20070902 Bhagavad-gītā 4.7-8 - Śrī Kṛṣṇa Janmāṣṭamī

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on September 2nd, 2007. Bhagavad-gītā 4.17

yadā yadā hi dharmasya
glānir bhavati bhārata
abhyutthānam adharmasya
tadātmānaṁ sṛjāmy aham

Translation: Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion – at that time I descend Myself.

paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ
vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām
dharma-saṁsthāpanārthāya
sambhavāmi yuge yuge

Translation: To deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I Myself appear, millennium after millennium.

Purport: [...] In the Caitanya-caritāmṛta of Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, the following verses summarize these principles of incarnation. The avatāra, or incarnation of Godhead, descends from the kingdom of God for material manifestation. And the particular form of the Personality of Godhead who so descends is called an incarnation, or avatāra. Such incarnations are situated in the spiritual world, the kingdom of God. When they descend to the material creation, they assume the name avatāra.

There are various kinds of avatāras, such as puruṣāvatāras, guṇāvatāras, līlāvatāras, śakty-āveśa avatāras, manvantara-avatāras and yugāvatāras – all appearing on schedule all over the universe. But Lord Kṛṣṇa is the primeval Lord, the fountainhead of all avatāras. Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa descends for the specific purpose of mitigating the anxieties of the pure devotees, who are very anxious to see Him in His original Vṛndāvana pastimes. Therefore, the prime purpose of the Kṛṣṇa avatāra is to satisfy His unalloyed devotees.

The Lord says that He incarnates Himself in every millennium. This indicates that He incarnates also in the Age of Kali. As stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the incarnation in the Age of Kali is Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, who spread the worship of Kṛṣṇa by the saṅkīrtana movement (congregational chanting of the holy names) and spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness throughout India. He predicted that this culture of saṅkīrtana would be broadcast all over the world, from town to town and village to village. Lord Caitanya as the incarnation of Kṛṣṇa,the Personality of Godhead, is described secretly but not directly in the confidential parts of the revealed scriptures, such as the Upaniṣads, Mahābhārata and Bhāgavatam. The devotees of Lord Kṛṣṇa are very much attracted by the saṅkīrtana movement of Lord Caitanya. This avatāra of the Lord does not kill the miscreants, but delivers them by His causeless mercy.

Jayapatākā Swami: Today we are celebrating the birthday of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Over 5000 years ago, He descended. As Bhagavad-gītā explained here, He descended from the spiritual world far beyond this material universes. Like we are in one universe that says that there are unlimited millions of universes in the material existence. And beyond a total material existence, there is a spiritual sky. The material world is only one fourth of the total energy of the Supreme Lord. The three fourth energy is in the spiritual world. So there Kṛṣṇa and His different expansions are eternally manifested. But sometimes Kṛṣṇa descends into this material world. So that descends is called avatāra. Now, they are using the word avatāra in computer games and other things. But this original word means that the Lord is descending from that spiritual sky. It is a more accurate word than incarnations. Now that He takes incarnate seems to indicate that taking a fleshy body, where the Lord comes down in a spiritual body which is visible to us and therefore, He never grows old, He never dies. When Kṛṣṇa was in the (Bhagavad-gītā…) battlefield speaking Bhagavad-gītā and see His picture here looks like about 22 years old that time He was actually 125. The Kṛṣṇa doesn’t get old. He is eternally youthful. Sometimes like in the Christine chapel they have a picture of the Supreme Lord with a… as an old man with a big beard. But Lord Kṛṣṇa, if He is transcendental so why should He grow old? He stays eternally youthful; when He does come down in 5000 years ago He came down in a place called Mathurā and still those who want to visit India they can see Mathurā. It is about 2 hours train ride from Delhi and there is the prison house where Lord Kṛṣṇa had appeared because the Kṛṣṇa’s mother Devakī was the sister of Kaṁsa, who was a Demonic [inaudible] at the time. A voice from heaven said that, “Her 8th child would kill Kaṁsa!” So Kaṁsa had Devakī arrested with her husband and whenever they had a baby, he would kill the baby. This was going on. So now finally when Kṛṣṇa appeared He was the 8th son of Devakī, the 8th child. At that time He appeared at midnight. So today we are having the cultural celebration of His birthday, His appearance we are on the 4th of September the temple will have the religious celebration then we stay up till midnight and observe some special ceremonies at midnight celebrating when He came. That is a different kind of a program. So when Kṛṣṇa appeared, He showed His spiritual form to His mother and father. Just His Narayana form with four arms. He was fully dressed when He appeared. Like this, the parents offered him all kinds of prayers. Then finally, Devakī said she is worried that if Kaṁsa comes and finds Him, He will kill Kṛṣṇa. Actually, Kṛṣṇa can’t be killed but anyway the mother and the affection was like that. She was afraid. So then Kṛṣṇa said, “Take Me to Vṛndāvana.” And there mother Yaśodā has given birth also this night to a baby girl. But she doesn’t know what kind of baby she had. That’s the labor pains and everything, she just fell asleep after giving birth and she never saw whether it’s a boy or girl or what it is. “So go and take the girl and put Me there and bring the girl back here.” So then all the guards in the prison were fell as sound asleep and the doors and the locks all fell open so Vasudeva could go he could cross the Yamunā river which was a stormy night. The river opened and made a path for Vasudeva to cross. He went to the other side, went into the bedroom of Yaśodā, took the baby girl, left Kṛṣṇa there and he came back to Mathurā. So like this, that’s why Kṛṣṇa, He grew up in Vṛndāvana. And the next day Nanda Mahārāja saw that He had a baby boy. “Oh! What a wonderful thing.” So they had a big celebration. And there you can see they have little baby Kṛṣṇa on a swing. So this is a temple pavilion. So later you can go and you can swing Kṛṣṇa on a swing. It looks like that is an abhiṣeka table, so they are going to give a bath because the Kṛṣṇa appeared then His father arranged to give an abhiṣeka with milk and yogurt and ghee and honey and nectar water, fruit juices. We also have a bathing ceremony here. You can participate. So we are celebrating all the things connected with Kṛṣṇa’s appearance.

So the idea is that we are in this material world, which is a kind of a prison house, but ultimately, those who are in the spiritual world and they never die, they never get diseased and they never grow old, that is our real residence. But for some reason, another, we fell-down into this material world. And to be a human being is a special gift from Kṛṣṇa that if we understand about His appearance, His activities, His nature, about our own spiritual nature, then we can go back to Godhead at the end of this life. In fact, in the next verse, Kṛṣṇa says (Bg 4.9):

janma karma ca me divyam
evaṁ yo vetti tattvataḥ
tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma
naiti mām eti so ‘rjuna

Translation: “One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.”

So we should understand that Kṛṣṇa, when He comes, He chooses, this is My mother and this is My father. He comes down in His own spiritual way, in His own spiritual form, and He spends some time here giving His message. Bhagavad-gītā was spoken by Kṛṣṇa to give all of us the teachings: “What is this material world? What is the purpose of life? How can we get back to that spiritual existence? How we can be happy while we are living in the material world?” So many factors, so many things are revealed here. We hope that while you are here for the festival, there is going to be so many cultural programs, question-and-answers, exhibitions, different things going on. Also, you take some opportunity to understand something about the transcendental appearance and activities of Kṛṣṇa. Because if you can figure it out, how Kṛṣṇa comes down in the material world on His own free will, how He transcendental, [He] is not bound by the bondage of the material loss of karma, the other country to free all of us to save us, then you can just by knowing that secret, you can go back to Kṛṣṇa. You can be freed from this material repetition of birth and death. We all force to be born again and again. We don’t get to choose who our parents are going to be. That is all decided for us, depending on our activities in the previous life, our desires and we get a particular mother and father that gives us our biological parents. Then after that we can try to increase our spiritual knowledge, get initiated by a spiritual master. He becomes our guru-pitā, He becomes our spiritual father. To take another birth from the spiritual master that is called guru-janma – being born by the guru spiritually, then one can get a third birth which is called yañja-janma – where one is ordained as a minister. So there are different kinds of births we can take – namely three. So like this that gets an understanding of what Kṛṣṇa’s activities are, how His appearance is happening, how it is all transcendental. This is a very great boon. We can just understand the simple thing then we can also go back to Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa is not a human being. He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. And the Bible says that, “Man is made in the image of God.” So Kṛṣṇa looks like us because actually we look like Him. He is a person and that’s His spiritual form.

So when He came, different kinds of devotees were serving Him. Says that there’s different ways we can relate with Kṛṣṇa as a servant, we can be just an admirer and have a neutral relationship or we can be a servant of Kṛṣṇa, a servant who are doing service for Him. Or we can be a friend of Kṛṣṇa, we can be a parent for Kṛṣṇa or we can be a wife or lover of Kṛṣṇa. Supreme Lord has these five kinds of primary relationships. So obviously the birth and childhood relationships of mother and father are very prominent. And all the neighbors in the village where Kṛṣṇa grew up, they also have like a parental relationship with Kṛṣṇa. So they were also taking care of Kṛṣṇa. They were bringing for their friends and mother, Yaśodā. So they were all having this parental kind of relationship with Kṛṣṇa. In this way they are enjoying a transcendental bliss. The love for the Supreme Personality of Godhead is not something abstract but it’s something where we can directly experience an exchange of loving sentiments with Him. So hope that today you also get a little taste of that love and be able to experience the transcendental bliss.

As mentioned that Kṛṣṇa also came in this Age of Kali as Lord Caitanya 521 years ago. I live in the birthplace of Caitanya Mahāprabhu, Māyāpur, India. How many of you visited Māyāpur, India so far? Oh so many. How many like to visit us there sometime in the future? If you are invited, please come and visit us. It is in Bengal, 108 km north of Calcutta. We are on the side of the Ganges. There we are building a spiritual community. We have about 1500 residents in our community, including children. I hope you will like it. I will send… Kṛṣṇa, He had his childhood pastimes in Vṛndāvana. So there in Vṛndāvana… there’s the so many temples, about 5000 temples dedicated to Kṛṣṇa. So today in this period there’s big celebrations where people are celebrating the appearance of Kṛṣṇa in the world. In India, it’s a national holiday, the appearance of Kṛṣṇa, appearance of Rāma. It’s a universally accepted personality as the Supreme Person. So we hope that all of you also have a nice experience today at this festival. I think my time is up now. It’s time for the next act, next… Are they here? Any questions anyone has while we are… going to ask? At one time, she says that in every millennium Kṛṣṇa comes. But actually, Kṛṣṇa comes in different forms. Like in the Tretā-yuga He came as Rāma, the Satya-yuga came as Yajña. So every yuga comes in different forms. But Kṛṣṇa is the original form. And Kṛṣṇa doesn’t come very often. He comes once in every 4 billion years. There is a thousand yuga cycles and in that thousand is one day of Brahmā. And He comes to the 27th yuga cycle in the beginning of the 1000, one day of Brahmā according to Vedic astrological time. So the fact that we are here today as a human being just 5000 years after Kṛṣṇa appeared. It is a very special opportunity. That is how we get so much information. We have the Bhagavad-gītā that He spoke. We have His life history in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Maybe after hundreds of thousands of years, these books may not be easily available. So for us, 5000 years seems like a long time. But in the universal time frame it’s not that long. So we are fairly recently after Lord Kṛṣṇa, after He comes, sometimes Lord Caitanya comes and He really reveals all the secrets about Kṛṣṇa. We get even a better, deeper understanding. This is a very great opportunity. So that Kṛṣṇa, He gives love of Godhead very easily to His devotee, but not to everyone. But when He comes again as Lord Caitanya came 500 years, He gives even more easily. So we can get this special divine love very easily in this Age by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rama, Hare Hare.

And the next group that’s going to be on here, they brought harmoniums and instruments. And you are going to hear some beautiful singing. It sounds like Bhajan-band. This bhajana-yoga is very popular nowadays all over the world. It’s the easiest way to perform yoga simply by singing. I hope that you all experiment in this bhajana-yoga. Singing the kīrtana-yoga, singing the names of Kṛṣṇa, the mantra. It’s an easy way to become a meditative without having to go through a lot of difficult āsanas or sitting postures. So I will be around here the whole day. In case anyone later on wants to ask me anything, talk with me. I will be available to share some more things about Kṛṣṇa.