Sri Krsna Janmastami
( by Swami B.G. Narasingha)
(The following is a public lecture
by Srila B.G. Narasingha Maharaja on the occasion of Sri Krsna Janmastami,
given on August 22nd 2011 at Govindaji Gardens)
Today we are celebrating the appearance
day of Lord Sri Krsna. Krsna appeared 5237 years ago. That makes the birthday
of Krsna the oldest celebrated religious festival in human history. Not only is
it the oldest, but it is the original basis of many religious stories told in
Buddhism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and many other different religions
around the world. The first story of God coming on this earth is the story of
Krsna. We have that story of Krsna because it was recorded in the Srimad Bhagavatam
5000 years ago. There is also another book, written around the same time called
the Hari-vamsa.
The spiritual knowledge and wisdom around Krsna is explained in the Bhagavata Purana.
But there are many little details, because Krsna did not come alone. When God
appears in this world, He comes with His brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers,
aunts, uncles, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, His whole dynasty, many
friends – He brings His whole village. The details of all that are in
the book Hari-vamsa.
There are so many details of Krsna – what food He likes, what
clothes He likes to wear, what musical instruments He plays, what battles He
fought, what language He speaks. That is the first question – when God
came to this world, what language did He speak? He appeared in India, but in
India there are many languages. The answer is that He spoke your language!
Whatever language you spoke, that’s the one He spoke. He even spoke the
language of the animals. Krsna had many pets – cows, deer, and horses,
even dogs – and He could speak to all of them in their own language.
So many of these details are in the book Hari-vamsa and today we will discuss some of
those details.
I am not here today to convince you
that Krsna is God. You may need to know more about why we say that Krsna is
God, but today I am not going to discuss those things. We are going to talk
about some of the details such as who was Krsna’s mother, who was Krsna’s
father etc. But the details are complicated. I can barely keep up with my own
family – what to say of Krsna’s? Krsna’s family is very complex.
In the Bhagavad-gita it is said
that Krsna comes whenever there is a decline in religious principles. He comes
in every age (yuge yuge). Krsna is known as a great actor, like in a
drama, so when Krsna comes He often comes in various disguises. He doesn't
always come as the original Krsna – He comes as avataras. Sometimes Krsna
shows His full power, and sometimes He only shows a part of His power. Whenever
Krsna comes in human society, He has a mother and a father. He selects who will
be His mother and who will be His father from His devotees. But the interesting
part of the story is that Krsna has an original mother and father also. The
original mother and father of Krsna are known as Yasoda and Nanda. So, 5237
years ago Krsna appeared in this world with Yasoda and Nanda as His parents.
But at the very same moment, He accepted another mother and father known as
Vasudeva and Devaki. Generally the story is simplified and we are told that
Krsna was born with one mother and one father, but that is not the detailed
story. Krsna appeared in the village of Vrndavana and His mother was Yasoda and
at the exact same moment, Krsna appeared in Mathura and His mother was Devaki.
The Krsna born in Vrndavana is known as Svayam Bhagavan – the original
Krsna. The Krsna that appeared in Mathura is Visnu. The most striking difference
between Krsna and Visnu is that Krsna is dvi-bhuja (two handed) and Visnu is catur-bhuja
(four handed). There are also other forms of God and if we see them, we will
run away in fear. But those who see Krsna, the original beautiful form of God,
runs towards Krsna in love. Krsna is the most lovable object in our life.
Yasoda and Nanda are always the mother
and father of Krsna. When Krsna comes to this world, He sends His mother and
father first and they are born. Then, when the time is perfect, Krsna appears
from His mother, just like the sun rising out of the ocean. His birth is a
miracle. When this happened over 5000 years ago, this story spread all over the
world. That story entered different cultures and different religions and thus
you will find in different places around the world the story of God appearing
on this earth. But His birth is a miracle. We must understand that we are born
in a certain way, but Krsna is born differently. We are born due to our karma,
but Krsna does not come due to karma. He simply appears. Then the dream begins
and Krsna’s mother thinks, “Oh, I have given birth to this baby.” When Krsna
came in this way to Mother Yasoda, He also brought His sister at the same time.
Mother Yasoda then fell asleep and everyone in the house also slept, and in the
bed with Yasoda was baby Krsna and a baby girl.
Now in Mathura, a big drama had been
going on for a long time. Vasudeva and Devaki had been put in prison by Kamsa
and they had been there for many years. Whenever any children were born to them
in prison, Kamsa would come and kill the baby immediately. Devaki was the
sister of Kamsa. The reason Devaki and Vasudeva were in prison was because of
this – on the day of Devaki’s marriage to Vasudeva, Kamsa put his sister
and her husband into his chariot to take them to their new home. Suddenly there
was a sound from the skies. A great voice declared, “Kamsa, you are such a
fool! You are proudly driving the chariot with your sister, but her eighth son
is going to kill you!”
Now Kamsa was not a good man. He was a
thousand times worse than today’s politicians! He was greedy, evil and violent.
He was an asura – a demon. When Kamsa heard this voice, he was shocked. He
grabbed his sister’s hair, pulled out his sword and attempted to cut off her
head. He was thinking that, “If I kill my sister, she will have no children,
then there is no chance of her eighth son killing me.” But Vasudeva immediately
grabbed him, “What are you doing? Would you kill your own sister? People will
wonder what type of man you are! You will get such a poor reputation. “
It was a very critical situation with
Kamsa, so finally Vasudeva said, “You don’t have to worry about her. When any
children are born, I will bring them to you immediately and you can kill them.”
Vasudeva spoke many flattering words to Kamsa to cool his anger and he made
this very extreme promise.
After a year had passes, Devaki gave
birth to a son and Vasudeva brought the baby to Kamsa but he told him, “This is
the first baby, but your problem is with the eighth child.” So Kamsa agreed and
let them keep their son. But then a very strange thing happened – it was
already strange but it’s going to get stranger! Narada Muni came to see Kamsa
and Narada thought, “This king is so evil and he is already causing so much
suffering to innocent people. We need to speed up his karma!”
It was also said that the eighth son would be Krsna, and Krsna had killed Kamsa
in a previous life. Kamsa’s name in his previous birth was Kalanemi.
Narada Muni told him that, “The eighth son will be Krsna, your old enemy, and
He will kill you. But you can’t trust Krsna – He may come as the
second son, or the third. It’s better you kill all the children.”
Actually, nothing happens by accident.
Even an accident is ultimately not an accident. Life is complicated and it
involves previous lifetimes. You have things in this world because you have an
education and you work, but that is not everything. You have things
because of what you did in a previous life, in ten previous lives, in one
hundred previous lives. This life is complicated.
After talking to Narada, Kamsa arrested
his sister and her husband and put them in prison. Every year, as children were
born, he killed them in the prison. If we examine the story at this point, it
is clear that Kamsa is evil. But a saint was the one who gave the suggestion to
him to kill all the children! So the question arises, who were these poor
children? Why were they killed What was their karma?
When Kamsa was Kalenemi in his previous
birth, the children of Devaki that he was killing were his own sons. Their
grandfather was Hiranyakasipu, one of the greatest demons ever known in the
universe. He cursed his own grandsons that they would take birth and they would
be killed in that way. This is the family business of demons – they don't
even have good wishes for their own children. So these first six children were
previously the six sons of Kalanemi and Kamsa killed them all. He was killing
his own children.
Then the seventh son appeared. This was
Krsna’s brother, Balarama. In India Balarama is very famous. He is also known
as Sankarsana. Ananta is His expansion. But Krsna told Yogamaya, the
spiritual power of Krsna who helps create the lila of Krsna, “Take My
brother to Vrndavana before He is born, so that He does not have to face
Kamsa.” Everyone in the prison thought that Devaki had had a miscarriage. The
next year, on this day, on the lunar calendar, Krsna appeared in two places at
the same time. He came to Mother Yasoda as a baby with two arms, and with His
sister. In Mathura, at the same moment, Krsna also appeared as Visnu with four
arms.
In Vrndavana, after seeing Krsna,
Yasoda slept. But in Mathura, Vasudeva and Devaki didn't sleep. They understood
that, “Bhagavan has become our son!” Vasudeva and Devaki offered prayers in
glorification of the Lord. If we study those prayers, we can clearly understand
who is God. If we understand who is God, we will automatically understand who
is not
God! We will immediately broom out so many bogus bhagavans.
After hearing their prayers, Visnu took
the form of baby Krsna. At that moment, everybody in the world slept. Nobody
was awake. When you have had a successful day, you are able to have a good
sleep. When God appears on the earth, everyone has a good sleep, even the
demons. At that time, all the locks on the prison door opened and Vasudeva
picked up baby Krsna and walked out of the prison. It was flood season and he
came to the river Yamuna which parted and Vasudeva and Krsna crossed the river.
He then came to the village where Yasoda and Nanda lived. Generally we call
that whole area as Vrndavana, but that village is actually known as Gokula.
Vasudeva entered that house, the door opened and he saw Mother Yasoda sleeping.
He saw one little baby girl and he picked her up and replaced her with Krsna.
Then he crossed the Yamuna, returned to Mathura, entered the prison and
immediately the all doors closed again.
So now there are two Krsnas in the bed
with Yasoda. The Visnu-avatara from Mathura entered into the body of the
original Krsna and they became one. Then at that moment, everyone in the house
woke up, heard the baby crying and they all came running to see. For a moment,
Mother Yasoda thought, “Where is the girl?” because she remembered that there
were twins – a boy and a girl. But when she saw the beauty of Krsna, she
forgot about everything and thought that it must have all been a dream.
Meanwhile, in Mathura, that baby girl
began to cry and everybody woke up. The guards heard the crying and ran to
Kamsa to tell him that the eighth child had been born. When Kamsa entered,
Devaki told him, “This is your niece. Please don't kill this girl. You are in
danger from a boy – the eighth son was supposed to kill you. This is
a girl.” But no – he pushed them down, grabbed the baby by the feet
and he prepared to smash her head on the wall. Suddenly, that baby slipped out
of the hand of Kamsa, stood in the sky and took the form of Goddess Durga with
sixteen arms holding many weapons. This goddess has many names – Durga, Bhadra,
Bhadrakali – she has many names. She chastised Kamsa, “You are a
bigger fool than we thought! The one who has been born to kill you has already
appeared!” Then she disappeared into the sky. Kamsa had killed the six sons of
Devaki who were previously his own sons, but this could not change his destiny.
The will of God is above everything. He had done many horrible things, but he
had changed nothing.
Kamsa then apologized to his sister and
brother-in-law and allowed them to leave the prison and return home. Some time
later, Kamsa’s associates came to him and told him that Vasudeva and Devaki
were not to be trusted. They suggested that they should be imprisoned again and
all the children in the whole kingdom up to ten years old should be killed.
Anybody here who knows the Jesus story will immediately remember the same thing
happened in Judea. The only difference is that this is the original story. The
other is a duplicate.
So due to bad company, Kamsa arrested
his sister and her husband again and put them in prison for sixteen years. Then
he started a campaign to kill all the children. For this program he employed
one friend named Putana. She came to poison Krsna, but Krsna killed her and
saved all the children in the whole kingdom. But when Putana was killed, at
once Kamsa knew where Krsna was. He didn't need to kill any more children. For
sixteen years Kamsa sent powerful demons with magic powers to kill Krsna, but
one by one, Krsna killed them all. After sixteen years, Krsna came to know
about His other mother and father being locked up in prison by Kamsa, so He
went to Mathura. There, He fought with elephants and wrestlers and finally He
fought with Kamsa, and with His left hand He hit Kamsa and killed him. Then He
set His mother and father free.
These activities are known as krsna-lila and
by hearing krsna-lila
we can be freed from karma. This means we can be freed from
suffering. All of you today have come from your homes; some of you have even
come from a different country to this place. This means that you have an original
place – Krsna also has an original place.
Krsna says that He is God and He shows
it – not once or twice, but many, many times by His knowledge, His
activities, by His power, by every means He proves that He is God. But
nowadays, particularly in India over the last fifty years or so, like to
imitate Krsna. They like to say that they are God. Then we read in the
newspapers that such-and-such bhagavan went to hospital. If we go to hospital,
then that is alright – we are humans so we may have to go to hospital. But in
India, God goes to hospital! Then they will say that, “That is his lila!”
What fool wants to go to a hospital? Nobody!
It should also be noted that Krsna was
on this earth for 125 years. Sixteen years He was in Vrndavana and that is known
as His lila
of youth. Vrndavana is known as the original home of Krsna, and that eternal
home of Krsna is beyond our temporary time/space reality. One of the
characteristics of God is that He doesn't grow old. Have you ever seen a
picture of Krsna as an old man? He is nava-yauvana – ever youthful. This year I
went to the Vatican and I saw pictures of ‘God’ there. He had white hair, a big
white beard and wrinkled skin. Now what if you were God? Would you like to be
old or young? It is obvious – we would want to be youthful. There are many
ideas of God, but the original idea is Krsna and He is always youthful, He is
never old. And when God wants to remove your sin, He just does it. He doesn't
have to die or suffer to do it. At Kuruksetra, Krsna was 55, but when he is
with Arjuna at Kuruksetra He looks like a sixteen-year-old boy. He has no
moustache or beard because He never grows old.
These are some of the wonderful aspects
of Sri Krsna.
Sri Krsna Bhagavan ki jaya!
Om Tat Sat
(Continued...)
(Continued...)
(My humble salutations to
H H Sri Swami B G Narasingha ji for the collection)
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