I adore Krishna.
He is my singing, dancing and laughing God.
Did you know that Krishna is also called Yogeshwar, whose yoga is born out of joy and total bliss. He absorbs and represents everything that is life.
Krishna accepts good and this world completely. His acceptance is so total and so complete that it is difficult to say where world ends, and God begins. Most of great religious men renounced world and attachments to find peace, meaning of life and to be one with God. But not Krishna. He proved that like a lotus in water, one can remain unattached and untouched while living in the middle of relationships.
In the whole galaxy of religious luminaries, Krishna is the sole exception, who fully accepts life on this Earth. He does not believe in living here for the sake of heaven, which is another world and another life. Life never received such deep and unconditional acceptance at the hands of any other enlightened soul.
Religions of the past were life denying and accepted suffering and sorrow as great virtues. Main characteristic of a religious seer was that he was sombre, serious and sad looking. Most of sannyasis chose to renounce this world. But Krishna was exception to the rule. Krishna’s life is Leela and he plays it perfectly. Krishna is called a Maha Yogi, one who has attained the highest form of yoga. Krishna reached absolute height and depth of religion.
Krishna is always smiling, with his flute on his lips. He cast a spell through his flute on entire population of Gokul. Even cows respond to the melodious tunes of his flute. Krishna dances with his heart and soul with the Gopis, women of his village, Nandgaon and his beloved Radha.
Such is his spell that Radha and each Gopi thinks Krishna is dancing with her alone. You cannot think of Krishna without Radha. She is inseparably one with him. Radha sacrifices everything for Krishna’s love.
She loses her own identity and becomes first part of their joint name. We call them Radha Krishna and not Krishna Radha. She constitutes the whole of his tenderness and refinement.
She is his song, his dance and all that is feminine in him. As a matter of fact, Radha and Krishna make for a complete circle of life. They are a perfect couple.
Child Krishna was famous for his pranks. He stole butter, along with his friends, from the houses of village women with aplomb. He did not hesitate to tell a lie when caught.
He wore a crown of peacock feather and behaved more like a mischievous village boy than a God. He teased gopis by picking their clothes when they went for a bath in Yamuna river. He tells them that they have offended Goddess Yamuna by taking bath naked. He takes a promise from them not to repeat this mistake in future and returns their clothes. His stories have been described in Bhagwat purana as Krishna Leela.
Krishna lived full and complete life despite danger to his life at every step. His maternal uncle, king of Mathura was wicked and treacherous. He made several attempts on his life but failed every time. A seer had made prophesy that eighth son of Devaki, sister of Kansa will kill him. Kansa had put Devaki and her husband Vasudeva in a high security prison and given instructions to prison guards that moment a child is born, he should be informed.
He killed seven newborn sons of Devaki. But Krishna had to take Avtar as the eighth incarnation of Lord Vishnu .
As Krishna took birth, security guards went into deep sleep, gates of prison were thrown open automatically. It was a dark night and it was raining heavily.
Vasudev carried the newborn in a basket and left him in the safe custody of his friend, NAND. He returned to prison carrying girl child of Yashoda, wife of NAND.
As the child cried, the guards woke up and informed king of the birth of eighth child. Kansa mercilessly threw child on ground. But the child was yogmaya. She disappeared in the sky with a warning to Kansa that eighth son of Devaki is alive and safe in Nandgaon.
In the whole galaxy of religious luminaries, Krishna is the sole exception, who fully accepts life on this earth. He does not believe in living here for the sake of another world and another life. Life never received such deep and unconditional acceptance at the hands of any other enlightened soul.
Religions of the past were life denying and accepted suffering and sorrow as great virtues. Most of sannyasis chose to renounce this world. Krishna on the other hand, accepts God and his world too. According to Krishna, moksha is possible only after ego has been totally eliminated. Death of ego is the price of total freedom.
The biggest contribution of Krishna to mankind is perhaps the Geeta, the divine song. And Krishna of Geeta is totally different from Krishna of the Bhagwat. Only a complete yogi like Krishna can change roles so easily. He is infinite, vast and multidimensional.
The Divine song consists of 701 shlokas and 18 chapters delivered by Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Two warring armies, Kauravas and Pandavas are facing each other on the battleground of epic war, Mahabharata. Conks declaring war are being sounded.
But Arjuna stubbornly refuses to take up arms and fight. Krishna exhorts him time and again to fight but Arjuna raises question after question. His questions are logical and Krishna fails to convince him. Even a total person like Krishna fails. And this man, Arjuna, who is kingpin of the whole drama, is hesitant and wavering. No doubt Arjuna is a class warrior, hero of many battles. He is not sad because he is going to kill some people. He is sad because he has to kill his own family, relatives and friends. He grieves because of his attachment to those on the opposite side.
The eldest of Pandava family, Bhishma and Arjuna’s teacher, Dronacharya on the other side of battlefield. The Kauravas are cousins with whom he has grown up since childhood.
Arjuna is scared of killing his own people. Arjuna has been a warrior all his life, but now, he is thinking like a Brahmin, a nature, totally alien to him. His deviation of nature is like a transient cloud in the sky. Krishna is just trying to dispel it.
To convince Arjuna, Krishna unfolds his whole being, his universal form. Arjuna sees both creation and destruction taking place at the same time. He understands that death and life are two parts of same coin. He bows before Krishna and says his doubts are dispelled and he is ready for war.
You are inclined to think here that Krishna imposed his will on Arjuna. But this is not true. Krishna only reveals Arjuna to Arjuna.
Krishna has no desires of his own. He is totally desireless. Krishna For Arjuna and Pandavas is God, but for Kauravas, Krishna is worst than a devil.
He is the person, responsible for their defeat and destruction. Krishna is existence itself.
Krishna exhorts Arjuna to drop his cowardice and fight like a true warrior. His arguments in favour of war are rare, unique and beautiful. He tells Arjuna that soul within man never dies. Only body dies. There was no time when we were not there. There will be no time when we will not be there. Soul changes bodies like we change clothes. Krishna’s life accepts no limits, no boundaries, it is limitless and vast. He is enlightened soul.
Krishna defies definition of a religious man. He is a rare sanyasi whose sanyas is born out of param ananda. For Krishna, bliss is climax of happiness.
Krishna is totally unpredictable. Each commentary on Geeta is deferent from the other. Nobody could predict the way he died. He was relaxing under a tree. A hunter saw him from distance, mistook him for a deer and hit him in the heel with his arrow. Krishna forgives the hunter and leaves this world with a smile on his face. For him, life and death are same.
Perhaps, he had accomplished all for which he had taken avatar and it was time to say goodbye. Even in Geeta, Krishna says that as and when evil rises, he takes birth for protection of the righteous and destruction of the wicked.
Krishna was not a seeker; he was a siddha. He was adept, an accomplished performer of all arts of life. What is the ultimate goal of life after all. It is to achieve moksha. Moksha is possible after ego has been totally annihilated.
Krishna tells Arjuna I know you are a Kshatriya, a true warrior. I am just reminding you who you are. Know it and then choose your path. It may seem that Krishna imposed his will on Arjuna. It is far from truth. Krishna is desireless.
His desirelessness is total. It is perhaps a rare event in the history of war. While Krishna is on the side of Pandavas, his entire army is on the side of Kauravas. Strange, unimaginable but true.
Every age needs Krishna to bask in his glory. Every age is unhappy and steeped in suffering. A man like Krishna is relevant and meaningful for all ages.
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