Isn’t the Tulsi-Shalagrama vivaha rooted in an immoral pastime?
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Question What exactly is the pastime of Tulsi in which Krishna comes to this world and the Tulsi Shaligram Vibhah is also performed as a celebration How do we actually understand this whole thing Answer There are three levels, there is immorality, there is morality and there is transmorality so the transmoral can very easily appear to be similar to the immoral and that’s why we need mature guidance to be able to differentiate between the two between the immoral and the transmoral and I would talk about three main points as far as differentiation is concerned in terms of analytical perspective that the principle of bhakti is that we have to give up the immoral for Krishna and if required even the moral should be given up for Krishna so when this is depicted it can easily be misunderstood so there are pastimes in the Mahabharata also where something is depicted like this and people see that Krishna asked Yudhisthira to speak a lie about Ashwathama’s being killed or whatever so there of course there is a contextual understanding of why Krishna asked him to do it and there is a transcendental understanding that Krishna was encouraging Yudhisthira to rise from the mode of goodness to the mode of pure goodness or transcendental devotion so that itself makes us uncomfortable but probably the most treasured among all the most sanctified among all forms of material relationships is probably the male-female bond where female chastity is considered to be extremely sacred and bhakti often challenges this presumption of the superiority of morality by depicting even the abandonment of morality for the sake of bhakti and that is why Sarvdharman Parityaj is such a difficult word to digest as a concept and as a call now moving onwards we see in the case of Gopis also they give up their their wifely duties for the sake of Krishna now that does not still seem a whole different explanation for which I will not go into that right now but with respect to Tulsi Devi when she is here in this world the story has of course as most Puranic stories have slightly different accounts in different Puranas but the broad understanding of the story is that Jalandhar had a benediction that he would get power from the chastity of his wife and he would be invincible as long as wife was chaste to him so then Vishnu comes in the form Jalandhar and then when he unites with Tulsi at that time Jalandhar loses his power and he is defeated, he is destroyed so this activity seems to be objectionable in multiple ways because not only is there the violation of chastity of a faithful wife but there is also the idea that her chastity was violated without her knowledge, she thought that she is actually uniting with her husband so that seems to make it even more objectionable and then further later on it seems that she curses Vishnu and that’s how he takes the form of a stone and then she accompanies him as Tulsi so there are two three different issues let’s consider first of all over here that there are occasions in this world when even great devotees are required by the lord to take up roles which are relatively speaking hostile to him just like there may be an external reason why Bhishma fought on the side of the Kauravas but internally we understand it as the will of the lord similarly we understand that Vrinda she, it was arranged by the will of the lord that she take the position as the wife of Jalandhar and when this happened the important point is that he did not be needful when there is a benediction just like we have when some demon asks for a benediction which is not normally avoidable then Vishnu does arrange for something by which that demon’s invincibility is penetrated while honoring the word of the benediction that whatever it may be there so in this particular case the because the benediction was like that his invincibility rested on wife’s chastity so the necessary had to be done to avoid to overcome him otherwise he was terrorizing the universe at that time and what was the necessary thing that was to be done that lord Vishnu did so from the immediate perspective there is the understanding that that was what is necessary there is Apadharma where the normal principles of Dharma can be given up in the case of emergency but from the transcendental point of view we understand that Vrinda and Vishnu have eternal relationship and that eternal relationship was restored in particular way which was which might seem to be quite almost anti-devotional and immoral actually but it is not so what was transcendental can be manifested in this world in different ways at different times and if we consider this world reality to be the only reality then we cannot understand the transcendental only when we look at this world reality as a temporary manifestation that reflects what is the otherworldly reality.
Now we are talking about Krishna and Krishna Leela over here then we can understand why certain things manifest in certain ways over here so what is the eternal relationship between Vishnu and Vrinda that was restored at a particular time through this particular arrangement now considering the cursing of and now considering the cursing of the mutual cursing that sort of that happened where Vrinda became Tulsi and Vishnu became Shaligram again here the important thing is that there is an external understanding of things and there is an internal understanding of things so many times in the Lord acts apparently to in violation of the principles of Dharma at that time for people who cannot understand the transcendental principles of morality for them the external actions also have certain external consequences and then their sense of morality can also be preserved so for example it is said even Yudhishthira had to see the hell for a few moments although he was so virtuous or for that matter in some story associated with Mahabharata it is said that Arjuna because he committed the committed the crime of killing his own father killing his own grandfather or grand uncle we could say Vishma so later on his son he fought with him and he temporarily killed him and then he was restored so there are stories like this where for people who cannot understand transcendental morality then the apparently immoral actions have apparently karmic consequences although the whole situation is transcendental so from the external karmic perspective it is shown in this past time that the chastity of a woman is so important that if even Vishnu comes and violates it, Vishnu also can be cursed by it so this is like Krishna might accept some curse of some people although Krishna is beyond all curses that is simply to advance the leela and that is to demonstrate some particular lesson that the person who is beyond all curses might accept a curse occasionally so similarly in this case Vishnu accepts the curse but the result of the curse is what that actually the union of Tulsi with Krishna and Saligram that becomes a eternal fact that becomes a fact of transcendental reality which is manifest in this world for people to celebrate so if this was simply an immoral action then the great saints throughout history would not have bothered to celebrate such an immoral action and it is in an inconceivable way that the transcendental reality is manifest over here and what is celebrated is the union of the lord and his eternal consort which happen in this world through a particular set of circumstances the circumstances are interesting they can be controversial also the eternal which exists at the spiritual level which manifests at the historical at a particular level and then it becomes immortal in this world through the ritualization through certain celebrations which become celebrated which are observed regularly the Tulsi-Saligram Vivaha is such a such a immortalized celebration of that which is a transcendental reality so it might seem to some like being immoral but actually it is trans-moral