Hindu Festivals;No 22A.

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ADear friends and devotees,

 

Bhakti is eternal.

 

22a. Sri Krishna Janmashtami.

 

Bhagavan Sri Krishna --The Purna-Avatara

 

The Jayanti of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, also known as Sri Krishna Janmashtami,

falls on the eighth day, in the dark fortnight of the month of Bhadrapada

(Aug-Sep). The observance of this holy day and the performance of this sacred

worship to the great incarnation is a symbol of an intensification of our soul's

yearning to come nearer to God, as much as possible. Bhagavan Sri Krishna is

regarded as Purna-Avatara, which means the full incarnation, Avatara is

'Incarnation,' and Purna is 'the full'. He is considered to be a complete

manifestation of God, not a partial expression of the power and the glory of

God.

 

The power of God is never fully manifest anywhere in the world. It is always

manifest or expressed in some percentage as the occasion demands, even as we

ourselves, in our own individual capacities, for instance, do not put forth our

total energy any time of the day. Though we work hard from morning to evening,

the entire energy of our body, mind and soul does not get revealed on any

occasion. Perhaps, months may pass without an occasion for the whole energy of

our system to manifest even once, because the circumstance does not demand it.

We only express a little of our thought, a little fraction of our understanding

and a partial form of our energy as would be necessitated by the nature of the

particular context. Likewise, God never manifests Himself wholly unless the

occasion is of such an intensified character as to call for such a

manifestation. Historically speaking, the circumstances at the time of the

advent of Bhagavan Sri Krishna were such that a complete

manifestation of the Divine Energy was called for.

 

We have an idea of what God is and what His total energy would be like, from

the point of view of our own humble imaginations, which is, of course,

comparable to the idea that a frog in the well may be entertaining in its mind

in regard to the Pacific Ocean. That may be the idea we may have in our minds of

the total energy of God. Nobody can say what it is. Anyhow, we can understand

what 'totality' means, at least in a grammatical sense or linguistic

significance. Bhagavan Sri Krishna, the full Avatara, the complete manifestation

of God, is the object of our worship, prayer and meditation on this day. This

has a very special relevance to our own personal lives and its meaning for us is

naturally the meaning that is implied in our relationship with God. We have

heard from narrations recorded in the scriptures like the Srimad Bhagavata, that

Bhagavan Sri Krishna was born at midnight, as it is also the case with the birth

of Jesus the Christ. There are many similarities

between the births of Krishna and Christ as far as the associations of the

phenomena with the occasion is concerned. The darkest part of the night is

midnight and that was the hour of the birth of the Lord. This divine advent took

place not at the commencement or at the fag end of the night, but in the thick

of the night, midnight, which from the point of view of our own personal

Sadhana-life, is reminiscent of the conditions under which God would reveal in

our own lives. God did not reveal Himself in daylight, but in the dead of night.

The spiritual connotation of this, from the point of view of the relationship of

the soul to God, is that the daylight or activity of the senses is the midnight

or slumber of the Atman, and the daylight or birth of the Atman is the midnight

or slumber of the senses. When the senses cease from their activity, conditions

become favourable for the manifestation of God. The Atma does not manifest

itself when the senses are rejoicing in the

daylight of their contact with objects. On the other hand, the birth of the

Atman is a death-blow to the senses and the slumbering of the prison-guards at

the time of the advent of the Lord may be in a way compared to the death of the

senses at the time of the birth of Divinity. Kamsa represents the ego and all

his menials the senses. All these were put to rest at the time of birth of Lord

Krishna. Hence, the Bhagavad Gita says: " Ya nisa sarvabhutanam tasyam jagarti

samyami, yasyam jagrati bhutani sa nisa pasyato muneh " --The night of the

ignorant is day for the sage, and vice versa the night of the sage is day for

the ignorant.

 

The Atman is something quite different from what we regard as very dear to us,

notwithstanding the fact that we have been told again and again that it is the

deepest reality in our personality. All this teaching has remained only a theory

for us. We have always been pampering the senses and fondling the ego, in spite

of the fact that we know that we are not the ego and the senses; but the Atman.

All this teaching is like pouring water on a rock. It has made no impression

upon us. The infinite is the Fullness, the Purna; and the finite is the Apurna.

We individuals, the Jivatmans and everything in this world are Apurna, finites,

but we enshrine the Infinite in our bosom. And the manifestation of the Infinite

in the finite, the birth of God in man is possible, practicable and inevitable

when the obstructions to its manifestation are obviated totally.

 

To speak from the point of view of the historical life which Bhagavan Sri

Krishna is said to have lived thousands of years ago, let alone the spiritual or

the mystical, we see a wholeness manifest in Him. His life was a fullness right

from childhood up to the maturity of life. He was a completeness in every

respect even in his babyhood or childhood, a completeness in his adolescence, a

completeness in his youth and maturity; He was a fullness of bodily perfection,

a fullness of understanding, a fullness of social relationship and political

statesmanship and a fullness in His own Being. This has been revealed even in

His outward physical personality,--a beauty and a charm that mankind has never

seen.

 

Our meditations and our worships are really silent invocations of the

characteristics of the Object of our worship and meditation. Every worship is an

invocation, and every form of meditation is an invocation; and invocation means

the calling of the force into our own being and the planting of the power of the

Divine in our own personality. We have in ritualistic or Tantric parlance what

is known as Nyasa performed during the time of worship. The Pundits and Archakas

who perform worship in temples know what Nyasa means. Nyasa is a Sanskrit word

which means 'placing', 'stabilizing', 'fixing', 'invoking', 'stamping'. All

these meanings are conveyed by the word 'Nyasa'. At the commencement of the

worship, whether it is done in one's own private sanctum sanctorum in the house

or in a public temple, Nyasa is performed by every worshipper. In this process

of Nyasa, what is done is that every part, every aspect, every conceivable

characteristic of the Divine Being is located, in

an intensity of feeling and invocation, in the corresponding parts and aspects

of one's own personality, so that during the time of the worship and meditation,

you are in communion with the Divine Being. You are as though possessed by God

at that time. You yourself become a sort of Avatara, to put it in a meagre

sense, at the time of true worship. The invocation is made in such a complete

form, and with such method and system of rituals, that you assume in your body,

mind and soul, in your total personality, the various aspects and manifestations

of the personality of the Divinity, God.

 

So, on this day we have such an occasion of worship of Bhagavan Sri Krishna

which means to say that we have to put on in our inward character and

meditation, a deep sense of our unity with the various aspects of His

personality which are co-extensive with all that is external to Him and all that

is transcendent as well as immanent. This is to give you an idea of 'Purnata',

what Purna-Avatara would mean and what it also means to worship and meditate and

adore such a Purna-Avatara.

 

If meditation is difficult, worship is also difficult. Any kind of inward

communion is a difficult task for the mind, because of its out-going tendency.

The mind never comes in communion with anything in this world at any time. It

always longs for contact rather than communion. The senses and the mind are

habituated to contact with their objects. The religious invocation of worship

and meditation is not an attempt at coming in contact even with a Divinity or a

Godhead, but an endeavor to commune oneself with the Supreme Being, which is the

purpose of Nyasa. There is a difference between contact and communion. You can

never commune yourself with any object in this world, but you can only come in

contact with it. What is the difference between contact and communion? In

contact you really do not imbibe the characteristics of the object, and you are

not really in possession of the object. In contact, again, you do not receive

into yourself the power of the object, and,

therefore, you cannot also enjoy that object nor have control over it. This

would also give an idea of the generally unknown fact that our daily effort at

coming in contact with things, including persons, with a desire to possess and

enjoy them, is a futile effort. It will not bring any fruit at all, except pain.

“Ye hi samsparsaja bhogah duhkhayonaya eva te-- " “The pleasures born of

sense-contact are wombs of pain, " says the Gita. Every contact brings pain and

suffering and ultimate ruin of oneself. But the religious aspiration of the soul

does not long for contact with God, but a communion with Him. In that communion

that you try to establish in your spiritual moments of worship and meditation,

you simultaneously commune yourself with the whole of creation, because creation

is the cosmic body of God. Thus to worship God is to worship the whole world and

to serve God is to serve humanity, and vice versa. That is why we are sometimes

told, " Janata Janardanah; Manava seva

Madhava seva, " etc. These sayings have a great significance and a meaning

behind them. Janata and Janardana, Manava and Madhava cannot be identical except

in terms of the perfection or Purnata of God. Thus our communion with God is

simultaneously a communion with everything in the world.

 

Thus, this is an occasion for us to strengthen ourselves spiritually.

Spiritual strength, of course, is the real strength and real power that we are

seeking. And in this particularly specialised form of worship and communion with

the ideal of Bhagavan Sri Krishna on this holy day, we have, no doubt, a very

vast and comprehensive achievement made which will ensure prosperity in every

walk of life.

 

The peculiarity and the specialty of the life of Bhagavan Sri Krishna was, as

I have already hinted, that He was an all-comprehensive personality. He was a

householder and not a Sannyasin. He had wife and children. He was a politician

and a statesman. He was a soldier and also a servant when the time demanded that

kind of attitude from Him. And at the same time, He was a person with a

comprehensive understanding of the various shades of the difference which

relationships put on among things. Therefore, it is difficult to understand,

ordinarily, the significance behind many of the things that He did and many of

the things He said also, especially in the Bhagavad Gita.

 

The Mahabharata and the Srimad Bhagavata are the monumental records of His

life, His activities and His achievements. The Bhagavad Gita may be regarded as

the great gospel that He gave to mankind. It is as difficult to understand His

teaching as it is to understand His own life, because He did not think as we are

thinking. His thinking does not comply with the sentimental demands of our human

feelings, ethical sense, the usual social morality, and so on and so forth,

which we will be entertaining in our own hearts. A total transformation, a

transfiguration of all values is brought about in His activity and life, and

also in His teachings, so that His life and teachings is a sort of a superhuman

presentation before us. And you know how difficult it is for a human being to

confront a superhuman presentation of any kind. But, this is the ideal before us

and this is our goal. Whether or not we are able to understand it, this is what

the life of Sri Krishna tells us. The

Bhagavad Gita, the cream of His teaching, also conveys to us that things are

not what they seem to our senses. This is what we learn from His life also.

There is something quite different from what we sense, feel, think and

understand as valuable. This is the Truth behind things, for which His life and

teachings stood and which He Himself embodied in His own life. This is the

message for us today, which we should try to imbibe into our lives by invoking

His grace and putting forth honest efforts. As the Gita concludes, where Krishna

and Arjuna are together, i.e., where Divine Grace and human effort go together,

there is prosperity, victory, happiness and firm polity.

(By Swamy Krishnananda)

 

With love and regards,

 

Sastry.

 

 

 

 

 

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