Sri Krishna Janmashtami Krishna Concept of God

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you, everyone, for joining today’s Bhakti Sangha session. And, today, we have a special session for Shri Krishna Janmashtami.
And, we have a very special speaker. His Grace, Shri Chaitanya Charan Prabhu ji. Shri Krishna Prabhu ji, you are there on the call.
Hare Krishna. Dandavat. Hare Krishna Prabhu ji.
Shreela Prabhupada ki, Guru Maharaj ki, Thank you so much, Prabhu ji, for giving your association on this auspicious day. Very fortunate to have your time on this Bhakti Sangha session, Prabhu ji. You can please take over the call.
Hare Krishna. Are you able to see my screen? No, Prabhu ji. We can see your photo.
We are not able to see you. Oh, just a minute. That’s strange.
My audio is clear? Yes, Prabhu ji. It’s perfect. Okay.
Actually, I started my video, then I started sharing my screen, and the video has disappeared. Just give me a minute. It shows your video is disabled.
Oh, okay. So, you can once again start the video. Click on the start button.
Hare Krishna. Dandavat. I am happy to be here on the occasion of Janmashtami.
Wish you all a very happy Janmashtami. Hare Krishna. I will speak today using this PowerPoint.
I will speak today on the occasion of Janmashtami about the topic might seem a little intimidating, but it brings out beauty of the Krishna conception of God. Hare Krishna. So today, we will try to understand broadly what is the conventional or contemporary conception of God and how the conception of Krishna, especially Krishna in Vrindavan is radically different from that and what that tells us about the nature of Krishna and how that is manifest, that can be manifest for all of us on the occasion of Janmashtami.
So, in today’s world, people perceive God primarily in two ways, as a judge or as a crutch. Now, what do I mean as a judge? That we see that society often things go wrong and things don’t just go wrong, people do wrong. So, sociologically today many people think that the idea of God is something which people in the past came up with because they wanted to cultivate fear among people for doing wrong things.
So, for example, there was a prominent atheist, Voltaire. He would get his friends together and he would talk about atheism with them. But when he would talk about atheism, he would ensure all the doors and windows of that room would be completely closed because he didn’t want any of his servants to hear that there is no God.
Because he thought if they think there is no God, they will start stealing silver and other things from my house. So, his idea was that God doesn’t exist, but God is a construct to keep people from doing wrong things. And also that if some people do wrong things, yes, they may not get punishment immediately, but they will get punishment eventually.
We all need a sense of hope and justice in the world. And sometimes hope and justice is not immediately visible. So, that deferred justice was one idea.
So, now, this is primarily today’s sceptical mind views God. There can be various other reasons. But sceptically, people say God is simply just meant to create fear.
So, now, this also has some caricatures. In India, there was a movie, P.K., which talked about how people go to God because of fear. So, I responded that actually.
I have written a book in response to that. Actually, I have seen so many things out of fear. But the other thing is that God is a crutch.
Now, this is a subtle way in which atheists try to minimise or denigrate people who believe in God. They say that those people are not strong enough to face life’s challenges. They are emotionally weak.
They need God as a crutch. That they need a belief in some protective figure who will take care of them. So, God they treat as an emotional crutch.
And in this way, they say that these are all primitive reasons for believing in God. We humans should grow up and stop believing in such things. However, now, we will not go into the merits or demerits of this particular belief or this particular conception of God.
It could be very easily refuted in many ways. Because quite often, it’s not just people who are emotionally weak who believe in God. Some of the most intelligent people throughout history, even in the world of science, people, some of the most important scientists believed in God.
And even today, there are large number of scientists who do believe in God in some ways. But beyond that, let’s move on. So, this is the world in which many people conceive of God.
And in such a world, when we bring in the Krishna conception. Now, if we see Krishna in Vrindavan is neither a judge nor a crutch. We are not talking about Krishna in Mathura.
Not the Krishna who comes to say, yada yada hi dharmasya. That’s there. But let’s focus right now for Krishna as he is conceived in Vrindavan.
As he is described in Vrindavan, rather. So there, what Krishna is doing? Krishna is neither a judge nor is a crutch. He is a rasaraj.
He is simply a relisher of rasa. Rasa, which comes through the reciprocation of love. Just look at this point.
That normally if somebody is a judge then there is a fear. Fear of the judge’s punishment. But if you look at the Vrajavasis itself, Krishna does not cause fear in anyone in Vrindavan.
It’s not that the Vrajavasis tremble in fear of Krishna. Rather, Krishna fears when Yashodamayi is angry with him and she has caught him and she is about to punish him. At that time, Krishna is trembling.
As we know in the Damodarashtakam it is beautifully depicted that he is crying. And Kuntibharani also prays vaktram niniya bhaya bhavanaya sthitasya samambhi moheti dhiravyati heti So vaktram niniya is looking down in fear bhaya bhavanaya sthitasya and she is marvelling what kind of conception of God is this samambhi moheti dhiravyati heti that even the most powerful people are afraid of God because he is all powerful. But here Krishna is afraid of a relatively powerless person.
A motherly woman doesn’t necessarily invoke fear in people. As for a child, it is different. Krishna takes the role of a child over here.
Similarly, if we consider Krishna in Vrindavan Krishna is not a crutch for anyone in Vrindavan. In fact, a crutch is something which we lean on for walking. Now Yashoda doesn’t depend on Krishna.
Krishna depends on Yashoda. How is that? Actually, it is Krishna who when he feels hungry he goes to Mother Yashoda and he pulls at her saree and he starts throwing a tantrum I need food. And Mother Yashoda also says if I don’t feed Krishna, he will go hungry.
He will starve. He may even die. So Vrindavan depicts a very subversive or a revolutionary conceptual thought.
Subversive means that which is the normal order that is subverted. That is turned upside down. So one of the best ways we can understand this is that in Vrindavan now normally people pray to God but the Vrajavasis pray for God.
What do we mean by pray for God? We see that Mother Yashoda whenever Krishna is in danger at that time say for example after he is saved from Putana or he is saved from Pranavarta at that time what happens? Yashoda starts chanting various prayers. She starts invoking various Devata, various names of Vishnu, starts making some marks for Krishna. She is praying for Krishna.
So what is going on here? How can we have this situation where instead of praying to God people are praying for God. So this is where we need to understand that what is going on in Vrindavan is radically different. The Bhagavad Gita also talks about the conventional conception of God.
What is going on here that how is it that the Vrajavasis pray for Krishna as I said instead of praying to Krishna. So we could say that even the Bhagavad Gita does talk about the normal conception of God where it says that there are four kinds of people who approach Krishna, who worship him. So if you consider the distressed, the needy, those who need wealth and all that, we could say that they can broadly be classified somewhat similar to the idea of judge or crutch.
But then Krishna, that is 7.16 in the Bhagavad Gita, from there Krishna goes further and he says in 7.19 that those who evolve much more what happens that when they become jnanavan, they surrender completely to me and they understand that Krishna is everything. And what is the difference? See there is the idea of God as the fulfiller of desires. And there is the idea of God as the fulfilment of desires.
Fulfiller means that he is the one who will give us some things. But fulfilment means he is everything. He is the one who we seek in our lives as our most cherished goal.
So for Brajwasis, Krishna is not the fulfiller of their desires. He is the fulfilment of their desires. He is all that they want.
Because they understand, if I have Krishna, I don’t need anything else. He is so lovable. And he is therefore all that they desire.
And it’s very curious in the Bhagavata 10th Canto as well as in the Goswami’s literature if we see that at one level for the Brajwasis does Krishna remove their distress? Remove their stress or distress? Yes, he does that. But that’s not what the Brajwasis primarily relate with him for. So for example, going back to the reasoning of God as a crutch.
Oh, you have trouble and you go to God and God will help you. Sometimes Krishna does that for the Brajwasis also. But actually, Krishna sometimes does the exact opposite.
For the Gopis, especially the Gopis of Vrindavan, they gave their life to Krishna and Krishna left them and went away. Away from Vrindavan. And here Krishna, instead of being the reliever of distress, was in one sense the giver of distress.
So if somebody is going to God simply to be relieved from distress, they may think what is the point of going to Krishna for? Now here if I look at Krishna’s devotees, I find that they are in so much trouble. And it’s one thing to be in trouble, it’s quite another thing to have God be the cause of our trouble. Trouble can come in its own way.
Sometimes things can go wrong in our lives. But here, for the Brajwasis, Krishna is the person who has gone away and since Krishna is directly the cause of their trouble. So why would anyone worship such a God? So if people, if the Krishna devotees had the vision of God as a crutch, as one who can support us in our times of distress.
Now Krishna does do that. We know that, say for example, in the Govardhan Leela, when the Brajwasis are attacked by Indra, Krishna does protect them. But if we again see, the essence of the Govardhan Leela is not so much that Krishna lifted Govardhan and protected the devotees, but rather under Govardhan, the devotees had the sweetest, most intimate loving exchanges with Krishna.
All the devotees could be constantly there beholding him for seven days and seven nights. Drinking in his beauty and relishing it to the super most degree. So much so, that the devotees completely forgot about the fact that there was a storm out there, there was torrential rains out there.
The devotees simply absorbed in Krishna. So yes, there was, Krishna does relieve devotees of distress. It’s not that he doesn’t.
But devotees don’t relate with Krishna on that platform. Krishna, you remove distress for me. That’s not the platform at which devotees relate.
This is where the Krishna conception happened. Now why would anyone worship a God who seems to bring trouble into the lives of those who worship him? That conception makes sense only when seen through the eyes of love. In the eyes of love when we see, then we can understand what is going on.
With the eyes of love what do we actually understand? Let’s look at it further now. The nature of love is that love accepts stress and distress for one’s beloved. It’s like say when a couple has a child.
Now as soon as they have a child, actually there is so much anxiety. And sometimes the child is sick, there is fear, there is pain, there is distress. But there is love over there.
So there is, when we talked earlier about the conception of God as a crutch or God as a judge. You know that is a peace-centred conception of God. Whereas Krishna is a love-centred conception.
Peace-centred conception means, I want to live peacefully. And yes, thinking about God and praying to God will make my life peaceful. Well, it’s fine to be peaceful.
It’s not that Krishna is against peacefulness. But more important than being peaceful is being purposeful. Is being purposeful what brings peace can be relaxing, it can be calming.
But peace itself is not enlivening, it is not thrilling, it is not completely filling us with raptures of joy. That is when we have a purpose. The highest purpose is the purpose of love.
So, the Brajavasis, they, the Gopis, for example the Gopis, they love Krishna. And thus, for Krishna’s sake, they are ready to do everything. Everything means that even if Krishna abandons them and goes away, they continue to live on because they want Krishna to be happy when he sees them when he comes back.
Krishna, we are here to serve you. Whatever happens, whatever opportunity you give us for serving you, we are here to serve you. So, it is only if we understand God as the fulfilment of all desires, the object of ultimate love, that the Krishna conception makes sense.
And love often means that we use every resource that we have at our disposal for doing what we can for the beloved. And this is seen very beautifully in the Vrindavan conception that, let’s look at this in one way. Another point is that if earlier we talked about how there is a law and order because of the conception of God as a judge that is maintained in society.
That’s good, but we will see quite often the Vrindavan Leela describes laws being broken, morality being established as well as extended or transcended. How is it transcended? It’s transcended, for example, when the Gopis leave their family members at home to go out alone at night. … … … … … … … … … The Gopis are describing how by being attracted to Krishna’s flute, they are ready to give up everything and go away, go to the forest.
So, the Gopis in one sense transcend the principles of morality and similarly when Krishna is born Vasudeva has given his word of honour that my sons I will give to you, to Kamsa. But then when Krishna appears Vasudeva takes Krishna to Vrindavan at the bidding of Krishna. So, Vasudeva is known to be truthful.
It’s not that indiscriminately he is violating truthfulness. But love, love is required for morality but love is not always stuck with morality. Love knows when to go beyond morality.
So, if the conception of God is simply thought of as created for establishing morality then there are times when the very depiction of God is such that morality is transcended. So, what do I mean by love establishes morality and extends beyond morality. Say for example, parents will teach their children to be truthful and naturally children learn values more by catching than by teaching.
Catching means values are more taught than taught. That means if the children see that my parents are truthful then that inspires them much more than just being given discourses that be truthful. But suppose, say there are 4-5 children playing in a house maybe the and then suddenly there is a fire in the house.
Now there is only one adult over there the one adult cannot pick up all the 5 children and go out. And if they tell the children, come on there is a fire over here let’s go. Come on we have to go.
And the children are so caught in the playing, they say no there is no fire we are going to play here. No there is a fire we have to go. But the children are not ready to listen.
And the adult may say that no no no we need to go out. There is a beautiful new version of this game which you are playing that is there in that car. You go there you can get it.
Or really, kids get up and run to the car and then they find there is no game over there. What happened? Then the adult rushes into the car, locks the car and goes away from there to safety. So here, love for truthfulness is important.
But there are times when for one’s object of love, the truth can be transcended also. Morality can be transcended. So now as I mentioned earlier that when there is love, everything is invoked.
Every resource is used for the service of one’s beloved. So for the Prajivasis when I say they pray for God like they are praying for God whom are they praying to? So this is where there is a very beautiful, we could say there is a difference. At one level Krishna and Vishnu are the same person.
At another level Vishnu can be conceived as God in an office and Krishna is God at home. So the Prajivasis are at one level they love Krishna in the sense that they are Krishna bhaktas. But however, they don’t conceive of Krishna as God.
They conceive of Krishna as just their lovable, coward hero. And for his protection they may pray even to Vishnu. So, if you see in the Vrajalila it is described how Yashodamayi marks Krishna’s body with tilaks, she chants various mantras and these mantras are all centred on Vishnu.
They are invoking Vishnu. So it is almost like you could say to nuance that earlier statement further that the Prajivasis pray for God to God. But these are two different manifestations.
They pray for Krishna to Vishnu. Although at one level Krishna and Vishnu are the same still for them the centre is Krishna and everything that we can do for Krishna we will do. So we will even worship Vishnu and pray to Vishnu so that Krishna will be taken care of.
And that is the extraordinary nature of Krishna’s love. Now, moving forward, if we consider that when Krishna descends to this world there are multiple verses which talk about this. So we could say Krishna’s mission can be conceived of like a pyramid.
So when we talk about Krishna’s descent there is a famous verse 4, 7 and 8 in the Bhagavad Gita which people often talk about, many Hindus almost know by heart. … … … … … Krishna says, I descend again and again for what? … This can be said to be at the level of the establisher of law. So Krishna establishes Dharma and he empowers his devotees to establish Dharma.
So paritranaya sadhuna vinashaya duskrtam. That means paritranaya, he empowers the virtuous and vinashaya duskrtam, he disempowers the vicious. And that’s how he establishes order, establishes law in the world.
And many, if you read any standard Hindu texts or search for popular verses from the Gita, this 4-7 and 4-8 come out quite often. If you look at Prabhupada’s talks on the Gita or if you look at which verses Prabhupada quotes most, more than 4-7 and 4-8, Prabhupada quotes the next verse, that is 4-9. And 4-9 talks about this level.
Janma karma chame divyam, evam yo vetti tattvata, tyaktva deham punar janma, naiti mameti so arjuna, naiti mameti. Krishna says that those who understand me in truth, they will become so attracted to me that they will come to me and they won’t return to this world again. So this is a vision of Krishna as the invoker of love.
Krishna descends to the world to invoke love in our hearts, to inspire us to become more loving. Not loving in a sentimental or sensual sense. Sensual means at the physical level, sentimental means merely at the emotional level.
But loving in a holistic sense, where body, mind, soul, everything is holistically channelled. So Krishna invokes that kind of love. So what does Krishna do? He, when we understand that such a loving Lord, who delights in the reciprocation of love that in Vrindavan, he doesn’t act as the establisher of law.
So this establisher of law is the conventional conception of God, which is there, no doubt. I talked earlier of crutch or a judge. But Krishna in Vrindavan goes far beyond that to be the invoker of love.
And that is Prabhupada’s Buddha. That’s why Prabhupada quotes 4-9 much more. That understand Krishna’s pastimes, not just so that Krishna came and established dharma.
You may wonder what about it now? Even if that dharma is not there in today’s society, but by understanding Krishna’s pastimes, prema, divine love can be invoked in the hearts of each one of us at every moment. And Krishna in Vrindavan does not act as God. In fact, Krishna loves love so much that he subordinates himself to love.
That means Krishna subordinates his divinity so that love can reign supreme in Vrindavan. And that is the vision of God, who is present in our hearts. That is the vision of the God who descends in Janmashtami.
So Janmashtami, he doesn’t just come to establish order in this world. Rather, he wants to elevate us, our consciousness about this world, and ultimately to him. So now in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna doesn’t just establish dharma himself.
He doesn’t say that, okay, I come to establish dharma. But he wants Arjuna to become his instrument in establishing dharma. So Krishna tells Arjuna, you become an instrument, you attain victory.
By my mercy, by my empowerment, your enemies will be defeated. So Krishna urges us to assist him in his mission. So what is Krishna’s mission? At one level, if we see Krishna telling Arjuna, fight a war.
So that means Krishna is inspiring Arjuna to assist him in establishing dharma. That is the mood of the Mahabharata. And that’s important.
But we see in the Bhagavatam, the vision of Arjuna and his relationship with Krishna is very different. So the Mahabharata, to a large extent, depicts God at the conventional level. Yes, devotees face distress, but ultimately they are victorious.
And Krishna is there to assist them in gaining victory. However, the Bhagavatam goes further. The Bhagavatam, what is told and what is not told.
Say for example, say if you are in a particular city, say now in America, in certain cities, there’s a lot of racial unrest, even riots are going on. So if a particular news channel, it tells about some small events that happened here, small events that happened there, but it doesn’t tell about big events that happened somewhere else. No, what’s going on? Now, maybe there was one person shot over here, and that’s reported.
But there were 15 people shot over there, 25 people shot over there, that is not reported. Does this newspaper have some agenda? Does this newspaper have some agenda that it wants to describe only this kind of violence because that fits in its narrative, and this doesn’t fit in its narrative, that’s why it’s not describing it. So what someone is not telling is telling.
Telling means it is revealing. So what a newspaper doesn’t tell is it reveals its agenda, its bias, its purpose. So similarly, in the Bhagavatam, there are 90 chapters in the 10th canto describing Krishna’s pastimes.
And the Bhagavatam doesn’t, what to speak of spare one chapter, it doesn’t spare even a few verses in the 10th canto to describe Krishna’s pastimes in Kurukshetra. In fact, what does the Bhagavatam do at that time? At that time, when the Kurukshetra war is going on, the Bhagavatam curiously describes Balram’s pilgrimage and how Balram goes and kills other demons and then he comes back and the whole Kurukshetra war is over and then there is Bhima and Duryodhana’s fight going on. So now why? If Krishna Leela is going on and Krishna plays such a dramatic, thrilling role in the Mahabharata, how he helps Arjuna in so many amazing ways, it’s very relishable.
The Bhagavatam sidesteps that. There are multiple reasons for this. One is that war was very traumatic for Parikshit because in that war Parikshit Maharaj’s father Abhimanyu was killed.
And now that it’s the 10th canto, that means almost fifth or sixth day of the seven-day recitation, therefore it is that Parikshit Maharaj, Shukadeva Goswami doesn’t want Parikshit Maharaj to get distracted in any way from focussing on Krishna. So that’s one reason why he avoids that description. There’s another reason.
That is that his focus is something substantially different. His focus is on depicting, not just depicting how Krishna will make you victorious in this world. If you see at one level the success of the Bhagavatam is not, what is the success of the Bhagavatam? It starts by describing how Parikshit Maharaj was cursed to die in seven days and it concludes by describing how Parikshit Maharaj died after seven days.
And it seems to be unfair. Why did he have to die? He done something minor wrong. But the Bhagavatam describes how by hearing about Krishna, love for Krishna was invoked in Parikshit Maharaj’s heart and that became completely permeated his heart and his entire being.
And that is the purpose of the Bhagavatam. So just as Krishna’s descent has an external purpose, establishing Dharma, but the internal purpose is invoking love. And I’ve depicted this as a pyramid because most people can relate only with God as the establisher of Dharma.
And that’s good. And it should be also that not all people are there at the level where they can appreciate the idea of loving God and giving one’s life for loving God. So for them, understanding God as the establisher of law is good.
And that’s why Krishna says, manushyanaam sahasreshu. So as you go upward pyramid, the number of people at the top of the pyramid are few. The number of people at the bottom of the pyramid will be large.
So the widespread conception of God will be as the establisher of law. But the esoteric, the special conception of God will be as the invoker of love. And similarly, neither Arjuna’s heroics nor Krishna’s heroics in the Kurukshetra war are described in the Bhagavatam much.
Now in the first canto, they are described in the 15th chapter. And there it is described in the form of Arjuna looking back at the memories of the Mahabharata war. So we could say that the Bhagavatam is spoken in the shadow of Krishna.
The Bhagavatam is spoken in the shadow of the momentous occurrence of Krishna’s appearance and that disappearance. So just like say, India gained independence in 1947. So for maybe one or two generations after that, the event of the independence of India was so momentous, that that is constantly there in the collective memory of the country.
But as 60-70 years passed on, now that independence day, still we celebrate it, but that might not evoke that much emotions. So the Bhagavatam is very close to Krishna’s disappearance. So then what remains after Krishna’s disappearance is Krishna’s remembrance.
And thus the Arjuna that is depicted in the Bhagavatam is not the Arjuna who is victorious over everyone in the Kurukshetra war. This is the Arjuna who seems to lose everything. He loses a battle to some infidel cowherd men, cowherd people.
And so he is everything that is worth living for Arjuna that is lost. See for us, basically we live for two things. We have certain possessions and we have certain relations.
There are people in our lives and things in our life. And those two are what give value to our life. Now Arjuna, Krishna has disappeared for a minute.
And then the most important relation, what am I living for? And then at least his possession, it was not just wealth, his greatest possession was his ability, his archery skill. And that deserted him. So he has neither possession nor relation.
So what am I going to live for? And that is the time when he remembers Krishna. And that remembrance of Krishna, it is described in the Bhagavatam, fills him with so much love for Krishna. And by that love, he transcends the world.
He transcends the duality of the world. So the Bhagavatam does not depict Krishna primarily as the blesser and the provider of worldly goods. Yes, God can do that.
And he does do it at times. But the Bhagavatam depicts Krishna as the provider of immense spiritual enrichment, such spiritual enrichment, that any kind of material enrichment fails in comparison as compared to that. So for the Vrajavasis also, Krishna’s disappearance, in the sense that Krishna has left Vrindavan.
But what happens? By Krishna’s disappearance comes greater Krishna’s remembrance. And that is the mystery of Krishna consciousness. That sometimes the absence of Krishna invokes a deeper presence of Krishna.
So now, as I said, this was the point I was making throughout. Krishna in Vrindavan is centred more on invoking love and reciprocating love. And the Bhagavatam depicts Krishna.
Say for example, Krishna’s associate Arjuna, he doesn’t depict so much the Kurukshetra heroics as the Kuru of Vrindavan, of remembrance in separation, of remembrance in absence. And now, as I said, Krishna’s mission is twofold, the establisher of law and the invoker of love. And for all of us, in our particular roles in society, we all can play roles.
So now can we establish Dharma in our society? Yes, we can to some extent. But we may or may not have the social influence to establish the rule of law. If somebody is in a position of a Kshatriya, whether they are in the government, in the ruling or they are in an administrative position somewhere, they can do some things like Arjuna did.
But even if we can or can’t assist in Krishna’s mission of establishing the rule of law, we all can have the influence in our small circles to bring more love into everything that we do. Bring more love means? Love in the sense of Vrindavan means sacrifice. Love means service.
Love doesn’t mean a sentimental kind of hormonal attraction, doesn’t mean a feel good kind of sentimentality. It means service and sacrifice. And this is what Shri Prabhupada demonstrates.
After Krishna’s appearance, the next day is Prabhupada’s appearance. And that is very symbolic that Krishna came to this world, but how to reach Krishna, even when he has reached to this world, that is revealed by his devotees. So Krishna’s appearance is followed by the devotee.
And Prabhupada’s love for Krishna is demonstrated not by so much as crying tears of ecstasy, not by rolling on the ground. But Prabhupada’s love for Krishna is demonstrated through his service and sacrifice. So he brought love into everything that he did, in the way he interacted with people.
When Prabhupada interacted with devotees, every devotee with whom he interacted, it felt as if Prabhupada cared for them. It was Krishna’s love coming through Prabhupada to them. Now we all may feel that there are so many things which need to change in the world.
Now because of the pandemic, there is so much anxiety, there is so much fear, there is so much uncertainty. And apart from that, there are 100 things wrong in the world. So even when Prabhupada was here on the planet, there were so many things wrong at that time.
So Krishna’s descent into the world is not just a historical event that happened long ago. It is meant to invoke love within us. Love within us means what? That now the paradox of the world is everyone wants change, but no one wants to change.
Everyone wants change. Oh, things should change, things should become better. But no one wants to change.
However, we may say, what difference can I make? Each of us, we can decide. Let me become a little more devotional in everything that I do. Devotional means, whatever situation I am in, there might be a pandemic in the world, there might be some anxiety, whatever it is, relational crisis, financial crisis, can I bring a little more service attitude into what I do? Can I do a little more sacrifice? And we will find that service and sacrifice, if you’re done in a mood of devotion, they won’t cause impoverishment.
They will actually bring enrichment. See, normally when we do service, we think I’m doing something for someone. When I’m doing sacrifice, I think I’m doing something for someone, therefore I’m losing something.
But in Bhakti, when we do service and sacrifice, when we offer a part of our consciousness to Krishna, Krishna comes into our consciousness. And therefore service and sacrifice done in a mood of devotion doesn’t cause impoverishment. It brings enrichment.
And each of us in whatever situation we are in, if we take this responsibility to have services and sacrifice, then we all can contribute in fulfilling Krishna’s mission of invoking love. And I conclude with this theme, that what is surrender? Surrender is not just acceptance of situations, but surrender is also acceptance of responsibility. Yes, this is the situation I am in, I accept that situation, that is my surrender.
But even in this situation, I am going to serve Krishna. That is responsibility. Prabhupada had nothing, but still he had the determination to serve Krishna.
He somehow published some books and carried those books with him to America. Vasudev had nothing, but when Krishna was born, at least in the mind he desired, I want to give charity. When Vasudev was told, go to Krishna, go take Krishna to Vrindavan, he didn’t know how he was going to do it.
But he was able to do it by Krishna’s mercy. So, surrender means acceptance of responsibility. And what does acceptance of responsibility means? That we could say surrender can be defined in this sense as, do what we can with what we have now.
Do what we can. Yes, whatever, we may think, oh, if only I had more time, more talent, more ability, better association of devotees, better family relationships, more supportive family members, greater financial stability, better health. Yes, all these can help us.
But we don’t have to wait for these to come. Do what we can with what we have now. And if we do this, we will find, we may not make a big difference in the world, but we can make a significant difference in our world.
Just by taking up responsibility for service and sacrifice, for Krishna, we will find that Krishna will manifest more in our hearts and we will become more enriched thereby. And that is the Janmashtami that can occur constantly in our heart. Janmashtami is about the manifestation of Krishna, not just as he happened thousands of years ago, but as he may manifest in our hearts.
And Krishna can manifest in our hearts if we turn to him with devotion and offer ourselves in service and sacrifice. So I’ll summarise what I spoke today. So I spoke on how to appreciate the Krishna conception of God, that quite often people think of, in today’s world, people think of God as a judge or as a crutch.
God is somebody whose fear keeps people law-abiding or whose existence makes people believe that they will get justice in future if they are subject to injustice right now. Or crutch means when they are facing too many difficulties, some people need some emotional support and that belief in God provides them that. Now that is true, many people approach God that way, but Krishna in Vrindavan is neither a judge nor a crutch.
Far from people being afraid of him, Vrajvasis being afraid of him, Krishna is afraid of the Vrajvasis like Yashodamayi. Far from he being a crutch to Yashodamayi, Yashodamayi depending on him, Yashoda depends on him, he depends on Yashoda for food. So much so that the Vrajvasis don’t even pray to Krishna, they pray for Krishna.
So for Krishna’s sake they are ready to take trouble. So they see Krishna not as the fulfiller of their desires, but as the fulfilment of their desires. The Krishna conception of God, where devotees are ready to take up anxiety for Krishna’s sake, as Yashodamayi takes when she has to care for Krishna, where devotees are even ready to transcend morality for Krishna’s sake, where Vasudeva speaks counterfactually for Krishna’s sake, where devotees are ready to take agony and heartbreak for Krishna’s sake, as the gopis accept when they develop a relationship with Krishna and when Krishna leaves and goes away.
All this dynamic, this vision of God can make sense only when it is love centred, not peace centred. That Krishna in Vrindavan is not interested in establishing order and maintaining order. Krishna is interested in exchanging love.
And sometimes love is best exchanged when order is disrupted, because then the moment the connections become deeper in that anxiety, as it happens when Govardhan Nila, when the normal order of all the Vrajvasis staying in home is disrupted. But then all the devotees come together under Govardhan. So, we concluded by talking about how Krishna’s descent serves multiple purposes like a pyramid, the establisher of law and the invoker of love.
So, for people in general, Krishna helps in establishing law. For the devotees, he is invoking love. And Mahabharata has a vision of God as the establisher of law.
Bhagavatam doesn’t even mention about the Mahabharata in the 10th canto. What the Bhagavatam is not telling is telling. It is revealing.
It doesn’t want to have Parikrama agitated. And it doesn’t want to focus on this vision of God who will be provider of peace in this world. So, the Bhagavatam’s vision of Arjuna is Arjuna who is materially battered and shattered.
Both his most important relation, Krishna and his most important possession, archery ability, both are lost. And that’s when in the absence of Krishna is felt the deepest presence of Krishna. So, for all of us, Janmashtami may seem like a historical event that happened thousands of years ago.
What difference does it make to us? But the essence of Janmashtami is the manifestation of Krishna, not just in the world, but in our hearts. How can Krishna manifest? When we focus not on the peace-centred approach to God, but a love-centred approach. Love is expressed through service and sacrifice.
And service and sacrifice won’t cause impoverishment. We won’t lose, but it will bring about enrichment. And we discussed that surrender is not just acceptance of situations.
Yes, it is true. But it is also acceptance of responsibility to do our part in the situations. And what is our part? Do what we can with what we have now.
That’s what Srila Prabhupada did. And Krishna used Prabhupada for extraordinary change in the world now. So, everyone wants change, but no one wants to change.
If we take the inspiration from Janmashtami and try to bring small changes, bring a little more love, bring a little more service and sacrifice, whatever roles that we are doing, we may not make a big difference in the world, but we can make a significant difference in our world. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for the very, very beautiful class.
It’s very nice to start Janmashtami Day with this meditation of the Lord. So, one question is, the other day there was a seven-year, eight-year-old boy who was asking about this, that when I steal or do something, it is wrong, but why when Krishna steals, it is glorified? So, my question is twofold. The contradictory actions of the Lord, how to explain this to, how to understand this ourselves and also explain to kids of seven, eight years old? Okay.
How to explain something like Krishna stealing to small children, say a few years old? I think it is not very easy to echo into all the philosophy, but any kind of education begins with explaining black and white and then there is the explanation of shades of grey. That means, first we tell this is right, this is wrong, but then there are sometimes when something which is not right, which is normally not right, may be right. Like I gave the example of a child who is caught in fire, which was caught in a house in fire.
So, the child may not realise, but afterward, this whole house got burned, I might have got burned also. But then they understand what the parents did was right. So, I don’t know exactly how we could convey it.
But broadly speaking, there are three things, whenever we decide right or wrong, there is the content of what we are doing, then before the content comes the intent of why we are doing it. And there is a consequence of why we do it, a consequence of what happens after we do it. So, a black and white conception of things is based only on looking at the content, this is right and this is wrong.
But a more nuanced understanding looks at not just the content, but also why something is done and what is the result of doing it. And this is something which is not extremely difficult to understand, that sometimes which is something which is, for children also we can say that, suppose you have a friend who is being bullied by someone, and that friend maybe comes to you and asks, I know this person is bullying me, where can I hide? And then you tell him, maybe go over there and hide in that closet. And the bully comes and asks you, have you seen this person? Or should you speak the truth? Well, normally we speak the truth, but in this case, speaking the truth will cause injury to your friend.
So, then maybe at that time, we need to adjust. So, that s way, we can give examples which can make sense to the children. So, in the case of Krishna, when Krishna is stealing, it is simply to increase the reciprocation of love.
So, at one level, if we consider Krishna as God, everything belongs to him, he doesn t need to steal anything. And Krishna steals butter simply because he can increase the excitement in the pastimes of his devotees. And that invokes love more and more.
So, the reason why somebody does it, that is also important. Normally, in this world, when we talk about robbery, the robbery causes harm to people. Robbery causes, say for example, now, some peaceful protesters come and among the peaceful protesters, there are some criminals who come in and they cause rioting and they destroy millions of dollars worth of property.
That s seriously damaging. So, that s bad. Stealing often leads to harm for others.
But in the case of Krishna, his stealing is not causing harm to anyone. It is simply increasing the reciprocation of love. So, both from why it is done and what is the result of it being done.
It is not that Krishna is in the manner of stealing, he is leaving all the Rajivasis bankrupt by taking away all their possessions. Obviously not. And his intent is just to increase the reciprocation of love.
So, you can think of what examples would work for a 7-8 year old child. But this is a broad principle. We need to sooner or later explain that apart from black and white understanding of things, there are other factors also to be considered.
Does that help? Very much, Prabhuji. Thank you so much, Prabhuji. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna, Prabhuji. Pranams.
This is Amrita from Atlanta. So, Prabhuji, I have this question which many people ask. We follow fasting on Janmashtami for the whole day whereas it is a very happy day for us.
So, people ask why don t we feast as opposed to fasting on a day when it is such a happy occasion. So, what is the spiritual reasoning behind? And of course, we are focussing more our mind and body on the Supreme. But how do we explain to people who are celebrating with feasting rather than fasting? Yeah, it s not very easy to explain that.
Basically, if you consider, there are two different things going on. Why do we fast on occasion of celebration? Yeah, because what are we celebrating? It is celebration is not we have achieved something special. It is yes, something special has been benedicted in our life, that is Krishna has appeared.
So, the whole mood is that as I said, love, it s a loving occasion of love. But in the Bhakti tradition, love is expressed more through service and sacrifice, not say more through say consumption and that kind of things. So, the idea is that a devotee wants to offer one s consciousness more and more to Krishna on the occasion of his appearance.
And in that sense, a devotee wants to avoid letting the consciousness be consumed by anything else. And say cooking food, serving food, all this takes time, it takes energy, it takes consciousness. So, our primary purpose is that for a devotee, fasting is not so much an austerity centred on deprivation of the body, depriving the body.
For a devotee, fasting is a means for preventing the the dissipation of consciousness to anywhere other than Krishna. I have a class on my website, as you call it the resistance and the romance of fasting. So, in other words, romance normally associated with sensual love, but actually in the path of Bhakti, fasting is an expression of our heart s love.
And of course, when we offer our love to Krishna, Krishna manifests His presence in our hearts. So, it is in anticipation of Krishna s appearance that you don t want to be distracted by anything else. You are so eager that Krishna comes, that we are eagerly waiting whole day till midnight.
Midnight is the time when Krishna appears. And then there is of course, we take food. So, yes, it is celebration, but it is a celebration of the loving appearance of the Lord.
And fasting is an expression of our undistracted anticipation for the Lord s appearance. And after the appearance is there, then there is celebration in a different way, celebration in the way by which we take food also. So, of course, fasting is not is not meant to make us unbearably uncomfortable.
Fasting is definitely going to be uncomfortable, no doubt. But if it is unbearably uncomfortable, where not having food is causing so much anxiety and so much inconvenience or pain that one can t think of Krishna at all, one is thinking only of food, food, food, then yes, take some food. So, the point is not that we don t take food.
The point is that we want to offer as much of our consciousness as possible to Krishna in this time. And there are some traditional ways in which that aspiration to offer our consciousness to Krishna is we could say ritualised or standardised. And one such way is by abstaining from the distraction of food.
But if it is very difficult, then take whatever food is necessary and then refocus on Krishna. Does it answer your question? Yes, Prabhu. Thank you so much.
Hare Krishna. Then last question. Hare Krishna, Prabhuji.
Thank you so much, Prabhuji, for coming on the call and giving your valuable time and association, Prabhuji. I have a question like because of Janmashtami, we are hearing so many classes and Krishna killing so many demons every day and each demon represents each like anarthas, different, different false ego or something like that. So, how to invite Krishna to kill those demons inside us? Okay.
Because we don t even know that those are there. We say, Oh no, I am right. We always say I am right.
Okay, so now, let s look at this in a little analytical way and practical way. So, there are various demons in our heart and how can we invite Krishna to destroy, remove those demons from our heart? Well, first, as I said, let s look at it from analytical way. This correlation of Krishna s pastimes and especially Krishna s demon killing pastimes with the presence of certain anarthas in our heart and the removal of those anarthas.
This is done by Bhaktivinod Thakur in our tradition and he is primarily in his book Krishna Samhita. The Goswamis have written elaborately about Krishna Leela and they haven t talked about this kind of metaphorical reading or metaphorical correlation of the various demons. Even Srila Prabhupada did not talk about this too much.
He does talk about metaphorical some things in terms of say, six children of Devaki who were killed by Kamsa represent the six anarthas. But the specific anarthas which Bhaktivinod Thakur talks about, that is a contribution distinctly almost unique to Bhaktivinod Thakur. And if you look at the overall context of his book, see basically at that time there was this whole idea that rituals are for less intelligent, superstitious kind of people.
And so India was in a Bhaktivinod Thakur era time which was called the Indian Renaissance. So India was in a state of cultural and intellectual ferment and at that time what happened is that people, many people from the western thinkers, even among the Britishers, some were evangelical Christians who wanted to Christianise India and some were rationalists who wanted to modernise India by rejecting religion entirely and make them into atheists, materialists. But both of them were criticising Indian religions that this is such a primitive system.
And now there were many Indian thinkers at that time, some of them just rejected Indian thought and became either rationalists or Christians. But there were some others who were trying to see what is good in our tradition and take that. So Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, some of you have studied Indian Independence, he was quite an influential person.
And there were others also, he wrote the Vande Matram. So he was a contemporary of Bhaktivinod Thakur. So he had written a book about Krishna and Krishna at that time was criticised quite severely for the immorality of his activities, for the Rastila with the Gopis and for some of the questionable ways in which Krishna arranged for the Kauravas to be killed.
So then what Bankim Chandra Chatterjee did was, and people like him did that, they tried to sanitise Krishna. Sanitise Krishna means, they said that actually the real Krishna is the, you could say the Yugandhara, the Dharma, the person who comes to establish Dharma. And all these sentiments, all these stories about Krishna as a child, lifting up a hill or putting a hand into a mouth of a demon and killing a horse and killing that horse or stealing butter or dancing with the Gopis of Vrindavan, all this is a later addition and it’s just sentimental.
And they tried to sanitise and rejected almost all of Krishna in Vrindavan. So Bhaktivinod Thakur would talk with him, Bankim, and he explained how the whole purpose of Krishna Leela is to experience Rasa. And Rasa is experienced primarily in Vrindavan.
And that is through the pastime of the devotees, pastime of Krishna with the devotees. And now this was not a very easy concept to understand. So what Bhaktivinod Thakur did was, he wrote his own book, Krishna Samhita.
And there he talks about that there are people who say, okay, there are these stories. And the stories may be sentimental, but there are some moral lessons from these stories. And let us learn those moral lessons.
So even now, there are many people who will say, if you have a book on life lessons from Mahabharata, life lessons from Ramayana, people are interested in that. They are not interested in relishing the Ramayana in Mahabharata per se. They are interested in some life lessons from it, which is not bad.
But again, it is like, what can this Ramayana offer me? Ram is not the goal of my life. But Ram is a tool by which I can learn something. At least that level they are approaching Ramayana, that is good.
So that is a more utilitarian approach to scripture rather than a devotional approach. So what Bhaktivinoda Thakur did was, he took those terms, where there is like, we have the terms Kanishta Adhikari, Madhyam Adhikari, Uttama Adhikari or Kanishta, Madhyam, Uttama, three levels, preliminary, intermediate and advanced. And he redefined those terms in a way different from what Bhrigu Goswami has done.
And he said, now I am just using these words for simplicity. He translated Kanishta as literalists. That he said the Kanishta are people who take everything literally.
They believe that, for example, there was a bad, there was a giant snake and Krishna announced on that snake and they are at a particular level, Kanishta. And then there is the Madhyama who are higher than the Kanishta. They go beyond the literal to the metaphorical.
And then he said, okay, and obviously, those who go beyond the literal to the metaphorical, they are more intelligent. And this way, basically those who thought of the stories of Krishna as myths told for kids and believed only by pre-rational people, he patted them on their back. Yeah, actually, you know, yes, you are more intelligent than the sentimental people who believe all these stories.
However, he said this is what this metaphorical level is the Madhyama level. And beyond that, there is the Uttama. Uttama is the transcendental or the Rasik level.
And the Rasik level is where we hear those pastimes and relish those pastimes and experience sublime divine love for Krishna. And in this way, he said, yes, yes, you are more intelligent than these people who are just sentimental. But there is a level higher than yours also.
So what happens is, so those people who want to talk about metaphorical interpretations, he appreciates their intelligence and he also gives them some kind of interpretation that is a metaphorical for the various demons. Now, if you look at Krishna Samhita or Chakranishik Samrut, where he talks about this, he doesn’t elaborately go on explaining how this particular demon represents this. I did a series of classes on demons in Krishna Samhita where I tried to flesh out and explain how which demon can represent, can be said to represent what.
But Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s purpose is not specifically to elaborately explain the correlation between a particular demon and a particular anarka. His point is to get people to appreciate that there is more than simple, that there is more to Krishnadeela than some childish bedtime stories. And thus he gives them a metaphorical reading.
But beyond that, he says that it was transcendental reading. So for all and what he says is that, yes, if we hear this, if you hear a particular pastime, then when Krishna kills that demon, that particular anarka, our heart will be killed. So, now that’s a valid way in which people who are approaching scripture in a more utilitarian way.
Yes, you have a sectarian mentality. I want to get rid of that mentality or I have a mentality to deceive others by pretending to know something that I don’t know, like a putana or the false guru. And he explains that to them, how to go about doing that.
So, just hear those pastimes. So for us also, if we can, if we can, if we identify that I have a particular anarka and then we find out from Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s writings, okay, this demon represents this anarka, then we can recite, we can maybe read that pastime repeatedly, memorise some verses, contemplate those verses, and that can help us combat that particular anarka. But we don’t have to focus too much on that.
So that correlation of the anarkas with, of demons with anarkas is something which Bhaktivinoda Thakur did for a particular purpose. And we can also use it for that particular purpose. But our primary purpose in practising bhakti is not so much anarthani vritti as artha pravritti.
Anarthani vritti is the rejection, the removal of the negative things in our heart. Artha pravritti is the invocation of the latent or the potential love for Krishna in our hearts. So just hear Krishna Leela, try to relish it as much as possible.
And by that, by that itself, anarthas will go away. And of course, if we find a particular anartha troubling us too much, then we can adopt some specific measures for combating that anartha. But otherwise, there is no need to obsess too much on that.
We appreciate Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s brilliance in giving these kinds of metaphorical readings. And we also appreciate that Krishna Leela, the level of relishing rasa is beyond. See anarthani vritti is at the level of utilitarian, the second level, madhyama level.
But the uttama level is the rasika level. So artha pravritti is at the rasika level. And if you can focus on artha pravritti, then that is the best.
Does it answer your question? So, thank you very much. Thank you, Prabhuji. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Prabhuji.
Thank you very much, Prabhuji. Thank you. Wonderful to be with all of you after a long time.
Hare Krishna.