(2/7) Misconceptions about Lord Krishna's Appearance

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Krishna Janmastami Maha-Mahotsav
Kolkata-Worldwide, 12 August 2020, part 2

It is a very auspicious day today. It is Janmastami today, and tomorrow is Sri Nandotsav festival. Krishna is born at midnight, at 12 o'clock; you all know how He was born. It is described in Srimad Bhagavatam how Krishna appeared in this world in the prison of Kamsa in His chatur-bhuja murti (four-armed form) as Devaki and Vasudev's son. However, we do not think that Krishna is merely Devaki's son—He is Yasomati's son! He is Yasoda-nandan, Nanda-nandan. We worship Yasoda-nandan Krishna. Actually, Gaudiya Vaishnavs do not worship Vasudev Krishna (Vasudev-nandan Krishna)—Gaudiya Vaishnavs worship Nanda-nandan Krishna, Yasoda-nandan Krishna. It is important to understand this.

One time, someone asked me, "Is Krishna a step son of Yasoda?" I said: how many years you have been in this Gaudiya line and you are asking this kind of nonsense question?! Krishna is a son of Yasoda, a son of Nanda Maharaj. We see that Vasudev took Lord Krishna to Gokul and left Him there taking instead a girl from Yasoda, but this is just some historical movement. What is described and written in Srimad Bhagavatam is one of the pastimes of the Lord. Vasudev and Devaki are also very fortunate because they have got Krishna as their son, but He is actually a son of Nanda Maharaj and Mother Yasoda.

Anyway, I am very happy to see you all today. We can start our main programme now. First, I am giving my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my beloved Gurudev Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, after that I offer my full obeisance to all guru-varga living here—Srila Janardan Maharaj, Srila Ashram Maharaj, as well as all the guru-varga assembled here. Actually, I see everybody as my guru, I am everybody's disciple. That is my aspiration. "Sisya thakibo sarvada (শিষ্য থাকিব সর্ব্বদা)—I always want to be a disciple."

[A side remark about one of the devotees unable to leave the country:] ...If flights are cancelled, it is not a problem. He can stay here. So what if all flights are cancelled? This is not our business. What flights are cancelled or not cancelled depends upon the Lord, it is not in our hands. Our spiritual life is never cancelled, that is the main thing. If he wants to go so much, he can go on foot...

Anyhow, today is Sri Krishna Janmastami. If you read my books, you can get something from there—I write there some strong things. I told you last time also that there is one chapter there that says that without Lord Krishna, without Janmastami (Lord Krishna's appearance) life is meaningless. Lord Krishna appearance is the main source of life. If you read Guidance 3, you can easily understand what I want to say there. I give there some quotation from Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur's writing, I also explained some slokas from Srimad Bhagavatam there. Also, you always read Srimad Bhagavad-gita, you know that it says there,

সর্ব্বধর্ম্মান্ পরিত্যজ্য মামেকং শরণং ব্রজ ।
অহং ত্বাং সর্ব্বপাপেভ্যো মোক্ষয়িষ্যামি মা শুচঃ ॥

sarva-dharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo, moksayisyami ma suchah

"Give up all kinds of religion and surrender to Me alone. I will liberate you from all sins, do not despair."

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 18.66)

If you read this and other slokas from Srimad Bhagavad-gita, you can easily understand the meaning of Janmastami and who Krishna is. There are also some slokas from Srimad Bhagavatam that I quoted in this chapter (in Guidance 3). The chapter is not so long—if you read it, you can also understand why we do not worship Vasudev-Krishna. There are so many Hindu people in this world who worship Krishna, but people often compare Krishna's birth to the birth of an ordinary baby in this world—this is completely wrong. This is what I want to say. They say that just as a baby is born in this world, Krishna is also born in the same way. Such material thinking is not correct.

Anyway, today is the holy appearance day of Lord Sri Krishna and tomorrow is Sri Nandotsav. The festival is actually tomorrow—we make Sri Nandotsav festival tomorrow. This is the day when Nanda Maharaj made a festival in honour of his son's appearance. Sri Jaganath Misra also made a festival after Nimai was born, and we celebrate this festival the day after Gaura Purnima. Just as Lord Krishna's appearance is transcendental, so is the appearance of Srimati Radharani. How did She appear? She did not come as an ordinary child from somebody's womb. Local people think that She came from the womb of Kirtida Maya, but such mundane people cannot understand it. They can say that, but our vision is not like that—we see it in a different way.

[His Divine Grace then reads the chapter 'Without Lord Krishna's Appearance Life Is Meaningless' from Guidance 3.]

"Without Lord Krishna Life Is Meaningless"

Today is the holy appearance day of Lord Sri Krishna, and tomorrow is Sri Nandotsav. On this occasion, a festival of glorification of the Lord and chanting of the Lord's Holy Names is being held on the order of the Math's Acharya. Great teachers tells us, "If Lord Sri Krishna had not appeared, the life of the jiva souls would be useless," but the meaning of these words does not enter our ears! We futilely enjoy many petty senses and the distress it causes makes us so thirsty that we create a petty phoney version of Sri Krishna. Because of our false identification, we are fed the idea that instead of Supreme Lord Krishna a demon-killer Krishna is born on this day.

Being engrossed by enjoyment, does anyone of us ever think what is the necessity of worshipping Krishna? We accept an exclusive designation of an enjoyer of this world and from Lord Brahma down to the lowest life form everyone roams all planes of life, from hell to heaven, in this ego of an enjoyer; this is the driving force of all living entities' actions. Some become worms in stool and explore their world of enjoyment; some are born as humans and strive to attain high ranks, position, aristocracy, beautiful body, opulence, etc. Sometimes we are born as German Kaiser, sometimes as Chancellor Hitler, sometimes as a state leader, sometimes as a hero of a national movement, sometimes as a social reformer, sometimes as benefactor of the distressed—philanthropists, poets, writers, historians, archaeologists, capitalists, socialists, economists, politicians, journalists, sometimes singer, sometimes actors, sometimes musicians, speakers, beggars for food, sometimes we are stricken by famine, sometimes by earthquake, sometimes we stay without house after a flood, we lose our family, wealth, sometimes we are farmers, sometimes workers, sometimes rich, sometimes gross sensualists—how many forms have we assumed being swooned by enjoyment and how long have we been rejecting the necessity of Lord Krishna's existence and appearance!

We have no relation to the appearance of Lord Krishna any more. We merely spend our lives revolving within the cycle of birth and death. We always count the birth and death rate among humans or beasts, we are always busy reading the news about floods and famine, and just to get some happiness we become obsessed with various gross and subtle enjoyment. When a demon of enjoyment is born within our hearts at every second, what is the necessity of Krishna's appearance?

The Lord is knowns as visuddha-sattva, One whose existence is free from contamination of the three material modes; it means if it was not for such heart as that of Vasudev (Lord Krishna's father), Lord Vāsudev (Krishna) would not appear today. We do not want to give even a second's thought to this, neither do we think it is necessary to think about this. We think that the directives given in the scriptures are merely some children's stories about bogeymen or some nursery rhymes. We feel tortured terribly when we get into some temporary difficulties and adversities, but the next moment, as the saying goes, "the dog's tail curls up again" (once the danger is over we immediately get excited again).

Sometimes posing as theists, sometimes posing as moralists, sometimes posing as atheists, we refuse to believe in the appearance of Lord Krishna. In Sri Gita (4.6, 9) Lord Krishna says,

aho 'pi sann avyayatma, bhutanam isvaro 'pi san
prakrtim svam adhisthaya, sambhavamy atma-mayaya.

"Although My eternal form is transcendental to birth and death, and I am the Lord of all beings, I appear within the world in My divine nature, by My sweet will, extending My internal potency."

janma karma cha me divyam, evam yo vetti tattvatah
tyaktva deham punar janma, naiti mam eti so 'rjuna

"O Arjuna, one who comes to know thus the truth of My pastimes of divine birth and activities, does not undergo rebirth. After giving up this body, he attains Me."

Even if one claims that they believe in the transcendental instructions of Lord Krishna, they perceive it in a distorted way. We are unable to accept or grasp the Lord's transcendental and eternal pastime of birth because out of religious pride we actually do not understand that the Lord possesses all potencies, He possesses transcendental powers and is absolutely independent Supreme Personality of Godhead who enjoys His pastimes with His associates (Lila-Purusottama)—instead we want to squeeze the Lord within the tiny boundaries of our intellect. If we say we are moralists, then we think that the world is ruled, controlled and preserved by the moral principles, and there is no need for any separate God. Even if we say that we believe in God, that we believe that Sri Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, then there arises the problem of sectarianism—that is why it is thought that there is no harm and no gain if one rejects the bias towards the conception of one and only Supreme Absolute in favour of the numerous so called religious doctrines that are perceived to be on equal footing with the material opportunism.

Sadhus give us innumerous advice and always incite us to remove unnecessary things from our life—the jungle forests of impurities, termite mounds, thorns and the stagnant mouldy water of material desires that nurture life after life, etc. When will we get the time to see the variegated beauty of transcendental Lord Krishna's appearance? There is so much inexhaustible beauty in the realm of Krishna's appearance, the liberated souls possess so much astounding and unrestrained par excellence in the realm of Krishna's appearance; there, the bliss of service life reprimands the bliss of sheer spiritual existence and is dancing on its head—when will we get the chance to see it? We either lose ourselves in the enjoyment in the lower base species of beasts and birds, or we consider that the purpose of human birth is realised when we gain petty release from animal life, and this is what we call being a sadhu or religious. It is extremely rare to come across people who would be worth teaching that the supreme goal of human life is the abode of Lord Krishna's appearance—as much so as the mount of our aversion is also insurmountable.

Although Sri Krishna appeared as a son of Sri Vasudev and Devaki, He did not take birth having been conceived by semen, etc. like an ordinary common man. Enveloped by the transcendental goodness of Devaki and Vasudev, who are situated in pure spiritual goodness within and without, the eternal, blissful, cognisant holy form of Sri Krishna comes up with His appearance pastime. In this regard, it is said in Srimad Bhagavatam (10.2.19) that just as the east captures the delightful moon, in the same way Devaki Devi, being fully aware of all the Vedic knowledge, had captured through Vasudev the all-auspicious, omnipotent, original, all-blissful form of Supreme Lord as her son within her heart. It is due to their parental love that Lord Sri Krishna's appearance took place.

There is one more proof that the birth of Lord Krishna cannot be compared to the birth of common mundane people: when a common child is born, it is born naked from the mother's womb, but as Bhagavatam described it, when Lord Sri Krishna appeared, He appeared in His four-armed form holding a conch, disk, club and lotus, adorned with various ornaments such as a helmet, earrings, etc., He had dense fully grown hair and was clad in yellow clothes. Common children are never born from the womb of their mothers fully clad and adorned with ornaments. In this way, it can be proved that the ornaments and beauty of the Lord Krishna are as eternal and transcendental as Lord Krishna's Name and Form.

The Lord Himself explained why He appears in four-armed form: His original form is two-armed, but He revealed His four-armed form only to remind His two devotees who possessed parental devotional mood mixed with opulence and knowledge about His previous birth and pastimes.

When the soul becomes again favourable towards Lord Krishna, Lord Krishna appears at that time in the heart of this soul. By the mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma, Lord Krishna descends within the hearts of the souls covered by the darkness of ignorance every year in the rainy season (August-beginning of September). His appearance occurs at midnight on the eighth lunar day of the dark fortnight in the month of Bhadra. 'Jayasri' Vrisabhanu-nandini (Srimati Radharani) appears every year at midday on the eighth day of the bright fortnight. Despite this calculation, Lord Krishna's appearance day occurs eternally. His appearance is not just some historical fact, it is an eternal truth.

When Sri Krishna and Jayaśri unite, They become Sri Gaurasundar. Although He is Krishna, He comes taking the heart (exclusive devotional mood) and halo of His devotee to bring the appearance of Lord Krishna into the hearts of all souls devoid of spiritual consciousness and to bestow upon such souls the gift of spiritual consciousness—taking this exclusive form, He appears on dol-purnima [known as 'holi' in the West], the day when Krishna enjoys the most.

Sri Gaurasundar appears in this combined form, taking the heart and halo of divine separation, to teach the world about the union with Krishna and the devotees' service in separation from Krishna. On this day of Lord Sri Krishna's appearance, we take the dust from the lotus feet of the Rupanuga guru-varga and the Gaudiya-acharya-varga on our heads and beg for the qualification to be able to sing the glories of Lord Sri Krishna's appearance:

yad advaitam brahmopanisadi tad apy asya tanu-bha
ya atmantar-yami purusa iti so 'syamsa-vibhavah
sad-aisvaryaih purno ya iha bhagavan sa svayam ayam
na chaitanyat krsnaj jagati para-tattvam param iha

"What the Upanisads describe as the impersonal Brahman is the effulgence of My Lord; what the yoga-sastras describe as the Supersoul or Paramatma is My Prabhu's plenary portion, and who is described as the Supreme Lord, full with six opulences, the shelter of Brahman and Paramatma, He is My Master, the Lord Himself. Therefore, there is nothing greater in this world than Sri Krishna Chaitanya."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.1.3)

This is the meaning of Lord Sri Krishna's appearance. Now I will tell you something from Srimad Bhagavatam....

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READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Prayerful Meditation
2) Misconceptions about Lord Krishna's Appearance
3) Entering Another Plane
4) Approaching Krishna's Pastimes
5) Account of Krishna's Appearance
6) Devotees' Character
7) Always Remember, Always Serve