Shuddhaanandaa BrahmachariAll religions have painted the picture of a pretty serious God. Whether it is Buddha or Jesus, Nanak or Zarathustra, they are all deep in meditation or in prayer. They all seem to show to us that the world of spirit is not child’s play; it is quite a serious journey, we have to be really focused and meditative. Every one of us seems to have had that kind of feeling that God is a pretty serious person. In early childhood, we even thought that God must be having a stick in hand and he must be having a long white beard and is always ready to punish anyone who does not obey his commands. Everyone pointed up when referring God, so the idea that he lives in the clouds, in the sky also is deeply embedded into our collective psyche.
Krishna shatters all the concepts that one can have about God. If we follow his life story he starts his divine play from the moment of birth, leaving the mother who gives him birth in the prison and going over to village in Vrindavan to Nandbaba’s home to be nurtured by Ma Yashoda and to be surrounded by cowherds and milkmaids. He is the 8th avatar of Vishnu and is born on the eight day of Krishna Paksha (dark fortnight) in the month of Shravana (August-September) that is the significance of Janmashtami, born on Ashtami that is the 8th day. His life is filled with manifestations of the powers of ultimate godhood yet so human. That way Krishna, even amongst all the Avatars of Vishnu in Hindu mythology, is simply unparalleled and praised by sages and saints, as “Krishnastu Bhagwan swayam” meaning, Krishna is God Himself.
There is nothing that is left untouched in his earthly manifestation in the form of beauty-personified Krishna. We see him killing the most powerful demons that were deputed by his enemy Kamsa all in a playful way, but granting them salvation. We see him stealing butter and milk from the homes of the milkmaids along with his cowherd friends as a child but at the same time when Vrindavan faces torrential rain and flooding crafted by Indra, the celestial god, he calls all the inhabitants to the Govardhan Mountain and lifts it up on his little finger holding it for days as an umbrella until Indra surrenders to His supreme power. He is so human when he is stealing butter and cream and even telling lies (with double meaning) to escape the wrath of his mother. This moment we see him as a playful human being and next moment we see him dancing on the hood of the most venomous snake Kaliya in river Yamuna to punish the snake for spreading poison and taking human lives until the mighty snake leaves the water of Yamuna River. This is the most incredible play of God in human form. Never before did God manifest as human to show such innumerable facets of human emotion and human life while being centered in the Godhood within.
Krishna is the eternal lover. He plays a flute and enchants the milkmaids who forget the world and all attachments and run to dance in this adolescent prank started by Krishna. Sri Radha the eternal divine consort of Krishna runs to Krishna when he plays the flute and both Gopis (milkmaids) and Radha go into ecstasy of divine love and intoxication dancing with Krishna where time stops. When each Gopi wants to have Krishna only to herself, Krishna creates out of him many Krishnas and each Gopi sees Krishna dancing with her.
Krishna is the only dancing God in the world of religions. Though Shiva is known as the cosmic dancer, but we never see Shiva dancing with milkmaids and simple villagers. His dance is the dance of tandava, the dance of the creative and annihilative process. There is not that fun that we see when Krishna is encircled with hundreds of Gopis (milkmaids) and Sri Radha and is dancing in sheer ecstasy of divine union. This dance is of sheer joy of the Spirit where borders of the physical body and physicality disappear and melt into blissful existence.
Krishna is telling us, in order to be godly we don’t have to be serious, we have to learn to accept life as is, and take life as a moment to moment celebration and what better expression can one show than dance and music when our heart is filled with ecstasy of unity consciousness.
He is the supreme musician too, for when he plays his flute those who love him can hear that enchanting music and divine melody and feels madly attracted to the love incarnate Krishna. It is said even today the one who breaks the barriers and separation created by the egocentric mind can reach to the inner domain of cosmic bliss where one can listen to the flute of Krishna to begin with and then see oneself as Gopi and join in the Raas, or the dance of ecstasy and infinite bliss. This is the eternal Vaikuntha, the domain of Krishna’s land of eternal dance and blissfulness.
Can we imagine the same Krishna begging at the court of Duryodhan, the Kaurava king, for a small patch of land where the five of his own cousin brothers of Pandava clan could live and spend their life so that there is no need for any battle for land and power? Duryodhan declines the offer and goes to fight the most deadly battle of Kurukshetra. We see Krishna the playful dancer, now as the charioteer of Arjuna, lifting his morale to fight against his own kins in order to establish dharma or order for the progenies to come. He talks to Arjuna in the battlefield the most sacred verses of the ultimate wisdom that would guide the destiny of human kind for millennia to come. He gives Gita the Song Celestial to Arjuna and through Arjuna to the whole of humanity irrespective of any religious dogmas. Bhagvat Gita, which comes from the mouth of Krishna is God speaking to man on the art of living when negativity encircles the individual and collective life of humanity.
Krishna is not a mythological character born of any epic poet. Krishna came to earth as any one of us, lived like any of us, went through all human emotions yet demonstrated to the world that to be happy is to be detached, and this detachment is not rejecting ownership but not allowing anything to own us. He showed the world that there is no religion that is superior to love for he was the very embodiment of love in all its infinite manifestations, human and divine. His message was for all of us, to not negate life but always to remain life positive, and learn to be a “nimitta” an instrument of the divine so that ego can never play the foul game of dividing and ruling.
