Parallels between Damodara-lila and Bhagavad-gita – part 2
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Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
Lecture Summary
Explore the deep philosophical and narrative connections between the Damodar Lila and the Bhagavad Gita, discovering how divine love bridges philosophical tattva and narrative lila.
Key Highlights of the Parallels
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Themes of Subordination: Both narratives begin with the Supreme Lord in a humble, subordinate position—acting as Yashoda’s bound child and Arjuna’s humble charioteer to emphasize a theology rooted in love.
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Balancing Madhurya and Aishwarya: The transitions from sweet, intimate pastoral relationships (Madhurya) to awe-inspiring cosmic majesty (Aishwarya) serve to deepen, rather than overshadow, the devotee’s loving reciprocation.
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Overcoming Modern Filters: Ancient pastimes—such as Mother Yashoda disciplining Krishna or the fiery imagery of the universal form—must be evaluated within their historical and cultural context rather than through modern misconceptions.
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Prayers of Affection vs. Awe: While the Vrajavasis primarily pray for Krishna out of spontaneous parental affection, Arjuna shifts to offering direct devotional prayers to Krishna after witnessing the cosmic Virat Rupa.
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The Power of Direct Experience (Anubhav): Scriptural authority provides foundational faith, but direct spiritual experiences through kirtan, katha, and remembrance elevate a devotee’s conviction to a deeper level.
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The Ultimate Culmination of Love: Both narratives resolve through emotional trials that ultimately enrich the bond between the Lord and His devotees, culminating in Arjuna’s surrendered determination and Yashoda and Krishna’s joyful reunion.
Full Transcription
On the parallels between Damodar Nila and the pastimes of the narrative of the Bhagavad Gita a quick recap of what was discussed till now yesterday I discussed broadly the principle of how love underlies and unifies everything the tattva and the lila so the Bhagavad Gita is more of tattva philosophy and the Gita and the Damodar lila is itself a lila in terms of the narrative both begin with a position of subordination that the lord is subordinate to his devotee and then the lord he is a charioteer and he is Yashoda’s child and then during the course what he does is while Yashoda is doing her own thing I have disciplined Krishna during that time what is happening is Krishna is pursuing his plan he lets himself be caught but where? near the grinding mortar and near the Yamala Arjun trees and similarly Krishna, Arjuna is asking Krishna to get the chariot in the middle but at that time Krishna gets it right in front of Bhishma and Drona so that Arjuna will feel the deepest level of confusion and will feel the need for wisdom which Krishna will provide through the Bhagavad Gita and then this is Mother Yashoda trying to tie Krishna feels overwhelmed, confused and then eventually becomes appreciative and her robes are not able to tie Krishna similarly what happens in the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna is trying to make sense of what he is seeing a huge form initially it’s awesome for him but then after that it becomes scary, awful for him and then he asks what is this? This is the Kaal so although Krishna does not show anything scary to Mother Yashoda but still the idea is this from his Madhurya from the subordinate position he has manifested the Aishwarya so today we will move forward in both the narrative of the Gita and the narrative of the Damodar Leela in the Damodar Leela towards the end that in one sense the Leela has two endings so at one level Yashoda ties Krishna and she has in one sense disciplined Krishna so many times when we in today’s world try to look back at what was what was happening in the past what were people doing in the past we have to put aside our filters in order to understand things I was talking about this Damodar Leela in America a few months ago and there was one western lady in the audience and as I was describing the devotee the past life was so sweet and enchanting the devotees were ecstatic but I could see this woman was getting more and more agitated and then finally I told her about how she might succeed in tying Krishna and she just got up are all you people crazy? this is child abuse you are enjoying it all what kind of perverts are you so for her the idea of tying a child is child abuse now what happens is the three things how people live, how people think and what people value so lifestyle, thought systems and value systems these three ways from time, place and circumstance so if we are to actually understand the past we need to understand the past in terms of the past not in terms of the present there is this increasing leftist, liberal ideology getting control of the world they say we are the most moral generation and everybody in the past was immoral why? because we value equality we value equality of all kinds so Abraham Lincoln was the person who actually ended slavery more or less in America at a legal level but before he did that for some part of his life in the early elections he said even if we can’t end slavery we should minimise it and he would treat at least slaves to be treated humanely there are some people in America who said Abraham Lincoln was a racist and he should be cancelled because he supported slavery even if he says humans is slavery well ok, if you had been at that time you would have been a far worse slave master than what you would have been so the idea that we know what is best and we will evaluate everything of the past from our perspective it is an egoistic vision of the past so of course so with respect to this past time the idea is that two things have happened do we as a movement recommend that parents should discipline their children of course not in scripture there is something which is descriptive and something which is prescriptive descriptive is simply describing how things were there at that time and everything that is descriptive in scripture is not prescriptive it is not that that was done at that time, that’s why we haven’t witnessed it nobody is saying that today because we want to be devotees all of us should have our own grinding mortar and we should be churning butter and making it into curd if you can well and good but the important thing is offer whatever food you get to Krishna and then take it so there is descriptive and there is prescriptive so everything in scripture is not the teaching of scripture so that’s the first point the second point is that discipline has been enforced in different ways in different cultures so two things have happened broadly first in some ways in the past the past was a more physically challenging world many of the comforts that we have right now they were not there so people in general were physically tougher in general punishments were more physical the life was more physical people would have to do farming, warriors they didn’t need artificial gyms to build their muscles they had to do physical churning tasks so the past was a more physical culture and therefore physical discipline was a part of it and there was more important reason why corporeal punishment is disapproved nowadays is that while we have become a less physical culture today simultaneously we have got more dangerous physical weapons in the past even a powerful warrior would not have a weapon like a machine gun here for example in America many of you have heard of gun violence a youth cannot buy drugs of course drugs are dangerous always but legally a youth cannot buy drugs till he is 21 because he will harm himself but that same youth can buy a machine gun that can kill 100 people so our values are perverted we have access to far more dangerous objects than the physical and that is why this combination of greater outer power and lesser inner power greater outer power means we have very dangerous weapons and lesser inner power means we don’t have sufficient self control we don’t have sufficient intelligence to discern what is right and what is wrong this is a deadly combination so in that sense restraining corporeal discipline physical discipline is a step which is necessary in today’s world but the point is there in Krishnali love and we impose our conceptions it’s not child abuse by any stretch of the word no mother can love her child as much as mother Yashoda loves her child but her love is the pinnacle towards which all mothers can aspire and it is out of her love that she is trying to discipline her and when she is disciplining him actually speaking it is extraordinary because he is God and he is getting bound as we say he is bound by love he is not bound by simply a rope it’s a triumph of love which is actually the complete opposite of abuse of power if we impose our perspectives carry our filters we can completely misunderstand what is going on in scripture and curiously a similarly horrendous misunderstanding can happen with the Vishwaroop also some of you may know about 7-8 years ago that in Russia there was an attempt to ban the Bhagavad Gita and the group behind it was primarily the ROC ROC is the Russian Orthodox Church so they felt that they were threatened by the way the Hare Krishna was spreading and one of the reasons they said why they should be banned is that these people worship a cannibalistic God a God who eats human beings what craziness and their justification was in the 11th chapter in the mouth of Vishwaroop the various warriors are described as going there and based on that now actually speaking at one level the description is very ghastly it is described that as these warriors samudra rivers are flowing into the ocean similarly the warriors are flowing into the mouth similarly two metaphors are given the other metaphor is just as a moth moth rushes towards fire similarly warriors are entering into the mouth of the Vishwaroop and then it is described as they are entering it is the head is getting smashed and then as the blood is sprinkling all over the Vishwaroop is taking out his tongue and licking the blood it is like sometimes some children they are eating some sweet rice and they don’t eat it so they spread all over they don’t miss even one drop so they lick their tongue to get everything delicious so like that this description can seem ghastly but what is going on over here if anybody reads the Bhagavad Gita it is clear that it is not literal in the sense of what we consider literal there is no mention of any deity you got to speak of Krishna who is Suratanath who is the god of love, being cannibalistic this is a metaphorical depiction what is described is that there are multiple ways to understand this now I would say the first thinking of child abuse is a genuine misunderstanding somebody may think like that maybe they were abused in childhood that might trigger some unhappy memories for them and that is an understandable misunderstanding but this is very much of a malicious misunderstanding you know it’s not that it’s not that you misunderstand it’s you want others to misunderstand you understand what you are doing you want to spread misconception about others misconception among others so what is happening in this particular pastime is in the darshan of Virat Rupa Krishna is depicting how ultimately the conception of God is inclusive if God is the source of everything then one reality of the world is also death and we can’t deny the reality of that world so the conception of divinity includes creation, maintenance and destruction when creation happens a new life is born it’s a gift from God it’s arranged by God and similarly when there is death there is destruction so now a body entering into fire there is fiery mouth and which is getting smashed in our tradition there is at the end of life the body is cremated and the body is literally put into fire so some people say it’s so brutal you are just burning the body you don’t even honour the body by burning it well actually speaking we honour the soul within the body by burning the body there are many different religious traditions they all are meant for raising human consciousness towards God but they all have different conceptions so in the Christian tradition they talk about the soul but in many ways they think that the soul and the body are not different and that’s why they think of resurrection as the literal body being reinstated just like Jesus appeared after his crucifixion all of us will come back in our self saved body of course there are many questions if somebody dies at the age of 80 will they be eternally at the age of 80 for the rest of their life well then heaven won’t be heavenly for them the body at 80 is not what we want lifelong or eternally for example you have a youthful body what if somebody died when they were 2 they never had a youthful body in that tradition the body is seen as a part of a person but in our tradition the understanding is that the body is a tool for the person but when the soul has attachment to the body and when the body is burnt then the soul gets a sense of irreversible closure now this body I lived in this for a long time I would like to come back but I can’t it’s like if we have lived in a house for 30-40 years and then maybe somehow we are evicted from the house so we still hover around the house hoping that maybe I can come back in this house but then after we are evicted the house is demolished then that means I can’t come back let me find a new house and move on so basically cremation is kindness to the soul because the soul gets a sense of irreversible closure an emotional closure which is irreversible but for some people who are uninformed from the philosophical perspective the same body that you cared for that you hugged, you took so much care of you are just burning it, what kind of culture is it? that’s why we have to see each culture from its perspective so at one level in one sense when Krishna is showing the Virat group with the fire burning the body and destroying the body that is just like the Andhya Samskara that Andhya Samskara is going to happen for everyone and in one sense in our tradition Agni is still a God, a Devata and Agni is also a representative of the Supreme Lord so we are offering the body to Agni that among all the Devatas the highest is Vishnu and the lowest is Agni the lowest here doesn’t mean the least powerful lowest means most accessible that among all the Devatas the offerings we make to Agni Agni takes it to all the Devatas that’s our understanding Krishna has also told Arjuna that this war is like a Yajna he says that you see this war and sacrifice in this sacrifice what is happening is the sacrificial fire is the Kurukshetra battlefield you are the priest your Gandiva bow and arrow are like the sacrificial spoon and those who are opposing Dharma they are like the offerings into the fire so of course this is not being literal again it is symbolic all the work that we do is like a sacrifice everything can be envisioned as sacrifice through this vision of Vishwaroopa Krishna is showing Arjuna that the sacrifice that he will be making will actually be accepted by the Lord in the mouth of Agni we put sacrifice in the mouth of Viratroopa the warriors are going that means this is a sacred activity protecting Dharma means neutralising them so it is not cannibalistic at all both these pastimes can actually be misunderstood if you do not see them from the proper cultural and philosophical framework then if you move forward so I was talking about the love where does it end so mother Yashoda she tries to tie Krishna finally she succeeds in tying Krishna and then after tying she goes away so in one sense Krishna is manifesting his huge form without manifesting huge form he is manifesting his hugeness in his seemingly childlike form but he stops at a particular time when mother Yashoda’s mood changes her mood initially is how dare the child be undisciplined discipline this child is someone special why are you undisciplined what is going on over here and as her mood changes to appreciation then Krishna manifests his omnipotence and becomes like a small child and gets tied so again what is happening is if you consider a graph from Madhurya Aishwarya is manifesting and from Aishwarya again Madhurya comes now in the case of mother Yashoda because Krishna does not manifest his form explicitly and because their mood is the mood of intimacy in Vrindavan so therefore there is not much of there is no prayers being offered by Yashoda to Krishna this is a big difference between the Vrajavahasis and all other devotees all devotees pray to Krishna and the Vrajavahasis pray for Krishna the Vrajavahasis they don’t think that Krishna is God they think that somehow whenever they see Krishna doing something wonderful after Krishna leaves Govardhan Hill and the Vrajavahasis have wonderful loving reciprocation for 7 days at that time they are so entranced by Krishna’s beauty and Krishna’s love they forget everything but after that they also have a logical sense and with their logic they come and ask Tandav Maharaj how could Krishna have lifted this Govardhan Hill how is that possible some sceptics ask if Krishna really lifted it so how did Krishna find the centre of gravity of Govardhan if I had lifted it in physics exercises I would have put my finger over here only then it would have been balanced I won’t let it go but how would Krishna even if he had lifted it how did he exactly find the centre of gravity to balance so Krishna does not have to find the centre of gravity because he is the source of gravity that material nature works under his supervision so we accept that there are laws of material nature and those laws are valid and the Vrajavahasis in the past they believed any stories that were made up it’s not like that the Vrajavahasis are also rational they ask how could Krishna have lifted this they know you can’t be lifted but they are open to a broader explanation than what our today’s mind or today’s educational ethos often allows us that is when Tandav Maharaj replies that when Gargacharya came for the Namakar and the naming ceremony of Krishna he told me that Krishna is just like Narayana is as good as Narayana so he has Tandav Maharaj will make his inference so Gargabhuni he has a very delicate task sometimes when we have to speak we don’t want to speak a lie but speaking the truth may jeopardise and injure other people so then there has to be what is called selective disclosure of truth so what Gargabhuni does is that he when they ask he is also an astrologer he has a horoscope and he tells them so now he doesn’t want to tell an outright lie he can’t say this is the supreme lord and he also can’t really say that this child is just like Narayana just like Narayana and then the question will come up so Gargacharya is a great Acharya why has he come here to do this naming ceremony so he says that I will do it privately so that Kamsa will not suspect anything but still why would he do it privately also he is the priest of the dynasty of the Yadus so just to pacify him he says that actually in the past he was the son of Vasudeva now this is again a selective disclosure so Nanda Maharaj infers that in the past means in a previous life he was the son of Vasudeva so the Vrindavan says they in one sense know and in another sense they don’t know about Krishna’s full position so what they think is that he is just like Narayana how does anyone become like Narayana only Narayana is like Narayana but if somebody is extremely blessed by Narayana then that person may become like Narayana in the Indian tradition it is common that if a couple is getting married and they are going to a procession they just look like Sitara they look like Lakshmi Narayana so that is both an appreciation and a benediction may you have a broadly virtues so the idea is Nanda Maharaj thought that this is being spoken in that mood by Gargacharya so he thought that he is especially blessed and that’s why what the Vrindavan says they would pray for Krishna for Krishna to Narayana they would pray to Lord Narayana please keep blessing our Krishna please keep protecting him so whenever Krishna would be in danger say for example Krishna was abducted went away with Putana she ran away after holding on to her they didn’t know where she had gone after that when she would be rescued the Vrajvasis would chant prayers they would chant Vishnu Mantras for the protection of Krishna so the Vrajvasis don’t pray to Krishna they pray for Krishna now occasionally they do pray to Krishna but it is more circumstantial Krishna is an extraordinary hero more than a God who is an object of prayer so Yashodamayi doesn’t pray to Krishna although her appreciation for Krishna increases on the other hand Arjuna does pray to Krishna so Arjuna offers prayers to Krishna verses 37 to 47 in the 11th chapter that is the only place in the Gita where Arjuna offers prayers to Krishna and he starts his prayers by saying actually where do I offer obeisances if you come to a temple and the Deities are in front of us but sometimes if you go to some Hindu temples it’s not a temple, it’s like a museum of temples there are Deities everywhere so if the Deities are in all directions then which direction do you offer obeisances so Arjuna is bewildered like that so he says Namah Purustha Tapushta Tasten I offer obeisances in front, I offer obeisances from behind Namo Namaste Tu Sahasra Krutva Punashya Bhuviyopi Namo Namaste so I say I offer obeisances hundreds of times and I offer obeisances again from front, from back, from all sides so Arjuna is offering obeisances like that and then Arjuna says that Krishna, you know I am blessed by seeing these cool floors and I took you for granted so as I said things are a little more subtle in Prashnila outside Krishna’s union is more manifested so Arjuna says I took you for granted Sakheti Matva Prasabham Yaduptam E Krishna He Yadava Se Sakheti Ajanata Mahimanam Davedam Maya Pranada Pramadad Prane Nawapi so he says I just referred to you in a very familiar way Krishna He Sakha He Yadava so Vishwanchit Thakur explains that Yadava he says that I am the royal prince but you are not the royal prince you are not going to become king you are just one member of the other dynasty that’s Yadava so he says it’s my grace to you that I thought that I was gracing you by becoming a friend of yours but now I understand that you were gracing me so please forgive me and then he says here there is a similarity with the earlier pastime that Mother Yashoda she sees Krishna universal form in her mouth and she is thinking what’s happening over here what’s happening she says you figure it out you just can’t figure it out so Arjuna also sees this universal form in her overwhelm and then he says my lord you have blessed me with this form I am grateful now please show your two hands and there Krishna decides to tease Arjuna Krishna says Arjuna this form is extremely rare Vedic knowledge is very rare so he says it’s not by study of Vedas not by study of scriptures not by great austerity not by meditation none of these ways you can see this form you got such a rare sight why don’t you want to see it have an idea so now why does he say I have an idea I mentioned that Prabhupada says that a devotee is not interested in godless display of opulence what that means is if God is displaying his opulence why would Prabhupada call this as godless display of opulence because it is God displaying his opulence but this opulence is being displayed in a way that it is very difficult to offer personal love that a devotee wants a personal relationship with the lord and this is the key point which points us to Vrindavan and with this point I will conclude the past time and the class that for the devotees the the Aishwarya of the lord actually enhances the madhuri of their relationship a devotee is not interested in the greatness of god simply for the greatness of god a devotee is interested in the greatness of god because it enhances the sweetness of their loving reciprocations with Krishna so for example in the Vrindavan that Krishna lifted Govardhan is described but very few people actually if you study the acharyas contemporary teachers they don’t say oh Krishna lifted Govardhan therefore he is god no, he said Krishna lifted Govardhan and he humbled Indra or he was in love with his devotees so for him Krishna is showing miracles not because he wants to prove that he is god he wants to further his pastimes and in that pastimes are centred on loving reciprocation so even Krishna’s exhibition of his greatness of his godhood, of his divinity is actually simply to further the reciprocation of love and this is Krishna in Damodar Leela he could if he is really god and he is, but he simply wanted to exhibit his godhood he is unlimited, he could just sit in his room he could extend his arm and his arm can go into the place, the room where the butter is there he can take the butter and eat it, it’s over there is no pastime there but Krishna is not simply interested in eating butter at one level Krishna doesn’t need any food he is the provider of food for everyone what he is hungry for is love Krishna controls everything in the world except one thing can you guess what that one thing is? our false ego love of devotees Krishna is all of them pointing to the right thing Krishna controls everything in the world except our heart our heart is entirely ours for to do what we want to do we can offer our heart to a cricketer to a video game hero we can offer our heart to a star wars hero to a super hero in marvel comics or whatever we can offer our heart to a politician we can offer our heart to so many things in the world we, that is up to us but Krishna longs and thirsts and hungers for our heart’s love and for him everything in the material world and everything in the spiritual world is an arrangement by which a person is prompted to offer their heart to Krishna and Krishna offers his heart back in reciprocation that is the sweetness of the reciprocation of love so even when Krishna manifests his divinity in brajaleela what we describe that is described a few verses and after that we consider anandam, lavan, champu and other books then the description is how Krishna and the brajavans in their sweet loving reciprocations how he spoke with Yashoda how he spoke with sister khas how he reciprocated with her all those things are described and that is the key part of the world we love for our acharyas because it is the reciprocation of love that is important similarly when Krishna manifests his divinity it is not that some people say that actually Krishna when he spoke the bhagavad gita he couldn’t persuade Arjuna by his logical reasoning and that’s why he showed his divinity and that’s what scared Arjuna and forced him into compliance and that’s a complete misreading of the gita because this is the 11th chapter and the 10th chapter itself Krishna speaks in chatushloka gita which at one time concludes the gita and at line 7, 10, 12, 13, 14 that sequence of verses Arjuna says param brahma param dhama pavitram parambam he says you are the supreme reality and sarvam etadrutam manye yanma ambadasikeshu I accept everything that you say so Krishna did not rely on his godhood to persuade Arjuna if Krishna had wanted to do that Krishna would have finished the whole gita in 6 words I am god obey me fight bhagavad gita over that was not Krishna’s mood Krishna persuaded Arjuna and he used reasoning and philosophy to persuade Arjuna and when Krishna showed the virat rupa it was because Arjuna requested it because Arjuna wanted the world to know that what Krishna is saying is not just bragging Krishna can back his words with actions and Krishna says that he sustains the whole universe and Krishna can give a vision which shows that also now having said that Arjuna is also taken aback by the magnitude of the vision sometimes you may ask god to display something or to show some promise and anybody who asks Krishna to show some power they end up getting more than what they bargained we have lord Shiva asking asking the lord for what showing Mohini murti and what happens is he himself becomes Mohin by that we have Markandeya Rishi asking the lord to show your maya shakti and then the lord doesn’t show the maya shakti Markandeya Rishi becomes a part of the show itself he is seen going here and there what’s happening but through it all at the end of it lord Shiva praises and glorifies that no one could have deluded me only you could have deluded me so even that exhibition of maya and the delusion resulting from that is also a reciprocation of love between the lord and the devotee Markandeya Rishi’s devotion also gets enhanced so Arjuna for him also what happens is at the end of the pastime or at the end of the 11th chapter Arjuna’s mind becomes pacified but also his heart becomes more dedicated Arjuna has accepted that in principle but in sensory perception when we see something there is a greater conviction that comes from it so although we say shabda is the ultimate praman we accept shastra as the ultimate authority at the same time it is described that anubhav is the highest praman from an individual perspective that means when we get experience of something the conviction coming from that is unparalleled so the idea is in principle we accept shabda is the highest shabda is the source of authority like say if somebody is a good doctor now we have heard from many people that this person is a good doctor we have heard that this person has been educated in a very good college that person has been in practise for a long time so we may have faith it is good to have that faith but when we are ourselves cured by that doctor then this doctor is a quack you are a quack I have been cured from this similarly for us we may study shastra and by studying shastra we may get faith so what shastra teaches also we have faith in that at the same time when we experience ourselves that level of conviction goes much deeper so arjuna has accepted what krishna has said in the 10 chakras but when krishna demonstrates that the conviction goes much deeper that is why as devotees we study scripture but at the same time we also seek spiritual experiences when we have festivals, when we have kirtans when we have katha all these are opportunities for us to not just gain an explanation of krishna but gain the experience of krishna when we get the experience of krishna that is like the ultimate CT, confirmatory test for a devotee krishna is real, krishna really cares for me remembering krishna can really raise my consciousness to a higher level so that’s how arjuna’s mind becomes completely pacified and then after whatever questions arjuna asks he answers the miscellaneous questions to clarify various concepts but thereafter arjuna is completely convinced to do krishna’s will and that love is propagated towards the end of the eid where arjuna says karishye vachanam, i will do your will now interestingly in damodar lila, the ending happens slightly later in the 11th chapter, there are 6 chapters that go on and in the 18th chapter there is the end where krishna calls for surrender and arjuna surrenders in love and the two are united in their action but in this case what happens is i said from madhurya to aishwarya then back to madhurya but here the madhurya is not manifested so krishna again becomes in a form which he is tied up, tiable but even after that he is tied and malakeshwara has gone away and krishna brings the yamalajan trees down he releases and thereafter what happens, he is still lying over there he has liberated those who have been bound but he still remains bound he still remains bound and then everybody is aghast, what happened, the trees fell down he said krishna ok and nandamaharaj is returning at that time from outside and nandamaharaj runs and he picks up krishna and asks what happened and he says that ishwarya tied him up and at that time krishna pulled the granny motor and pulled it down and nandamaharaj doesn’t know what to believe and krishna is holding on to nandamaharaj and they come back home and krishna says to nandamaharaj ishwarya tied me up i will never go back to her again and the prajwasis tell the story that krishna nandamaharaj is trying to remind krishna of all the love that madhubisha has for him krishna who will feed you you baba who will bathe you you baba who will dress you so now what is happening is nandamaharaj has come back to the home and ishwarya is hearing all this and her heart is breaking to hear that krishna doesn’t want to be with her and krishna is angry krishna is defiant nandamaharaj is trying to pacify him nandamaharaj is looking at krishna nandamaharaj is looking at nandamaharaj what should i do so at that time as krishna appears to be very hard this is something similar to what arjuna krishna is saying krishna is extending krishna is increasing krishna may seem to be hard hearted but actually krishna is not being hard hearted krishna is by creating separation he is intensifying the longing with nishodas heart and when there will be union there will be even greater joy and finally the thing nandamaharaj says works nandamaharaj feeds krishna krishna is well fed and then rohini comes and rohini says krishna krishna looks at rohini and rohini looks very distressed what happened and rohini says that no krishna without you nishodamayi can’t live she is refusing to eat any food she will die if you are not with her as soon as krishna hears this nishodamayi will die krishna jumps off the lap of nandamaharaj and runs to nishodamayi and they both enjoy a delightful embrace of love and thus there is the culmination of this past time nishodamayi and nishodamayi are reunited once again and that is how the past time ultimately love it doesn’t just mean that two people come together but love means that two people come together with a deeper bond so through the bhagavad gita’s dynamics krishna and nandamayi come closer to each other so the dhammadharila past time not only is the love between nishodamayi and krishna expressed but the love between them is also developed that enrichment is manifested both in the culmination of the bhagavad gita and the culmination of the dhammadharila so we can also pray that by hearing these past times by hearing the subtle undercurrents of their emotional dynamics that we may also experience and enrich our devotion for the lord so i will quickly summarise i discussed the second part of the parallel between dhammadharila and krishna and krishna’s bhagavad gita message so i talked about three main things first is how bringing our filters over there can lead to misunderstanding nishodamayi is telling krishna is not child abuse and krishna in the universal form having what is entry into the mouth is not cannibalism so we need to understand cultures of the past from their perspective from understanding how they lived how they thought and what they valued from that framework we can understand everything in scripture is not teaching of scripture it is descriptive and prescriptive second part i discussed is how the prajapahasis don’t pray to krishna they pray for krishna and when krishna has manifested his divinity his greatness has come back to the normal form nishodamayi is able to tie krishna after offering prayers and seeking forgiveness has krishna come back to the normal form finally it is that krishna and arjuna unite in their determination to work together to establish dharma and krishna the revelation of the universal form leads to a deeper conviction in arjuna you may philosophically understand but personally anubhav is the highest praman so for nishodamayi also she always loves krishna but through this whole leela where she fails to tie krishna catches krishna and ties krishna and then is rejected by krishna and then is reunited with krishna her love for him becomes deeper so he is a pastor who expresses love and enriches love thank you very much are there any questions or comments as you mentioned about the splinters thank you for the class like we in our education experience we have so many splinters when coming on tv approaching people so instead of asking how to filter the splinters because sometime we approve but later we realise that’s not the thing yeah so how do we filter the splinters there are two ways one is that if we just expose ourselves to krishna the potential krishna kapti itself will remove all misconceptions so we don’t have to there is fraudulent psychoanalysis where people go into oh this happened to me in my childhood this happened to me there and we all have had shocks in our childhood which affected us throughout your life you have shocks it’s not meant to trivialise there is no need for us to consciously go into our past and keep analysing life is not meant to be spent in post mortems so in general just the practise of krishna bhakti will cleanse us just keep exposing ourselves to krishna and krishna bhakti misconceptions will go away however there may be some misconceptions or preconceptions that may impede our exposure to krishna itself that means say for example if somebody has been abused as a child and in desi dharmavatar lila that is triggering some negative memories then they need to get that addressed so we can look at our own experience of krishna bhakti and see if certain stimuli within krishna bhakti are either emotionally or intellectually triggering negative reactions within us so not everything may trigger positive reactions right now because we may not have the devotion by which we experience krishna through all those things but if they are triggering negative reactions then at that time we can become aware that this is something which is a filter krishna is the supreme positivity ultimately so then we can explore what could be causing this and even then sometimes we can get to the cause in terms of going backward to understand the source which has triggered it but sometimes we will not be able to history is quite, even our own personal history is quite complex we may misremember some of it so its better to rather than going too much into the source and backwards, focus on which will be affected ok whatever it is, its not a negative thing just get the positive understanding of whatever seems to be bothering us and once you get the positive understanding then we will start experiencing krishna positively through that situation ok that’s it any other questions or comments yes ma’am thank you for coming while listening to all these leelas anytime whenever we hear leelas that time naturally the vatsalyam is coming so is there some people say we shouldn’t think that way so he is a lord why we are listening so is it that if we start feeling vatsalyam after hearing krishna’s childhood pastimes is that being sahajiya, sentimental no, not necessarily ultimately devotion is an emotion and somehow or the other we remember krishna and even if we experience some emotion in relationship with krishna such as remembrance is not just cognitive or intellectual remembrance is also in terms of emotions so anyway we remember krishna that is good so when does it become sahajiya when that emotion starts obstructing our philosophical understanding see we remember krishna as god and we worship him as god so for example if somebody starts feeling vatsalyam that’s good but if they start saying krishna is like my child so when i am offering bhoga i can eat the food and give it to my child also afterwards i can give my yudha to my child so i can give my yudha to krishna also no, that if there is a certain discipline and purity i have followed in the worship of krishna so if our vatsalyam starts disrupting our following of the rules of sadhana bhakti that is when it is pratiku, unfavourable and that is when it is considered to be utpadaiva kalpate it is created disruption in society disruption in our hearts of course otherwise it is wonderful if we experience any emotion in relationship with krishna you will see there is pleasure and blessing relationship share some of your experience with krishna or of krishna some of my experience with krishna i am still struggling sadhaka i can’t say i have any experience of krishna directly but for all of us krishna manifests in particular ways so krishna manifests through kirtan to someone krishna manifests as a deity to someone that means somebody experiences something extraordinary somebody experiences something special while they are in worship of the deities so i am and many times this also depends on our past culture our nature, so krishna manifests through particular channels so for me i am more of a vulnerable person so for me i experience the world through words i experience krishna also primarily through words so there are there were several times when at one time i had a very painful fracture and the pain was unbearable there was no doctor, no pain medication available so at that time i just tried to chant i just couldn’t focus i started writing bhagavad gita verses and it’s amazing i felt as if the bhagavad gita verses just lifted me above my physical situation i just kept reciting finally i was rushed to an ambulance to a doctor we went to x-ray he said you have to go to the hospital immediately and the doctor said what’s wrong he said i have a fracture, let’s do an x-ray i said no we have done the x-ray he said whose x-ray, he said mine you know a person with this kind of fracture will be screaming in pain they have fallen unconscious by now so now i am not saying that i am transcendental at that time i experienced there are many other times when a small pain also irritates me so you could say that lifting of potency is not due to my advance it’s due to krishna’s mercy it’s not that we can demand transcendence on call but sometimes you get that experience we all have this experience that in some situations we may just broken down in the past but somehow after the practise of krishna bhakti we are able to face that situation without so much agitation that indicates we are experiencing krishna so in general the experience of krishna for us, so that’s like through the verses of the gita through words primarily i like to write, i feel writing is the time when i get the closest to immersion in krishna when i am able to write nicely i just forget the entire word it’s words, sanskrit words english words, you know so glorified krishna so we all have to find that channel by which we experience krishna and essentially rather than focussing on one person’s experiences we can try to find out how does this experience, what does it mean for me how can i experience, so the idea is that we are all spiritually asleep we wake up sometimes briefly but we all fall asleep but even say baby is asleep and when babies are newborn they don’t understand anything, they don’t even suckling their mother’s breast and getting milk but they don’t even understand that this is actually a mother something is coming nice and this feels nice and i take it as they grow up they start understanding that this is a person, this is a mother and she cares for me, she loves me so imagine a baby is sleeping, it’s very cold and she is feeling cold, at that time she starts shivering and then the mother puts a nice thick comforter now the baby’s eyes are still closed the baby is almost asleep but still when she feels the warmth just by feeling the warmth she understands that my mother is here, my mother must have put something on me and that’s why i am feeling comfortable so similarly for us, we are spiritually asleep so we can’t perceive krishna directly some of us may be blessed and may have joined a dream but what happens is when we are facing distress we try to remember krishna and we find that suddenly the anxiety, the tension, the fear the insecurity, the negativity, it just disappears all the cold has gone away as if somebody has put a comforter on us so when we start experiencing that then we can understand krishna is here and krishna is offering this comforter, this shelter so those are the ways so when we are able to transcend or when the world’s experiences don’t define our experience from the worldly perspective we should be in pain, we should be angry we should be shattered but if the world’s experiences don’t define our experience then that means we are experiencing krishna here and we can infer that is our experience in krishna thank you yes Prabhuji, you said in your book you taught us how to do bhagavad gita how to conceive and then also to do ok, so thank you thank you for reminding me yesterday at the start i had mentioned that that in the bhagavad gita also the damodar lila is both conceived and revealed so now specifically the damodar lila now what is the damodar lila damodar lila is basically krishna getting tired krishna breaking down a tree so are there any explicit references to this well not explicit, that’s why in that sense it’s not there it’s conceived, but there are many references where it’s just illusions, illusions means it’s an implicit reference, say for example say if he has shared a private joke in which maybe the word fears had come up so now i may use the word fears in the class, i may just glance at you and i may smile, you may also smile so what happens is, everybody else, what’s going on fears is just a word, but for you and me because we shared some experience in that word there is an implicit connection, so that’s an illusion so like that, there are allusions to vraja lila, so for example vraja now vraja literally means to move so vraja is the land of motion how do self realised people sit how do self realised people walk so literally krishna is saying that surrender to me and go and act in the world, fight but vraja also refers to it now krishna knows it, ajna knows it so because both of them know it, so it’s an illusion that is referring to vraja, and similarly krishna uses the word damodara ajna also in one of his prayers uses the word damodara so when he uses the word damodara, so for example when he is describing the virata rupa that you pervade everything therefore you are everything and yet ajna is expressing wonder that you is the wonder of krishna is that the universe is contained within krishna and yet krishna is contained within the universe that is within the universe there is one planet earth one player in this wheelchair so krishna is there so the person who contains the universe is contained within the universe universe. So how is that possible? Just as that rope contained Arjuna, Krishna, although Krishna contains the whole universe.
So like that he is saying, in the charioteer’s position you are sitting for Krishna and you contain everything but still you are sitting in that small seat. It’s not that the charioteer’s seat is like Raj Sinha’s seat. The charioteer’s seat is just a functional seat.
Charioteer has to sit. It’s just an off-the-air seat in Marxism. But Krishna, you are sitting there.
So the references to Damodar in the Bhagavad Gita are like a hint at the Damodar Leela and especially in the context of the Virar Trupa that hint becomes even clearer. There are descriptions in the Mahabharata that Arjuna has heard Krishna’s pastimes. There are not many references to Krishna’s childhood pastimes but they are there.
Where Arjuna is aware of Krishna’s childhood pastimes and Arjuna also speaks about them sometimes, mentions them briefly. So that’s the pointing of where it is revealed.