The Art of Divine-Symbolism Radha and Krishna 3. : Chinmaya Mission

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17/01/2019
3.

Lord Krishna plays the flute, producing enchanting music. The flute, by itself, cannot create music. It is an inert, insentient piece of matter. But when the Lord plays it, divine music emanates from it and enchants everyone. Similarly, the human body is, by itself, inert and insentient. It contains the sense organs and the mind-intellect equipment (the holes in the flute) through which the Consciousness expresses Itself. Radha’s Love for Krishna.

It is said that, long ago, Krishna left His dwelling place in the highest heaven. He came to earth, bringing with Him the things and inhabitants of that idyllic paradise of peace: cow, peacocks, nightingales, and the cowherds and milkmaids (gopis) who loved Him.

Krishna the beloved boy of Brindavan, is pictured amid the dancing gopis. Much criticism has been leveled against Krishna’s association with these milkmaids. Little do the critics realize that the Lord is ever an un¬concerned and unaffected witness of the milkmaids’ dance, even though He may be in their midst. Krishna is like the Consciousness within, which vitalizes one’s thoughts (gopis) but remains unperturbed and unaffected by them. The self is ever immaculate, uncontaminated by the thoughts in one’s bosom. Thus, if the lives of such god-men are read without understanding their mystical symbolism one comes to wrong, and at times absurd, conclusions.

The gopis performed their obligatory duties throughout the day in constant remembrance of Krishna. Their limbs were ceaselessly engaged in activity, while their minds were ever attuned to the Lord. This, in short, is the essence of Karma Yoga, that is, the dedication of one’s actions to a higher altar working without ego and egocentric desires. Such activities exhaust one’s existing vasanas (inherent tendencies) and also prevent the formation of any new vasanas. When one thus strives hard and reduces his vasanas to the minimum, their last lingering traces are liquidated by the Lord Himself, even without one’s knowledge. Hence Krishna is also described as a thief stealing the butter which the gopis had carefully stored in their apartments.

The most beautiful and the most beloved of all gopis was Radha. The love of Radha and Krishna is symbolic of the eternal love affair between the devoted mortal and the Divine. In relation to God, it is said that we are all women. Radha’s yearning for union with her beloved Krishna is the soul’s longing for spiritual awaking to be united with the one Source of peace and bliss from which it has become separated. This long-forgotten pain of separation is the root cause of all suffering. To rediscover our Oneness is the source of all happiness and fulfillment. In this sense, Krishna is the fulfillment of all desires.

Every human being is constantly seeking a share of peace and happiness, and since one does not know the real source of these, one seeks them in the midst of sense objects. But when, in devotion, one comes to turn one’s entire attention towards the higher and the nobler, one experiences the Immortal, the Infinite—as intimately as one experienced the world and its changes before. Bhagawan Himself says in the Bhagavatam: “The mind that constantly contemplates upon the sense objects irresistibly comes to revel in their finite joys, and the mind that learns to constantly remember Me comes to dissolve into Me and revel in Me”. Radha represents this state of devotion and consequent merging with the Lord.

THE END


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