Sri Krishna Janmastami:
No Pain, No Gain

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Krishna Janmastami, morning class
3 September 2018, part 1

In one of His pastimes, Krishna demolished two Yamalarjuna trees, but those two trees were not ordinary trees—those two trees were actually Nalakuvar and Manigriv, cursed by Narad Manu.

Nalakuvar and Manigriv possessed immense wealth, and they were so proud of it that they did not care for anyone. One day, they were naked, doing dirty things with girls in the water of a river. Narad Muni was passing by, and when the girls saw him, they got shy and tried to cover themselves with some cloth, but the two men were so intoxicated with their wealth that they remained stark naked. Seeing this, Narad Muni cursed them, "You are so shameless, you are so intoxicated with your wealth! I curse you to be born as trees! Naked, you will stand as Yamalarjuna trees!" Nalakuvar and Manigriv asked Narad Muni, "How will we be rescued?!" Narad Muni replied, "When Krishna appears in Dvapar-yuga, you will be rescued then."

Then, one day, when Krishna was tied to a wooden grinding mortar, He crawled between the trees and the mortar got stuck between the two trees. He could not even walk at that time, but such is His impossible strength—He just pulled the mortar and the trees fell down, and Gopal was sitting between them, unharmed. At that time, there was not a cloud in the sky, no thunder, no storm, so when everybody heard the loud thud outside, everybody ran outside and was surprised to see the trees lying on the ground. Nanda Maharaj ran up to Gopal, picked Him up in his arms and said, "By great fortune nothing has happened to my Gopal, He is alive!" In the meantime, two men came out of the trees and offered prayers to the Lord.

We sing about this pastime in the Damodarastakam kirtan ("Namamisvaram sach-chid-ananda rupam lasat-kundalam gokule bhrajamanam...")

kuveratmajau baddha-murttyaiva yadvat
tvaya mochitau bhakti-bhajau krtau cha
tatha prema-bhaktim svakam me prayachchha
na mokse graho me 'sti damodareha

O Lord Damodara, just as the two sons of Kuvera (Manigriva and Nalakuvara) were delivered from the curse of Narada and made into great devotees by You in Your form as a baby tied with rope to a wooden grinding mortar, in the same way, please give to me Your own prema-bhakti. I only long for this and have no desire for any kind of liberation.

(Sri Damodarastakam, 7)

This is how Krishna saved Nalakuvar and Manigriv who were born as trees.

On another day, Krishna went to Brahmanda Ghat and started eating mud. Gopal's friends came to Mother Yasoda and gave her the news, "Do you know? Do you know? Gopal is eating mud!" Mother Yasoda got scared and ran to Gopal, "Are You eating mud? Are You putting dirt into Your mouth?!" Gopal said, "I am not! Mother, look into My mouth yourself." Then, Gopal opened His mouth and Yasoda saw the entire three universes, all the 330 million demigods within it. She was astonished thinking, "Who is He?!" Although she saw all those things, she still felt that He was her son, so the vatsalya-rasa took over.

Mother Yasoda also tried to bind Krishna, but you know that no matter how much rope she had gathered (even when she took the rope from all the 900,000 cows), it was every time two fingers too short. Those two fingers are mercy and desire. If you pray to the Lord, if you keep trying, then you can get His mercy. If you do not try, you will never get the Lord's mercy.

Therefore, if we want to get the Lord, we must make an effort—we must practise bhajan, kirtan, worship, proper behaviour, Vaishnav seva, etc. We must try our best—we must worship, arrange programmes, practise sravan and kirtan, serve, offer bhoga, practise daily well.

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