctor and the biggest doctor in the city calls you and tells you can you do this or what's your opinion about this really you feel honoured by that so to feel needed itself is it's affirming for us not it could be an egoistic sense it's also in a human sense that my existence, my expertise my endeavours matter and to feel needed by somebody who is great that is even greater it is even more affirming so God is the greatest living being and he doesn't need anyone but when we relate with him he doesn't want us to feel like redundant appendages to him okay you want to be here, you be here, I don't need you in the most intimate relationships the Lord relates in a way in which he wants his devotees to feel wanted needed and valued and thus he takes a subordinate role where he depends on his devotees so when Krishna plays his flute and he's calling the Gopis it is not ordinary desire like a boy calling a girl and the girl goes naughty it's not sensual desire over there the Gopis when Krishna plays his flute it's through the sound of the flute, Krishna's love comes out to the sound of the flute and it comes out and it's like a rope which goes and falls around the hearts of the Gopis and the Gopis are and the Gopis actually manifest the conclusion of the Bhagavad Gita the Gopis just forget everything else and go to Krishna why? because when Krishna is playing that flute Krishna has different flutes for different people Krishna has a special flute for the cows, Krishna has a special flute for his cowherd boyfriends and Krishna has a special flute for the Gopis so when Krishna plays the flute for the Gopis they feel needed they feel wanted, they feel valued and thus they leave everything and come to Krishna similarly Krishna makes mother Yashoda feel needed valued, wanted and thus when he's hungry he comes and becomes incredibly restless, mother Yashoda is doing some work this comes and catches her saree and tugs her saree, I want food, mother Yashoda says later no I want now and he becomes so anxious mother Yashoda feels if I don't feed Krishna he will become weak he will become sick, he may even die I have to feed him right now and Krishna makes mother Yashoda feel needed and that is the intimacy of Krishna just as in any relationship if we feel that we bring something valuable to the table then that relationship becomes deeper so normally the relationship is that God is the father and we are his children God is the parent, oh father thou art in heaven hallowed be thy name give us our daily bread this is the famous Christian prayer and Prabhupada said it's good at least people are going to God for some reason but then here it is that first of all it doesn't show love for God it shows love for bread that actually give us some bread and nowadays especially in the western world people are not so much worried about bread they are worried about butter so often people feel religion is redundant, we don't need it so that is one mode of approaching God where we feel that we need God and it's important when we understand God's greatness we realise we do need God but God doesn't want only that relationship he is up there and we are down God wants relationships in their full flavours and he wants to feel needed but he wants us also to feel needed and thus the normal relationship that God is the parent and we are the children that becomes inverted and God manifests as the child and such an amazing manifestation where it's a complete inversion not only God manifests as a child who needs his mother that rather his mother can bind him and now that God who is all powerful is helpless, is bound and he doesn't know how to free himself so he is bound because he loves love so much Iti Druk Swa Leela for those who appreciate this Krishna Leela for anybody who hears it it's attractive it's the play for a child committing mischief, stealing butter getting caught, escaping coming up with new antics it's sweet, everybody likes to children are just sweet even people who are people who are rough and tough if they see a child they will become gentle and soft they will make some faces people who are grave children bring out the sweetness in everyone and that's how actually it is so anybody who has even some little affection for children they will find Krishna's pastimes attractive but when we understand that Krishna is not just an ordinary child he is the supreme then Krishna Leela for anyone Krishna Leela is amusing but for those who understand that Krishna is the supreme divinity then Krishna Leela is not just amusing it becomes amazing amazing how can God be like this that he becomes bound how much is the supreme divinity he is hungry for love and not just he wants his devotees love he wants them also to experience that love and for that purpose he is ready to let himself be bound for those who understand what an extraordinarily loving conception of divinity Krishna is it is overwhelming so enriching so captivating so magnetising so electrifying the heart cannot be attracted just become overwhelmed with ecstasy if such is the loving nature of God then I also want to enter into that circle of love I also want to love so God wants each of us not just he wants each of us to love him but he wants each of us to feel affirmed, valued, needed and thus we have a complete relationship with him not just a unidimensional relationship of reverence and worship and Krishna reveals that he loves such a relationship far far more than a reverential relationship that's why those whose love for him is so great that they transcend seeing him as divine and they start seeing that he needs me God disciplines everyone but here Yashoda disciplines God how do you discipline God if somebody is very powerful if somebody is the principal of a college or somebody is the prime minister of a country somebody is the spiritual master of a community but they discipline everyone and they may they may instruct they may chastise and if some person whom we have seen like this they chastise everyone and then we find somebody comes and chastises them who are you? who are you? how can you chastise? a person like that must be somebody very special so what happens is that that is the greatness of the devotee and that is the greatness of God that he places his devotee in that position that's much so Krishna in Vrindavan all that he wants is to simply reciprocate love when Krishna is with mother Yashoda he is like a supremely curious child some children just ask questions what is this? what is that? what is that? they are filled with questions so when Krishna is with mother Yashoda first they are living in Gokul this pastime happens in Gokul and from there they move to Vrindavan and if you see there is a evolution in the pastimes of Krishna the first demons who come to kill Krishna who is the first demon who comes? Bhutan second? Shaktas third? Trinavad now all these three demons they come into Vrindavan into the house because at that time Krishna is so small Krishna is not going out anywhere so Bhutana comes right into the house into the inner chambers where baby Krishna is Shaktasura is in a form of a cart who is just outdoors just next to the house Trinavad comes into the courtyard and sweeps Krishna so Krishna is indoors and the demons have to come indoors but once Krishna starts herding the cows then what happens? This particular Damodar Leela is a transition. This is the 10th and 11th chapters in the 10th canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam and the Bhagavatam is 90 chapters in the 10th canto first 40 chapters are describing Vrindavan Leela and in that more of the first 10 chapters are where Krishna is largely indoors and most of the pastimes that are happening are indoors and this is also an indoor pastime. It's not entirely indoors but it's like in the courtyard and after this we will have Krishna starting to go out and Krishna starts going out then there is Dhenukasura, then Bakasura there is Aghasura all these demons they are out in the forest and they attack Krishna over there and Krishna also prefers to deal with them over there because he doesn't want to cause panic among the Vijvasis he doesn't want to cause even by chance any unnecessary damage happen to him happen to anyone of them so for him all this Leela is just like a play it's just a sweet play in which Krishna and Vrindavan never uses any weapons any demon comes just big horse comes along and Krishna just puts his fist into the horse it's finished some other demon comes along Trinavath comes and Krishna just goes for a free joy ride and he says enough joy ride then what does he do? Just hugs Trinavath and he hugs him and Trinavath thinks oh this boy is scared now I am going to throw him off but then he tries to throw him off and Krishna has held him so tightly that he is a small baby but Trinavath can't even can't even push Krishna and the normal understanding is that Krishna's weight increases and Trinavath crashes down and Trinavath is finished because of that but Vishnachikatha says that actually Krishna hugs Trinavath so tightly that Trinavath's life air gets choked just by Krishna's hugging and what crashes down is Trinavath's corpse so it's Krishna he not just by his weight but just by his arms tender arms which is such a phenomenal power so when he wants he can manifest his greatness and you will see in this Nallakurmanikari pastime also in this Damodarila also at one moment Krishna is tired and he is helpless and next moment he is going to bring the big trees crashing down and release the release Nallakurmanikari from there so God he always remains God but for the purpose of love he is ready to subordinate his divinity and he does whatever is required to enhance the flavour of the relationship in a parental relationship normally one of the biggest joys of parenting is teaching children when the mother teaches this is this now Krishna is omniscient he knows everything but when he when he goes what is that bird what is that tree what is that fruit what is the sound that this bird is making what is that animal so when Krishna moves from Gokul to Vrindavan the first major move in Krishna's life Krishna is sitting on Yashoda's lap and Balram is sitting on Rohini's lap and both of them are in a big cart and all along the way Krishna is asking questions to Yashoda what is this tree, what is this fruit why is this like this colour why is it like that and finally mother Yashoda is answering answering answering and Krishna is expert in everything so finally Krishna starts asking questions and finally she says Krishna I am also coming out in the forest first time I don't know so Krishna when he is going to act with the child he acts like a perfect child perfect child doesn't necessarily mean that he is never mischievous but perfect child means all the flavours of motherhood of fatherhood that a parent may want to relish Krishna lets his mother and father experience all of them so sometimes he is very sweet and obedient mother Yashoda asks bring Krishna, bring Nandamaharaj sandals so Krishna goes and picks up the sandals, puts them on his head and brings them and sometimes by his obedience he pleases them sometimes they ask him to bring a big box and Krishna goes there to pick up the box he can't pick it up and then he has seen Vrindavan is a small town so he has seen wrestlers wrestling so Krishna then starts slapping his hands he slaps his thighs and then he again moves and then mother Yashoda and Nandamaharaj are watching and he moves again and moves again and he can't move and then he realises he can't move he becomes he becomes embarrassed and he runs and hides his face in mother Yashoda's saree and his parents are delighted by that and sometimes Krishna he delights by his parents sometimes by his obedience sometimes by his inability to do certain things and sometimes by his mischievousness so he is the perfect child means he enables his parents to experience all the flavours of all the flavours in the relationship of parenting and thus he is the perfect child and when we understand how loving Krishna is that this is the nature of Krishna's love and to that lord I offer obeisances not once not twice but hundreds of times bad out of reverence offering obeisances isn't that if Krishna is so intimate in such an intimate relationship if mother Yashoda starts offering obeisances to Krishna it won't work there is a particular flavour in that relationship but the point is Satyagraha Muni who is composing the Damodarashtakam he is observing from outsiders perspective so at one level he knows what is going on at another level he is also experiencing what is going on and he is amazed it's like say generally if there is a movie star now each movie star over a period of time they develop a profile some movie stars are more action stars and they do actions like beating up people and all kinds of stunts they are brilliant at that but if we know the person and they are also like macro people in their real life and then they do an action star role that's the way they are we appreciate them but that's the way they are but then generally if a star takes on a role which they have never taken say if somebody is like a complete macro kind of that's the image and then they take up a role where it's like a deep emotional, introspective artistic role where it's all about analysis, feelings and somebody does that role also like a brooding person and they do that role also and that's like considered a great achievement now for a actor to enact a person who is completely different from their nature completely different from their practised image completely different from their area of expertise, that is a phenomenal achievement so here somebody who knows what the nature of that actor is and how the actor is acting now they will appreciate much more somebody sees the actor for the first time, oh good play somebody who knows them from before, they can appreciate much more so somebody who appreciates Krishna's divinity and knows how great Krishna is and then they see how Krishna is playing this role of a small child that is irresistibly captivating now how can God be so hungry for love that he is not only just having intimate relationships, he is having intimate relationships when he who is the supreme independent, he on whom everyone depends he becomes dependent on someone when we see that love so what happens Satyavath Muni is astounded and his appreciation for the Lord is increasing so he appreciates the Lord's sweetness, he also knows about the Lord's greatness but now he is seeing how great is Krishna that he can play this role also with consummate ease and thus he says I offer my obeisances Satyavati Vande hundreds of times this is the vision of divinity that we have in Krishna and if we can both philosophically and devotionally appreciate Krishna then we can so easily become absorbed in him we can learn to connect with him our heart will be attracted to him we will want to love him we will want to become connected with him and in that connection with him in that absorption in him is life's supreme enrichment there is no satisfaction in the world which can compare with the satisfaction of devotional absorption in Krishna there is no joy that compares to the joy of the remembrance of the Lord, of absorption in the Lord and that's what Satyavath Muni will also say this in the future verses I just want to meditate on you O Lord I don't want anything else to remember, just you and you alone that is our aspiration when we practise bhakti when we in this month of Kartik try to do some bhakti some kind of service to Krishna we want to aspire to take baby steps at least towards entering into that world of ecstatic love and for all of us there is that opportunity Krishna sent Shila Prabhupada into this world and Shila Prabhupada he was Krishna's empowered representative but Shila Prabhupada made all his followers feel needed, feel valued, feel wanted Prabhupada was so potent by his purity he would have transformed everyone but Prabhupada engaged devotees and he made them feel you are all sent by my spiritual master to assist me in sharing this with Krishna's mission all over the world so Krishna we may not feel that Krishna in the spiritual world needs us but Krishna in the material world Krishna's mission Krishna's mission of compassion in this world that needs us each one of us can play a role over here, each one of us can contribute in whatever way is possible there are so many services to do there are so many ways we can use our financial abilities verbal abilities, physical abilities social abilities we can speak about Krishna, we can invite others to come to Krishna, we can help in the temple in all these ways at one level Krishna doesn't need us Krishna can do everything on his own but Krishna's mission in this world gives us the opportunity to feel needed to feel valued to feel wanted so if we get an opportunity to serve Krishna we shouldn't see this in a utilitarian way that sometimes somebody comes and asks us for service and then we think couldn't you find anyone else you just ask me now circumstantially it might be like that but that is only a very external vision, transcendentally it is Krishna who is asking us to do his service you see service not as a burden but as a privilege that we have the opportunity to serve that although Krishna doesn't need anything, Krishna is inviting us to an intimate relationship with him in his mission of compassion here where we feel needed, wanted and valued and if we can take up responsibility in Krishna's mission the spiritual advancement happens not just by chanting Krishna's names or by coming for satsang programmes all that is wonderful but our spiritual advancement is directly proportional to the amount of responsibility that we take that means we feel needed and we take up responsibility even if it is a small responsibility, okay I will come to the temple and I will clean the temple I will come to this programme, I will cook for this programme, I will invite this many, in this sacred month of Karthik, you know I will invite this many people to come at least once to a temple and offer one lamb to the lord I will arrange people to come to my house and do a Karthik programme, take some responsibility and if we do that we will find our relationship with Krishna will become much deeper, much richer and much sweeter even while we are here in this world so this is the pastime which is high up here but by Shri Prabhupada's mercy in this world we can experience a glimpse of that pastime and we too can gradually enter into that deepest arena of the highest love by our small steps to serve Krishna responsibly in this world so I will summarise what I spoke today and then we can have a couple of questions if there are any I spoke today on this theme of the unique loveliness of the vision of Krishna as God I talked about first appreciating God's greatness initially we think that I am God I am the boss, I am the controller then we realise I am not the controller so many things go on without my will or consent then we may think everything is chaotic, there is no God the problem of the atheists are at that level they often use the problem of freedom but then we see things are orderly and that's why when sometimes things are disorderly we ask why are they disorderly but then from I am God the evolution is there is no God then there are many Gods that's polytheism polytheism is monotheism that there is one God, there may be many controllers but there is coherence in the universe, cosmos so there must be one supreme being and how great must that being be if he is able to make sure that everything goes well all over the universe and thus we develop greatness for God, the appreciation for the greatness of God, that this great being can make or mar my life in one moment and therefore let me be respectful to him, let me not do anything to displease him so fear of God is the beginning of wisdom fear of God is the greatest civilising force in the history of humanity at the same time that is like a distant vision, like seeing a mountain in outline but you can get a closer vision of God and that is revealed in the bhakti tradition where we have God in his personal dealings he doesn't just want to display his Godhood but he wants to relish the full gamut of relationships and he wants his devotees to relish the full gamut of relationships so the normal relationship is God is the father and we are the children and we need God but God wants us to have a relationship where he needs us and we feel needed by him and that inversion of hierarchy he does through Leela he is the consummate player actor in which he performs Leela and he takes a role of subordinate of dependent and when we want to connect with somebody who is great and if we develop a relationship with somebody great we feel affirmed, we feel valued at one level but then if that great person needs us then we feel even more affirmed and valued so Krishna he for those who are intimately connected with him, he makes them feel needed Krishna calls the gopis and they lead everything because Krishna needs us and Krishna similarly makes Mother Yashoda feel needed I need food, I need right now food and God disciplines everyone but Mother Yashoda feels that if I don't discipline Krishna, Krishna will become an unruly boy and therefore I need to discipline her and Krishna inverts that hierarchy completely and not only that Krishna is a perfect child perfect child doesn't mean that he is perfectly obedient all the time it means perfectly that he gives his parents the experience of all the flavours of love in parenting and thus he is the perfect child and Krishna is such a loving God that we may initially just if we hear Krishna Leela we may find it amusing but if we understand who Krishna is then it will be amazing and if this God loves love so much and I can offer that love a drop of that love, I can enthral that world of love, it becomes an irresistible irresistibly inviting vision of divinity and we may think this is way high up but by Krishna by Prabhupada's mercy when Krishna manifests a mission of compassion in this world we too can feel needed valued and wanted over here and if we reciprocate with Krishna extending that opportunity for us to feel needed by taking responsibility in his mission then even with our conditionings in our present worldly conditions we can experience a deeper, richer and sweeter connection with Krishna and thus we can gradually progress towards ecstasy of absorption Thank you very much Hare Krishna So any questions or comments Okay So different people may have different conceptions of goodness so I may be a devotee and still I may not be doing something I may not be doing something which is not good or people may feel that I am doing something which is not good also yeah there is there are probably two visions of ethics ethics is about right and wrong there is categorical ethics and contextual ethics categorical ethics is that this is right, this is wrong and these two are non-negotiable categories that's one I understand another is contextual ethics yes there are categories of right and wrong but you have to look at context so speaking truth is good, speaking falsehood is bad but if some rioters are chasing a friend of ours left hand comes and kisses him and we hide them in our basement and then those rioters come and bang on our door is he here what should we do at that time? cannot speak the truth because there is another value, so context is also important so what happens is that at one level different people can have different conceptions of right and wrong because everybody comes from different social, psychological cultural, intellectual context but even people who are moral relativists they also acknowledge that there is right and wrong I was speaking in Amazon and somebody raised the same question about moral relativism so I asked him is there someone right now in the world, somewhere who is doing something wrong he said of course there are terrorists killing innocent people there are child abusers doing horrendous things to children I said do the terrorists killing people think that they are doing something wrong then are they wrong or not if you say that everything is relative then for them it is not wrong, they are doing the right thing is it right? No, it is wrong that means that beyond our personal conceptions of right and wrong you are saying there is an absolute standard of right and wrong and even if they don't think it is wrong, it is wrong so now we could have specific discussions about what all are included as absolute right and wrong and we could have a discussion about that and maybe some debate about it that's fine, but the point is there are first we need education in black and white and then we need to appreciate shades of grey but so categorical morality says there is only black and white and there is no grey so you could say there are moral extremists you could say if you want to use that word moral extremists say there is only black and white and there are no shades of grey if you are not in white then you are in black but then other moral extremists are on one side there are moral relativists moral relativists who are on the other side and moral relativists say there are only shades of grey there is no black and white at all no that is also not right there is black and white so yeah we have to recognise the principle that there is black and white and there is principle of shades of grey and then specifically we can discuss about what is what is right and what is wrong okay yes quite often during discussions people bring up this question of why do bad things happen to good people specifically an example of a child having a serious physical inability or a disease or something and then they ask that how do you justify that argument I don't know how to answer that because it becomes such a sensitive topic how do you present a philosophical answer to something like that how do we explain when children suffer terribly see basically we all try to make sense of the things by placing them in different explanatory contexts or you could say causal contexts or causal contexts or causal boxes say for example suddenly if this light goes off and you first look if somebody accidentally switch off the light that's one causal box that okay this light is here and the switch is there but if the switch is on has the light got spoiled then the causal box there is that light's bulb and its own lifespan but then if you say only not this light have all lights gone off has somehow the power supply tripped over here that's another causal box or you could say maybe the terrorists have attacked America and power plants all over America have been collapsed so you could just light going off here you could escalate to terrorist attack on America or you could take it further and say that if a solar flare comes from the sun and comes too close to the earth's atmosphere then while the solar flare is passing through the earth's atmosphere all electrical devices on the earth will stop working so you could say the stability of this light depends on the stability of the sun so now you could escalate the causal box to that level also now of course there is no need at the first glance to escalate it to that level at the first analysis so basically we all look at different causal boxes in which to fit things so when something terrible happens what is the causal box that will work so science also if you see there is classical physics which is Newtonian physics and it worked very well in 16th, 17th century onwards till the start of the 20th century and then as you started studying fundamental particles and started studying cosmic objects we found that these are not obeying Newtonian laws of physics and we didn't abandon or these are just disorderly so then we started looking we need some other causal box to put it that's how we came up with quantum physics and then we came up with relativity physics so science also when it doesn't make sense of things it tries to come up with bigger causal frameworks in which to place those things and make sense of it so now if we can fit them in the smaller causal framework and make sense it's better every time a light goes off if you start worrying as a terrorist attack America we say what's wrong with you laughing so there is no need to put things in the bigger causal framework when the smaller causal framework works but sometimes the smaller causal framework doesn't work so when terrible things happen to small children obviously there is no smaller causal framework that is working so when then is there a bigger causal framework so one bigger causal framework could be that things that happen to us in this life are not just determined by our actions in this life we carry over things from previous life and we see that there is diversity in the starting points that we get in this life some children are born with very wealthy families some are born in very poor families all of you are in America all of you if you don't look from material perspective all of you were at birth winners in a genetic lottery winners in a genetic lottery what do I mean by that to a large extent our IQ is determined at birth you can increase it a little bit by exercises but some people just have such a low IQ they can't even do basic math and all of you come here you studied and you worked hard all of us we had some IQ we didn't do anything in our mother's womb to get that IQ so we do see diversity even in the starting points you can attribute it to just like I said lottery just some people are lucky and some people are unlucky it's a very disempowering explanation life is just lottery anytime my luck runs out and everything will collapse so then what other explanation do you have basically when you look at these bad things happening we need some causal framework to put it in if we can't make sense of things we go insane so when we can't make sense of things we have only two options either stop thinking of them and just go on with life or go crazy and most people choose the first option stop thinking about them and one way to stop thinking about them is through entertainment when life doesn't make sense we just lose ourselves in mindless entertainment and forget the complexity of life otherwise we just go insane we need some some mental model some causal framework in which we can function you see all of you are sitting here and hearing this class everyone of you is confident that the person sitting next to you is not going to suddenly turn at you and slap you in the face but now you could say it's possible you know people can go do crazy things but imagine throughout this class if you are worried the person next to you is going to slap you you wouldn't even be attending the classes so we need some structure in our life to function just as we need some physical order we need some intellectual order also in our life so we need meaning so now if you want meaning what options do you have basically one option is things are just chaotic and some people are lucky some people are unlucky now that is not the way we function in life even the greatest atheist says that their child gets poor marks in their exam they will ask what happened they may be proponents of chance theory but if their child comes and says by chance I got bad marks they will not accept that I want to know the cause what happened so nobody functions by the idea that things are at random the other idea could be basically broadly we have only three causal frameworks in which we can put in first is that things happen by chance and some people are unlucky second is god is cruel that god is cruel and god is biassed against some people well you could put it in that framework and some people have done that but then you can also say god is kind to some people why is he kind to some people well he is arbitrary well if he is arbitrary then why isn't everything in life arbitrary why are some things ordered so even that causal box doesn't really make much sense a third causal box could be that maybe we are carrying over actions from our previous life and there are some actions which are good and some actions which are bad and sometimes things happen that way now if we just simplistically say that somebody is suffering and it is their own karma that will be especially with respect to children it will be monstrously insensitive we are not meant to judge people according to what they have done in their previous life if something is terrible from this life's perspective if something is unjust from this life's perspective we have to acknowledge that otherwise it will become very dehumanising that when Draupadi is being dishonoured nobody tells you you must have done some karma in your previous life because of which this happened from this life's perspective it was terribly wrong and the assembled warriors they should have done their dharma and intervene and they didn't and that was a grievous lapse on their part so when somebody is going through something terrible we shouldn't be thinking so much about what is their karma we should be thinking what is my dharma if a thief robs someone and the thief goes to the king and says I have been robbed and the king says that is your karma the king is not doing the dharma of maintaining law and order if a small baby is crying and the mother thinks the baby is crying because of the baby's karma that would be horrible isn't it you are a mother your dharma is to comfort and console the child pacify the child so with respect to things like this we obviously understand this the baby is crying we don't put it in the causal framework of the child sometimes it may happen that despite our consoling the child, despite our giving some medication still the child remains sick and then we might have to put it in that causal framework so we if we use karma casually to trivialise people's sufferings that would be monstrous we should never do that at that time we should see what is my dharma, how can I help and sometimes as a part of helping we might give knowledge of karma but knowledge of karma shouldn't be the explanation that we toss insensitively it should be a part of the assistance that we are giving I am here to help you when Arjuna's son Abhimanyu dies Krishna doesn't speak one word about anyone's karma Krishna is there to help Arjuna recover from that trauma and then so they don't get into the causal framework of Abhimanyu's karma must have been there because of which he died they look at the causal box we had a plan that Abhimanyu will penetrate and the Pandavas will follow but Jaidrath stopped that so Jaidrath was diabolical, he is the cause of Abhimanyu's death let's get back at it so they put it in that causal framework so we shouldn't be our spirituality should never no philosophy should erode our humanity no matter how logical and coherent the philosophy may be if it erodes our humanity then that philosophy is dangerous did I answer your question? thank you any other questions? so thank you very much Krishna Bhagwan ki Jai Sri Damodar Bhagwan ki Jai Kartik Maas ki Jai am I audible better?