What does Krishna’s threefold bending form signify?

From Shalini M

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. Hare Krishna. Question from Shalini Mataji.
What does Krishna’s threefold bending form signify? Answer. The Gaudiya Vishnu Acharyas in general have not talked about metaphorical meanings of the personal attributes of Krishna, such as his flute or his threefold bending form. The reason for this is that the metaphorical meanings tend to take attention away from the personal aspect and the ultimate focus is the personal aspect.
So generally speaking in the material world whenever there are specifics, we want to go from specifics to universals to try to understand. What is it? For example, if we find a particular person behaves in a particular way, then we may think, maybe this person belongs to this community and this community of people have this tendency. So we try to move from specifics to universals.
And this is called abstraction. By abstraction, knowledge progresses. And that’s how it is in the material realm.
But generally when we say love someone, we don’t go from specifics to universals. If a boy falls in love with a girl, he doesn’t think, oh, because she is a girl from this community and the girls from this community are beautiful, that’s why I have fallen in love. When there is love, it’s not so much about universals, it’s about specifics.
So in love, when there is emotions being developed, it is focused on the specifics, not on the universals. Universals may be there, but the focus is on the specifics. So same way, now in the material realm, we move from specifics to universals.
In the spiritual realm, first we come to the universals, like there is impersonal Brahman. And then from universals we move towards the specifics. There is a personal aspect, there is a personal absolute truth, that is Krishna.
So when we come to the personal absolute truth, we don’t have to go beyond the personal, the specifics to the universals again. When we love, when we want to love Krishna, we love him for his specifics. We don’t have to find some abstract meanings for the universals beyond the specifics.
Why? Because love is a specific emotion that is based on specific attributes. And generally our conception is that that which is universal is deeper than that which is specific. But in the spiritual realm, that is not true, especially with respect to Krishna.
Krishna is the highest reality. And there is nothing higher or deeper than Krishna’s transcendental all-attractive personality. So some people, there are some scholars who have tried to give some metaphorical meaning of various Krishna attributes.
Krishna’s loving cows indicate that he loves nature and therefore we should take care of nature. That is fine. Similarly, Krishna’s three-fold bending form, generally speaking, it indicates his sweetness, the attractiveness.
So generally straight objects and curved objects, curved objects are more attractive than straight objects. And the curves attract the heart. All that is the sort of meanings, they are not necessarily wrong, but the Vaishnavacharyas are not given these meanings.
And the important point is that these meanings should not take our attention away from the specifics. So our focus is on the specifics. Why? Because the specifics attract the heart.
And our goal is to attract the heart. We shouldn’t think that going to some deeper meaning is something higher than the specifics. So as we meditate on the specifics more and more, we will find that the need for looking for some signification of the specifics will subside and attraction to the specifics themselves for what they are.
They are the attractive attributes that all attract the Supreme Personality of Godhead. That itself, that attraction will arise in the heart and then we will have no such need for going for certain deeper aspects, apparently deeper aspects. You won’t need to go in for that.
Thank you. Hare Krishna.