Parallels between Damodara-lila and Bhagavad-gita – part 1

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, I will talk about how the Damodar Leela is concealed and revealed in the Bhagavad Gita.
The Bhagavad Gita is thought of as a philosophical book and Damodar Leela is seen as Leela. But Tattva and Leela, philosophical truth and loving pastimes have an intimate connection. And that is what we will try to discuss today.
So, let’s begin with some prayers. Krishna Prasthaya Bhojane Srimati Bhakti Vedanta Swami Nithyanande Smt Saraswati Deve Gaurani Pracharine Nirvishesha Shunyavadi Pashyatya Deshatahe Panchakant Patarujascha Kripasindhu Vyavachan Pratitanam Pavdivyo Vaishnavibhyo Namo Namah Jai Shri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhu Nityananda Shriya Swamita Gadadharam Shriva Sadhika Prabhatta Vrinda Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Hare Krishna So, when we discuss the pastimes of the Lord, specifically the Dhamma, the Leela and generally the pastimes of the Lord, there are certain fundamental dynamics that happen. As I said, there is Tattva and there is Leela.
Tattva is philosophical analysis and Leela is pastimes. Now, the word pastime is actually an English translation by Shri Prabhupada of the word Leela. Now, the word Leela actually eludes any precise English translation because sometimes the word pastime has a connotation of frivolity.
Say for example, it is said that baseball is America’s national pastime. What it means is that’s how people pass their time. So, pass their time means what? They don’t have anything to do with their time so they pass their time somewhere.
That is not what is happening with Krishna. Krishna is the supreme controller. He can do whatever he wants.
This is what he chooses to do because hate is the highest expression of love. It is the highest source of joy for him. So, generally for a Leela to happen there have to be at least two people because love is reciprocal.
Love is not something which is experienced in isolation. It is primarily experienced in reciprocation. So, there are two key characters in the name of the Leela.
Who are those characters? Yashoda and Krishna. Similarly, there are two characters in the Bhagavad Gita. Who are they? Arjuna and Krishna.
So, we see how the dynamic flows between the two of them. So, at the start of the Damodar Leela in the relationship between Yashoda and Krishna Yashoda is in a superior position. She is after all the mother and Krishna is a small child and Krishna comes to her in need.
Normally I need milk. His mother is churning butter and he comes and catches hold of the butter. Now, mothers have this extraordinary capacity to sense what their children are saying.
The rest of the world the children are just gibbering. The mother understood what the child is saying. So, Krishna doesn’t speak.
He just looks at his mother and his mother understands. He is hungry. So, basically here Krishna is in a subordinate position.
And mother Yashoda is in a the opposite of subordinate is superior or superordinate position. So, similarly at the start of the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna is in a superior position. How is Arjuna in a superior position? Krishna is a chariot driver.
Krishna is a chariot driver, charioteer. So, because he is a charioteer Arjuna is giving orders to Krishna. So, in both these pastimes the pastime starts with normally we don’t consider the Bhagavad Gita as a pastime.
Although it is also a pastime. But it begins with the devotee in a superordinate position. And Arjuna tells Krishna Please get my chariot between the two armies.
I want to see it. I want to see who is it that are there on the opposite side for fighting. This request by Arjuna is a bit unusual.
Now, in polite circles generally people don’t give instructions. They make requests and other person sees the request as an instruction. Can you do this? If a superior person is telling us, can you do this? Then we understand, that means I should do this.
So, the way people function in cultured civilised societies is different from how people function in very uncultured societies. If somebody comes later then we say we have invited someone for prasad to our place and they come later. Now we would just get angry and yell at them.
Why did you come late like this? But in a cultured society what will happen is the prasad has got cold. Now what this means is the wise person will understand. But some people are not sure You can eat it, can’t you? So you missed the point.
So one devotee came to me once after a class and he said I have a serious philosophical question. He said if I insult someone and that person does not get the insult then do I get the karma? So I told him that first of all if you are concerned about karma then better not insult me. He is so concerned.
But basically actually the rightness and wrongness of our actions are determined by three factors. The content of the action, the intent of the action and the consequence of the action. What we do, why we do and what happens after we do it.
So in this case the consequence may not have been offered. That person may not have felt insulted. But you had the intent and that’s why some culpability will be there even then.
So the point is that here Arjuna is giving an instruction to Krishna. They are cooperating of course and Krishna has voluntarily taken the subordinate position. Krishna has taken the subordinate position.
He is expected to follow the instruction. So Krishna follows the instruction but Krishna doesn’t suffer any fools. Krishna when following instructions also does his own thing and what does he do? He brings the chariot in the middle of the battlefield but not just anywhere in the middle of the battlefield.
See this is one side of the army and this is the other side of the army. Now both these armies are spread out over a large distance. So what does the middle of the two armies mean? The middle of the two armies is like one line.
But on that one line Krishna could have placed the chariot anywhere. Isn’t it? So for example in the middle of this room it’s here. But the middle could be the left extreme, right extreme.
Anywhere in between the middle. So what Krishna does is Krishna brings the army in the middle but where? Middle where Arjuna can clearly see Bhishma Drona Brahmukta Sarveshaam cha Mahikshitam Uvvaha cha Partha Pashyayitam Samavetankur Honithi So Krishna brings the chariot right in the middle at that point where Bhishma and Drona are most prominently visible. That means right in front of Bhishma and Drona.
So why is that? Because Krishna has his own plan. Krishna wants to speak the Bhagavad Gita while Arjuna will be enlightened. And for Arjuna’s eventual enlightenment his initial confusion is necessary.
So he has a little indecision but from that little indecision things have escalated to total confusion. And that is Krishna’s we could say mischievousness. Krishna in Kurukshetra does not seem like a child who is committing mischief.
But Krishna has his own sense of time, place and circumstances. And he has his own plan. So this is how things happen.
Krishna is in a subordinate position but Krishna within the parameters imposed by the subordinate position is still pursuing his plan. So similarly in the Damodarila Krishna is in a subordinate position. But what happens is when when he sees when he steals butter and after stealing butter he decides to commit some more mischief.
We know the whole story. At first Mother Yashoda says that okay I will give you some milk. But then she sees some milk getting heated up so she puts Krishna aside.
And Krishna is enraged. How dare you take away my milk? It’s like from Krishna’s perspective let’s say after we are hungry. It’s a big feast.
And we are relishing the feast. And there are some delicious savouries there. Some very well made kheer is there.
So we take a spoon and we eat one spoon. And just to taste it, relish it we close our eyes and relish it. And after finishing relishing it we take another spoon.
The whole plate has disappeared. So from Krishna’s perspective it is like that. He is incensed.
I was drinking milk. I was relishing it. How did the mother just drop me and go away like this? Oh in his anger he decides that I am going to do some mischief.
So he runs around. He finds some more butter and he eats it. Then he thinks he must break some butter.
He says, you notice, for this butter my mother left me. So I will eat this butter. So he breaks the butter.
He lets it spill all over. And then what happens is while Krishna is completely transcendental Krishna acts like a human being. So when we approach Krishna Leela we could have two extremes.
One is, if we consider a pendulum one extreme would be to think that Krishna is just like an ordinary child. And therefore we reduce the entire relationship to just a mundane mischievous child who needs to be disciplined. The other extreme is to think that Krishna is so completely transcendental that there is nothing we can analyse.
We can only worship this past. And there is nothing we can learn from it at all. So in between is the understanding that there are principles of loving and serving that are universal that are applicable both in material relationships and in spiritual relationships that ultimately if you care for someone if we love someone then how we express that love, how we sustain that relationship those principles are similar in material and spiritual relationships.
Actually even the word material and spiritual are not that appropriate because what do we mean by a material relationship? The word material is such a big word within material there is sattvaguna, there is rajoguna and there is samoguna. And all three are not the same. When we go to America I just came here a month before they say are you from Asia? Now there is practically no Indian who thinks I am an Asian No we are Indian, not just Indian, we are South Indian, North Indian South Indian, I am Telugu, don’t cut it So Asian is nothing to do with Asia but Asia is such a big continent.
In Asia you can have Chinese, you can have Japanese, you can have Filipino, you can have Middle East you can have Indians, you can have so many different demographics and so many different cultures So it’s such a huge description as to be practically very unhelpful Even from an ethnic perspective if we consider the ethnography, the racial characteristics it’s very different So similarly when we use the word material it’s a huge spectrum from a relationship in the mode of ignorance to a relationship in the mode of goodness. All of you call it material In California they have made a rule that if there is a small child there is a baby seat for the child at the back and they found that many times parents, they are so it’s actually an insult to use the word parents for them, but anyway, parents are so lost in their head that they drive to a particular place and they forget that there is a baby behind them and just go away So now the new car that they are making, that if the baby is alone behind then the car, if somebody tries to lock it then the car will start beeping very loudly to alert and don’t leave your baby there So the point is that parents who have that level of forgetfulness they forget that even their child exists That is completely harmless in parents and on the other hand we have parents who are constantly worried constantly concerned, is my child healthy is my child safe, am I imparting the right values to the child Children across the world are having one of the biggest concerns of devotees is how can we help our children to grow up, to become good human beings to become good devotees so there is a wide spectrum even if somebody is not spiritually inclined but they are concerned that the children become good human beings so there is a big spectrum so the point is that material involves sattva guna, rajoguna, tamoguna and these three are very different so going back to the whole thing the point I was making is that the principles of loving and serving the principles that underlie sustainable and satisfying relationships they are common whether they are Krishna centred relationships I am using the word Krishna centred as a spiritual or a relationship where Krishna may not be in the centre these principles are similar so here what happens is in damada leela Krishna is in oneself acting like a mischievous child simply acting out so there is a rage because of the rage he just throws a tantrum throws things around, breaks some things but then the nature of rage is that it is something which surges up and then it surges down and then after that we wonder what did I do why did I do that just like there are alcoholics, there are shopaholics shop till you drop so afterwards somebody asks why did you buy this I don’t know so for Krishna his rage is there and his rage subsides and then he will be in big trouble what did I do my mother will be angry with me so there is a part of him still some residual anger is there and a part where there is fury so from there he runs away, he runs to another place and he is trying to feed the monkeys but then he sees mother Yashoda or he senses that she is there and he senses that she is there he just jumps down and starts running in one sense mother Yashoda is sort of in control because Krishna is running away from her and mother Yashoda is trying to catch her and he keeps running runs here, runs there and finally although he is much younger and mother Yashoda is much older but mother Yashoda is also taller eventually Krishna lets himself be caught and you could say in one sense Krishna is complying with his devotee’s will but Krishna is doing his own thing in their entire courtyard Krishna could have been caught anywhere but Krishna gets caught when he grows to this two giant that is Arjuna and so they have a huge courtyard if you go to Vrindavan even now there is Dandaka and the rest of the place is Vrindavan so in that big courtyard Krishna could have been caught anywhere but Krishna gets caught at a place where these two trees are not very far away and at a place where a grinding mortar is also nearby so by this what Krishna is doing Krishna is advancing his own plan so mother Yashoda as Krishna is running away from her she is getting exhausted, she is getting exasperated she is also getting infuriated, she is getting enraged and she decides I want to punish Krishna but now there is punishment why does mother Yashoda want to punish Krishna it is, at one level she feels that how can my child be undisciplined like this when we love someone we don’t want to hear anything bad about that person even if we hear something bad about that person we don’t want to believe it, we reject it so similarly what has happened is that many of the other gopis have come to mother Yashoda and they have complained Krishna steals butter in our houses and mother Yashoda never really believed it and Krishna is also a great actor Krishna whenever he complains he has a sweet innocent face mischief, I don’t even know what stealing is so because of that mother Yashoda doesn’t give much credits to those charges but still at the back of the mind there is a nature of criticism or accusation so when something is heard it is almost impossible to make it unheard when something is gold and inside our head there is no delete button or erase button so it stays there and now when mother Yashoda sees for herself that Krishna has done so much mischief there is no there is no one that has heard about him in the past must be true must be true and as she thinks like this so so discharged so Ash, am I audible so as she is thinking like this at one level it may seem that she is simply upset my child, how can he do like this how can my child be undisciplined like this but Kavi Karnapur in his Ananda Vanchampur describes that her concern is much more selfless she is thinking that if Krishna keeps stealing like this then Krishna will develop get a reputation that he is a thief and if he gets a reputation that he is a thief when he grows up who will give their daughter in marriage to him so she is worried about his future and therefore she says I have to discipline I have to put a stop to this so then initially after she catches Krishna she has a stick Krishna sees the stick Krishna acts so scared he is trembling he cannot even look at his mother in the face sometimes when we are very scared of someone some people they just look so they just look so scary I go to one particular place when I am travelling there one person he comes and sits right in front and throughout the class he just glares at me not even stares, just glares and even if there is some humour in the class he just keeps glaring the only way I can give a class is look at everyone except that person so generally if somebody is very scary we don’t even want to look at that person so like that Krishna is he is tilted down he is looking down trying to avoid anyone looking at him and at that time Yashoda starts thinking that I want to punish Krishna but I won’t want to terrorise him so much that he goes on the front right now he will run away from me but I will catch him but in future if he runs away who knows where he will run away and then I will catch him so I have to scare him but not scare him away there is always a thin line you want to discipline him so that he doesn’t do the wrong thing but you discipline him so much and that person just because of the discipline does the wrong thing so therefore she puts the sticker aside and she decides to tie him up so at this point while she is thinking she is doing her own thing it is Krishna who is doing his own thing Arjuna is thinking he is doing his own thing he says I want to go in the middle of the two armies and see what is going to happen I want to discipline Krishna but Krishna is planning his own thing so when she decides I want to discipline Krishna by tying him up where do I tie him up? there is a grinding mortar right nearby I will tie Krishna like this so through whatever plans we are making Krishna is making his own plans sometimes our plans may be independent of Krishna’s plans may be compliant with Krishna’s plans may be without his blessings but no matter what we do Krishna’s plan is still operational so then as Krishna and Arjuna start speaking in the Gita so we are discussing parallels between the Bhagavad Gita and the Dhamma Dalila so as Krishna starts speaking eventually they are having a very meaningful and deep discussion but at one particular point when Krishna’s teacher Arjuna accepts that Krishna is extremely wise Arjuna accepts that Krishna is God but at the same time there is this intense philosophical discussion going on and then in the 11th chapter Arjuna asks that if it is possible for you then please show your very versatile and then when he says this Arjuna gets more than only bargain food much much more and Krishna also tells him Krishna gives an hint what you are asked to see I will show you and I will show you something more so again we have our plan Krishna seems to be going along with our plan but Krishna also has his plan that is also going along with it then what is this extra that Krishna shows Arjuna so initially when Arjuna says please show me the universal form Krishna says yes I will show it to you I will show you the divine form and I will give you the eyes by which you can see the divine form so in one sense normally how we see it is if you have seen those pictures Arjuna here and Krishna here and Krishna is pointing his hand like this so it is just a pictorial depiction in two dimensions it has limitations actually what happens when Krishna shows the universal form to Arjuna at that time Krishna disappears because it is Krishna showing his universal form so it is not that Krishna says I will give my universal form to you and Arjuna no longer sees Krishna Arjuna only sees the universal form and that is why he says I can’t see the beginning I can’t see the middle I can’t see the end I see this it is right from the earth to the sky it is spreading in all directions I see this and identify it this is the Vishwaroopa, the universal form so Krishna expands and covers all of space so there is in general in the past times of Krishna there is his sweetness and there is his greatness what is it called in Sanskrit Madhurya and his greatness is Aishwarya so his Aishwarya and his Madhurya both are there and both of them exist in a dynamic succession and tension succession is one comes after another and then tension which is going to manifest when there is a tension between the two so in both these past times we begin with the Madhurya the Madhurya means out of love Krishna subordinates himself to his devotee so out of love Krishna is like a small child who is dependent on his mother out of love Krishna has become the charioteer of Arjuna so there is the Madhurya that is manifested and from the Madhurya there is a sweet reciprocation with the Madhurya and then from there the Aishwarya manifests so this is what happens both in the Ramudan Leela and in the Bhagwanita’s flow so initially when Arjuna says universal form he says this is awesome awesome is like a typical teenager adjective for everything the food is awesome the picnic was awesome the music was awesome the new school is awesome everything is awesome it’s only your vocabulary that is not awesome when the students have to learn some words get overused like wonderful the class is wonderful it’s wonderful that you don’t know any other word other than wonderful but with aw there are two words there is awesome and there is awful now there are similar words similar sounding words which have very different meanings once I gave a class and after the devotee came the bride’s father says bro this class was terrible I said what I was looking at you and you said with a bright smile and then I understood that he actually wanted to say terrific so Arjuna announces that this universal form is awesome but from awesome he says suddenly he says I am becoming alarmed so within that awesome universal form he starts saying something which is awful now generally we don’t want to use the word because the word awful has a negative connotation in the sense of dreadful the awful means horrible, dreadful, gruesome that’s what we mean by awful but awful previously maybe 100 years before the meanings of words change over time so awful previously meant something that filled us with awe so when we see something that makes us full of awe when we see something awe is a feeling of reverence of humility in the sight or in the presence of something stupendous so somebody goes to the Himalayas and sits at the foot of the Himalayas and looks up and sees this huge mountain as far as the eyes can see it’s an awesome sight awesome means wonderful awful means something which makes us feel small something which is scarily wonderful it’s wonderful but it’s scarily wonderful so it’s filled with a sense of fear now why is Arjuna filled with fear over here because Krishna always starts manifesting his speciality so Arjuna is seeing his universal form it’s spread all over, up and down, left and right everywhere and as he sees this actually it’s so effulgent that I really can’t see things properly it’s difficult to see but as he starts seeing as he starts discerning and he says he says there are these dreadful demons that are coming out of the mountain and then there is a fire of destruction coming out of the mountain it seems like some kind of scary monster kind of thing there are these horror movies horror movies that I have never understood I have never been a big fan of movies I like reading books more why would somebody want to get horrified you want to be entertained there are different ways of being entertained why would somebody want to be horrified actually the point is that life is so boring that any stimulation is better than no stimulation so even horror is a stimulation and in the spiritual level there is one of the rasas which is their relationship with Krishna so there is something original also but here it seems like a surreal horror it’s a horror movie there are different genres of movies there is a family friendly romantic comedy movie and then suddenly it turns out to be like a ghastly monster movie this is not what I signed up for I wanted to see a universal form but what am I seeing over here he sees that fire is coming from the mouth and ghastly looking teeth and all the warriors are drawn in and as they are drawn in they are getting burnt those who are surviving the fire as they are entering into the mouth they are just hitting the teeth and then they are getting smashed their skulls are getting smashed and then as blood is spilling over sometimes violence and action can be shown in different ways like children movies they show violence but they may not show blood or death or something like that there is a person sitting and a bullet hits and suddenly instead of a skull it’s just an explosion of red blood so it’s ghastly so Arjuna is a person who is a warrior trained to fight throughout his life but still the sight that he sees is so ghastly that he gets unnerved what is this and he asks Arjuna I ask him who are you now this is a peculiar question at one level because Arjuna has already told you are the Vishwaroopa but still he is asking who are you he is not saying to Krishna what is that it’s like a friend says let’s go and watch a movie and we are watching a movie together and then it turns out to be a horror movie he says what is this so Arjuna is like that he asks him who are you so why is he asking who are you because what has happened is he knows about the Vishwaroopa Vishwaroopa is the form that spreads across space from the whole universe but this destructive aspect entering into the mouth, getting destroyed fire coming from the mouth this has not been shown by Krishna but it was shown by Duryodhana earlier when has Krishna shown the universal form Duryodhana so at that time it was fearsome but this particular part was there and then also it was stunning but sweet Ishwara saw the whole universe and she saw herself looking at the mouth of Krishna so it was bewildering but it was not a horrifying form so that’s why Arjuna says what is going on as I said earlier we go to watch some romcom and suddenly it turns out to be a horror movie we ask what is going on what is this so Arjuna asks him suppose we are taking our exams we met an old friend after many years and we are going for a walk and suddenly we have dozen thugs attack us and as he is concerned what to do our friend suddenly exhibits certain martial art moves and in two minutes all those dozen thugs are on the ground helpless who are you so when we ask our friend who are you what does that mean I know who you are but I don’t know who you are when we see something unfamiliar in someone familiar we ask who are you we know somebody is a very serious person and one day that person comes and starts joking and is very different from the normal we may ask who are you what have you done to my serious friend so like that Arjuna is asking I know about the Vishwaroopa but what is this so who are you and then that’s why Arjuna what does Krishna answer Krishna your old friend don’t you recognise me I am the Vishwaroopa you already identified it what does Krishna say I am time so the Kaala Roopa the universe has two main dimensions I said about space and time so God’s so God’s pervasion across space was already shown by Krishna to Duryodhana Krishna to Yashoda but God’s pervasion across time that means how Krishna’s plan was going to manifest in the future that was shown by Krishna only to Arjuna Arjuna you are thinking that all these warriors will be saved in the future but they will not be saved it is not you who are killing them it is their own karma that is going to kill them and you are simply an instrument in that so basically Krishna from his Mathuria moves towards a stunning revelation of his Aishwarya and then Arjuna is bewildered who are you the same thing Krishna does with Yashoda also Krishna does not expand his form one of the aspects of Krishna Leela in Vrindavan is that Krishna exhibits his greatness without any of the conventional trappings of greatness trappings means symbols of greatness for example Krishna defeats and neutralises completely overpowers fearsome demons who have terrorised even the Devatas but Krishna does that effortlessly without even using a single weapon in the entire Krishna Leela in Vrindavan Krishna never used a weapon why is that? because Krishna doesn’t want to disrupt the new course of Vrindavan so Bala, Kridha, Nakama, Iva it’s like a child playing with toys sometimes the child becomes angry with the toy, just throws the toy down and wakes so like that Krishna seems to destroy the demons so Krishna in Vrindavan does not exhibit a ghastly kind of form but Krishna is that same sweet helpless looking endearing little boy but Mother Yashoda is not trying to tie him she is trying to tie him and what happens? it just goes on no amount of rope is enough the rope is just not enough the rope is just not enough so as this is going on she is perplexed she is annoyed, she is irritated and she is wondering what is happening why is the rope not enough what is going on and slowly as she is going on she starts realising this child is someone special this child is so she is her mood changes from chastisement to amazement and from amazement it goes from from exasperation to appreciation and then as she starts realising slowly Krishna lets himself be tied so although there is no dialogue between Krishna and Krishna and Yashoda in this whole leela it is interesting different commentators take different perspectives so it is said in the entire Damodar leela Krishna does not speak a single word right from the beginning if you see Krishna tells Yashoda his phone is on to her he wants milk and he runs away and he is feeding feeding to the monkey and then he is running away and he is looking at her now of course when the Naluku and Manigaru offer prayers at that time Krishna responds briefly but then that is a significantly different flavour so in the past when the movie industry just started there was something called silent movies now if you watch silent movies it gets very boring but what happened is that at that time when there was no dialogue people had to focus much more on acting skills and convey emotions and expressions without any verbal support so in Damodar leela Krishna is a silent actor Krishna is not doing anything and yet he is doing everything so there is no speaking between Krishna and Yashoda much but without speaking Krishna is acting like a tender child helpless child through it all he is speaking he is conveying a lot as Krishna starts manifesting his Aishwarya that is from the Madhuri the Aishwarya is going on but in the lord’s pastimes Krishna does not manifest his greatness simply for the purpose of manifesting his greatness actually his Aishwarya is manifested also for the purpose of enhancing the Madhuri the manifestation of greatness is for the purpose of reciprocating love and that is true in the Bhagavad Gita and that is true in the Damodar Leela also so how that is true we will discuss in tomorrow evening session so this parallel between Bhagavad Gita and Damodar Leela is what we will continue tomorrow so I will summarise what I discussed and if there are questions we can conclude with that so I talked about three main points first is when Tattva and Leela can seem very dissimilar Gita is Tattva and now Leela is Leela I mean both have a common phenomenon and that is love Krishna speaks the wisdom out of love and Krishna performs Leela out of love and then the first similarity is that in both Krishna begins with he being in the subordinate position to his devotee he is the small child in Damodar Leela and he is the child-heir in Krishna Leela and while Krishna is playing the appropriate role as a subordinate obeying Arjuna’s instructions or running away in fear from mother Aishwarya as a mischievous child while Krishna in his subordinate position also is still furthering his own plan Krishna gets the chariot in between the two armies but in front of Bheeshma it goes up so that Arjuna’s confusion will be complete discombobulation, complete overwhelming and similarly Arjuna is running around here and there but eventually gets himself caught close to the Yamaraja trees and close to the grinding wall so that his further plan can be murdered and then from that Madhurya, when he is subordinated he moves towards Aishwarya when Krishna reveals Aishwarya’s greatness Arjuna asks to show the universal form but Krishna shows something far more that is the Kamadharupa, which is not just awesome but it is powerful we don’t use the word powerful but Prabhupada also uses that Prabhupada says that it is a godless display of opulence now I will explain that tomorrow God is displaying his opulence and Prabhupada says this is a godless display of opulence how is that possible? that is a scary display and how that changes the mood of Krishna that is what we will discuss later but from the Madhurya the Aishwarya is manifested and this is all for furthering the reciprocation of the relationship similarly, because Vrindavan has a particular mood so the Aishwarya is not manifested in that scary or ghastly way but Krishna is in the same form same little divinity form but within that he somehow mystically expands so that no mood of Rome is enough to tie him Arjuna’s emotion changes on beholding Krishna’s Vishwamitra’s emotion changes on encountering Krishna from the mood of chastisement to the mood of amazement from exasperation to appreciation and how the relationship moves further although Krishna is almost like a silent factor according to some commentators still he is doing a lot so how it moves forward we will discuss in tomorrow’s session thank you very much are there any questions or comments? is it true that Krishna displayed his universal form in 64 dimensions and that is why Arjuna needed to specialise did Krishna display his universal form in 64 dimensions that is why he needed to specialise I never read anything on 64 dimensions specifically and that Krishna display in 64 dimensions is also open to question so the reason is specifically why he needed to specialise is twofold we can look at it from the Mahabharata’s perspective and from the Mahabharata’s perspective these two are different Mahabharata’s perspective is Arjuna is a very beautiful Kshatriya Bhakti is a part of him but Bhakti is not always prominent in Mahabharata Bhakti is what is prominent so from the Mahabharata’s perspective Arjuna is a human, Arjuna is on the earth in the cosmic alignment there is the middle planet system, low planet system, high planet system and beyond is the spiritual world so seeing the universal form is something that is possible for those with elevated consciousness not only for the Devatas, but also for the Rishis and Munis in Tapa Loka they get to see the universal form so from that perspective Arjuna was blessed to see something higher which is not accessible normally to humans and that is why he needed to specialise but another perspective is that Arjuna is only performing a leela on the earth in Krishna so if you consider this Arjuna is already at this level he has a personal relationship with Krishna and he is already beholding the form of Krishna so from that perspective from there to see the universal form is actually a step down because he is directly seeing the Krishna form and that is why when he says it is divine eyes divine in the sense here means celestial connected with the Devatas or that level of reality so this is definitely a special vision but that special vision is lower than the special vision that is normal for Arjuna because of his great devotion so it is specifically because from both perspectives whether he considers a human being in Mahabharata perspective exemplary human being from both those perspectives the level at which Arjuna was was not the appropriate level for seeing the universal form and that is why he needed a special vision any other questions Krishna please excuse me for my question Krishna’s dharmodar leela I know it is a very auspicious thing if this goes on because everyday the trees are already there in the yard and we make sure that he has all everyday feeding of Krishna so why did you choose that specific name why did Krishna choose a specific name again there are two ways of looking at it I will tell of both ways so for example why does Krishna wear a peacock feather Krishna could wear anything else he could wear anything also why does Krishna use a flute Krishna could play a harmonium also Krishna could do anything so one answer is that it is Krishna’s Krishna is for art, Krishna is supremely free and what he does is his personal preference and that is his that is the beauty of his personality it is very difficult for us also to quantify or not quantify but explain if you like something why do you like it so one devotee with whom I was a senior Prabhupada disciple he likes to cross examine so we were taking prasad together I heard you like this subject I didn’t want to get into the discussion I said yes why do you like this subject laughing laughing but that is not the reason why do we like something, we like something somebody says I like this particular I like this Kirtan we can give a reason for our likes but we can’t always give a reason for our likes as long as they are broadly within the parameters of dharma then there is no need to deconstruct them too much so what a person likes is just what makes them a person laughing so Krishna’s choices or Krishna’s preferences they are a part of his personality and they are what make him attractive and in general this is the this is the way our Acharya has a preference Krishna likes to play with you that’s what he is why is Krishna Gopal Krishna likes milk why is Krishna not Bhaispa laughing well it is not that Krishna dislikes buffalos Krishna likes all living beings but Krishna is a person and it is his choice now having said that there could be another way of looking at it and we could say that these are interpretations that could be given and as long as they are consistent in the philosophy they can be seen as additional meaning so there are devotees who nowadays the environmental movement is quite active so the devotees often try to say Krishna is the ultimate eco-friendly deity so Krishna does not use any artificial perfumes artificial decorations he uses nature decorations and he uses peacock feathers he doesn’t even have to pluck it from a peacock it just falls off from a peacock so it is actually an Ahimsa beauty product laughing we have Ahimsa milk we have a non-violent beauty product there is no hurting a peacock when you take a peacock feather out people get fur clothes and those animals have to be killed for getting the fur clothes but it is not like that here so similarly Krishna’s flute it is made from wood it is nature so Vrindavan is an example of living in harmony not just with nature but with the beauty of nature so from that perspective we can give an expression like that but this is not the explanation that Amaracharyas have given for each other there are some particular stories where peacock there was something like one story in our tradition once Radharani was in the forest and at that time a huge peacock suddenly came towards her and seeing that peacock Radharani got scared and she ran away Radharani had quarrelled with Krishna and she was not ready to see Krishna and what happened was seeing that peacock coming towards Radharani and she was simply running away from the peacock and she didn’t realise where she was running and she ran and ran and ran straight into the embrace of Krishna and Krishna thanked the peacock laughing and therefore as an expression of my gratitude I will wear your feather so there are stories like that but does that mean that Krishna was not wearing a peacock feather before this passage laughing no this is an eternal ornament of Krishna but it could be that when Krishna manifests on this earth at a particular point he starts exhibiting a flute it’s not that Krishna is born with a flute in his mouth it’s a particular time he starts playing the flute it’s a particular time he starts wearing a peacock feather this kind of explanations can be given so as far as Damodar Vila being performed on a particular day is concerned I haven’t read any particular explanation even Damodar Ashtakam’s explanation of Sanam Goswami is a critical commentary there also it doesn’t mention any reason for that so in general unless our Acharya has emphasised we don’t go into the reason for particular personal attributes of Krishna they are because Krishna is that’s who Krishna is any last question I have to understand this eternity principle of Nila when we have limited time time like past, present, future the eternity principle so if everything is eternal in the spiritual world then how do we understand Nila well there are many different ways of understanding all this in the Christian tradition for example they have the idea that when a man and a human unite that time a soul is created and from then on the soul is eternal so their definition of eternal is no end beginning but no end and now the traditional understanding of eternal is no beginning and no end but so eternal can be defined in different ways so Krishna says so now specifically with respect to the Nila or the spiritual world what that means is that not that there is no flow of time rather the flow of time does not cause the deterioration of anything in this particular pastime Krishna defines himself as time Kalos means time I am the destroyer of the world so why the destroyer of the world because now time does three things time leads to creation, time also leads to destruction specifically on the battlefield destruction is also going to happen so in the spiritual world time brings about transformation but no deterioration, no destruction that means let’s say Eswathama and Nandamala are a little older little above middle aged so that is how they are eternally it is not that they grow older and older that is how they are Krishna is a youthful teenager that is how he is always so that means that the flow of time does not have any controlling effect in terms of causing deterioration everything in the spiritual world exists to enhance Krishna’s pastimes so Krishna performs different Nilas at different times and the change in time simply facilitates the performance of various pastimes so when the Gopas wake up in the morning right from the morning they are looking forward oh today we will go out in the forest with Krishna so when will we go out when will Krishna come back and then he will be with us so when he is going out we will see him from the terraces when he comes back we will be in the terraces and we will see him from when he is coming back the passage of time simply gives devotees something to look forward to and to reciprocate the love of Krishna so that is the meaning of eternal so thank you very much so today we continue our discussion