For
everything that exists in the material world, there is an immediate cause, as
well as a remote one. The immediate causes may be many, but ultimately the
remote cause is only one— Krishna. Therefore, in the Taittiriya Upanisad,
2.7.1, it is stated:
raso vai sah
“The Supreme Personality
of Godhead is the reservoir of all transcendental mellows.”
And this is also
confirmed in the Vedanta Sutra, 1.1.12:
anandamayo 'bhyasat
“By nature, the Supreme
Lord is blissful”.
In this material world
all activities are aimed towards rasa and ananda, and therefore are just a
perverted reflection of those performed by Krishna, and to properly understand
them, one has to know what His lilas are, what makes them different from our
activities, what the process to obtain such knowledge is and wherefrom.
The
Sanskrit word ‘lila’ is a combination of two verbal roots: ‘li’, ‘to be
devoted’, ‘to be attached’, ‘to be absorbed’, plus ‘la’, ‘to take’. Thus,
‘lila’ may be defined as “something that makes one to be absorbed or devoted.”
When we speak about being devoted, three things are implied: he who devotes
himself, the object of devotion, and devotion itself. Krishna and His lilas are
of the same nature— sac-cid-ananda— and therefore to be absorbed in His lila is
the same as being absorbed in Him. Here we find some of the purposes of the
Lord’s advent:
ajasya janmotpatha-nasanaya
karmany akartur grahanaya pumsam
nanv anyatha ko 'rhati deha-yogam
paro gunanam uta karma-tantram
“The appearance of the
Lord is manifested for the annihilation of the upstarts. His activities are
transcendental and are enacted for the understanding of all persons. Otherwise,
since the Lord is transcendental to all material modes, what purpose could He
serve by coming to earth?”
>>> Ref.
VedaBase => SB 3.1.44
And this is further
corroborated in the Caitanya Caritamrta:
sarvatra prakasa tanra -- bhakte
sukha dite
jagatera adharma nasi' dharma
sthapite
"The Lord is
situated in all the universes in different forms just to please His devotees.
Thus the Lord destroys irreligious principles and establishes religious
principles.”
>>> Ref.
VedaBase => Madhya 20.219
When the Lord comes, He
is called avatara, or “one who descends.” Compared to the lilas of all
avataras, Krishna-lila is particularly special because Krishna is not an
avatara, but the avatari, the fountainhead of all avataras:
ete camsa-kalah pumsah
krsnas tu bhagavan svayam
indrari-vyakulam lokam
mrdayanti yuge yuge
“All of the
above-mentioned incarnations are either plenary portions or portions of the
plenary portions of the Lord, but Lord Sri Krsna is the original Personality of
Godhead. All of them appear on planets whenever there is a disturbance created
by the atheists. The Lord incarnates to protect the theists.”
>>> Ref.
VedaBase => SB 1.3.28
When Lord Krishna
appears, all His plenary portions also accompany Him (SB 3.2.15p) and to
understand this point, Srila Prabhupada gives the following illustration:
“In grammar, when an
adjective is taken away from the subject, the subject it modifies does not
change. Similarly, when the Lord quits His virat-rupa, His eternal form does
not change, although there is no material difference between Himself and any
one of His innumerable forms.”
>>> Ref.
VedaBase => SB 3.4.29, purport
Krishna is the original
subject and the source of all adjectives, and He may adorn Himself with all
different kinds of adjectives and again reject all of them, and even exist as
the adjectiveless Brahman. Therefore in Krishna-lila we find the most exalted
adjectives, just as in the Bhagavatam we find the most exalted alankaras, for
they both are the Supreme. In the Srimad-Bhagavatam we see how anxious Vidura
was to hear about Krishna and how pleased Uddhava was to narrate. They are
living examples of the required qualification for Krishna consciousness: 1) one
must be anxious to hear, 2) the speaker must be unaffected by the modes of
material nature (SB 3.4.31 p).
In
SB 3.1.44, the basic distinction between the Lord and the conditioned soulsit
is indicated: karmany akartuh, the Lord, even though acting, does not perform
karma, as He Himself explained to Uddhava: paramam sthitim, His situation is
transcendental. On the other hand, people in general are acting on the platform
of karma-tantra, or in other words, they are completely entangled by the ropes
of material nature, thus enjoying or suffering continually the reactions of
their work.
When
the Lord displays His transcendental activities, the whole universe is
benefited and attracted towards the ultimate reality, and even after His
disappearance we still derive benefit through remembering, repeating and
praising those pastimes. That acts in the consciousness of the conditioned soul
as a therapy to recover our spiritual, original consciousness, just as a
psychologist may cure a patient with lapse of memory by constantly telling him
about his life.
Unfortunately,
the nitya-baddha-jivas are from time immemorial in this material environment,
and for them to understand Krishna-lila is very difficult (SB 3.4.34) due to
the cover spread by the modes of nature, particularly passion and ignorance.
Indeed, only a devotee can understand:
daivadhinesu kamesu
daivadhinah svayam puman
ko visrambheta yogena
yogesvaram anuvratah
“Every living entity is
controlled by a supernatural force, and thus his sense enjoyment is also under
the control of that supernatural force. No one, therefore, can put his faith in
Lord Krsna's transcendental sense activities but one who has become a devotee
of the Lord by rendering devotional service.”
>>> Ref.
VedaBase => SB 3.3.23
It so happened that even
some of those who were in the presence of Krishna could not accept Him or His
words (SB 3.1.9). Therefore, the Lord sends His touchstone devotees, such as
Uddhava and Srila Prabhupada, who are even more merciful than the Lord Himself,
so that through their touch even the most engrossed soul may be awakened to the
spiritual dimension by chanting, hearing, taking prasada, etc. And once they
are surrendered, they are beyond the reach of maya:
devasya mayaya sprsta
ye canyad asad-asritah
bhramyate dhir na tad-vakyair
atmany uptatmano harau
“Under no circumstances
can the words of persons bewildered by the illusory energy of the Lord deviate
the intelligence of those who are completely surrendered souls.”
>>> Ref.
VedaBase => SB 3.2.10
In logic, the veracity
of an axiomatic aphorism is verified when its antithesis also proves to be
true, and this can be demonstrated by a simple calculation: two plus two equals
four. Now to see if the result is correct, we use the opposite operation: four
minus two equals two. So either way we can verify it. In the same way, we may
experience the absoluteness of Bhagavatam. The antithesis of the above verse
would be: “Those who are not surrendered souls have their intelligence deviated
by the words of persons who are bewildered by the illusory energy of the Lord.”
And this is also true. The difference between both views is that the previous
ones (the surrendered) can see both sides of this process, while the latter
ones (the non-surrendered) cannot even ascertain their own position. But the
great advantage of taking shelter at the lotus feet of a completely surrendered
soul like Srila Prabhupada is that even though we may be far from being
completely surrendered souls, still by his mercy we may also be able to remain
in the unbewildered platform and thus break all mundane logical rules and
someway appreciate Krishna’s pastimes.
To
explain Bhagavata, one must be Bhagavata, and to explain lila, one must live
lila. Just as the Lord’s lila is not different from Him, His devotees’ lives
are also lilas and non-different from Him. Srila Prabhupada’s life is an actual
Lilamrta. We can see how even at the age of five he was leading ratha-yatra and
worshipping Radha-Krishna deities. Along his life, Srila Prabhupada proved that
in all respects he was fully Krishna conscious, and thus we may see
Krishna-lila through Prabhupada-lila, for just as the Lord sent Uddhava to Badarikasrama,
so that devotees could see Krishna through him, He also sent Srila Prabhupada
to us, so that we may see Krishna through his life and purports.
This essay was
originally submitted for assessment during the second year of the Bhakti
Vaibhava course at VIHE, third canto of Bhagavatam, on 15-07-03
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