Lessons from Mother Yashoda - Part 1

Date: 2012-11-21 Author: Sajjanapriya Krishna das

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev.

Few days ago the festival of Deepavali was celebrated. It is the day wherein Lord Sri Krishna was tied in the wooden mortar by Yashoda mata. Also this is the day of victorious entry of Lord Rama into Ayodhya after the war with Ravana. Also this month is called 'Damodar'. Damo means rope and udara means stomach. One who is tied around the stomach is called Lord Damodara. This month is like season offer Krishna has given as He knows the mentality of people in Kaliyuga. With all these concessions, we are not taking up to lovingly chant His Names and therefore He has to give lot of discount sales on devotional service and take away the sins of performers. This pastime of the Lord being tied to a mortar by His mother is a very fascinating pastime and year after year we hear the same pastime but it is always fresh and enlivening. Yashoda mata particularly teaches us how to attract the mercy of Krishna quickly by unflinching devotional service. There are specifically 3 verses which gives the very easy way to attract the mercy of the Lord. Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 10, Chapter 9 describes this pastime very wonderfully and Srila Prabhupada summarizes this chapter as follows.

"While mother Yashoda was allowing Krishna to drink her breast milk, she was forced to stop because she saw the milk pan boiling over on the oven. The maidservants being engaged in other business, she stopped allowing Krishna to drink from her breast and immediately attended to the overflowing milk pan. Krishna became very angry because of His mother's behavior and devised a means of breaking the pots of yogurt. Because He created this disturbance, mother Yashoda decided to bind Him."

śrī-śuka uvāca ekadā gṛha-dāsīṣu yaśodā nanda-gehinī karmāntara-niyuktāsu nirmamantha svayaṁ dadhi yāni yānīha gītāni tad-bāla-caritāni ca dadhi-nirmanthane kāle smarantī tāny agāyata

Sri Sukadeva Goswami continued: One day when mother Yashoda saw that all the maidservants were engaged in other household affairs, she personally began to churn the yogurt. While churning, she remembered the childish activities of Krishna, and in her own way she composed songs and enjoyed singing to herself about all those activities.

1. Personal endeavour in the devotional service: Mother Yashoda wanted to collect the milk from the cows, make it into yogurt and churn it into butter personally, since she thought that her child Krishna was going to the houses of neighbourhood gopas and gopis to steal butter because He did not like the milk and yogurt ordinarily prepared. She did not delegate the service, but personally endeavored for the same. Our tendency is to delegate and be lazy. Krishna is free but not cheap. Our endeavour is important. Soul inside our body has to endeavour alone in devotional service and not that somebody's devotional service will give benefit to us. We should not delegate chanting also to our wife and think that we are in devotional service. Laziness is inherent in us and this has got to be rooted out very seriously. 'sva-ceṣṭitam', serious personal endeavour is very important. We have to study and preach and not delegate preaching also and if we do it, how can we have the mercy of the Lord. We may hear for so many years but unless we preach we cannot solidify our knowledge. Maharaj says those who read they don't understand and those who preach they understand. Preaching is the best service to the Lord.

Krishna willing we shall learn some more lessons in the subsequent offering.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Sajjanapriya Krishna das Abu Dhabi. Lessons from Mother Yashoda - Part 2

Date: 2012-11-22 Author: Sajjanapriya Krishna das

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev.

This is in continuation of the previous topic, "Lessons from Mother Yashoda" wherein we were meditating some of the lessons we could learn from Srimad Bhagavatam verses 10.9.1 and 2.In the previous offering we saw the importance of personal endeavour in devotional service. Now let us continue to learn other lessons.

2. Never forget Krishna: Srimad Bhagavatam 10.9.2 describes, "While churning, she remembered the childish activities of Krishna, and in her own way she composed songs and enjoyed singing to herself about all those activities." Srila Prabhupada writes in the purport, "While churning the butter, mother Yashoda was singing about the childhood activities of Krishna. It was formerly a custom that if one wanted to remember something constantly, he would transform it into poetry or have this done by a professional poet. It appears that mother Yashoda did not want to forget Krishna's activities at any time. Therefore she poeticized all of Krishna's childhood activities, such as the killing of Putana, Aghasura, Sakatasura and Trnavarta, and while churning the butter, she sang about these activities in poetical form. This should be the practice of persons eager to remain Krishna conscious twenty-four hours a day. This incident shows how Krishna conscious mother Yashoda was. To stay in Krishna consciousness, we should follow such persons."

The scriptures like Vishnu purana insist that,

sa hānis tan mahac chidraṁ sa mohaḥ sa ca vibhramaḥ yan-muhūrtaṁ kṣaṇaṁ vāpi vāsudevaṁ na cintayet

If even for a moment remembrance of Vaasudeva, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is missed, that is the greatest loss, that is the greatest illusion, and that is the greatest anomaly. hānis means failure. Failure is because of three adjectives - mahac chidraṁ greatest loss, maha mohaḥ greatest illusion , maha vibhramaḥ greatest anomaly. If we forget Krishna in our lives, then it is natural we are in illusion and illusion means we commit mistakes, imperfect senses and cheating propensity. Therefore any activity we do is defective and therefore it is great anamoly. The greatest danger of human life is forgetfulness of Krishna. How to remove the forgetfulness? Krishna gives the way in Bhagavad gita 18.57, "In all activities just depend upon Me and work always under My protection. In such devotional service be fully conscious of Me." But unfortunately we depend on our mind, intelligence and ego in executing our office work or devotional service and always makes blunders and regret later that why we are not dependent on Krishna. Here Mother Yashoda teaches us the way to remember the Lord by always glorifying the Lord's activities. While doing our other activities, we can remember the verses, sing kirtanas and meditate on the instructions of the scriptures, converse to each other about the Lord and that is the way we always remember the Lord. Our beloved spiritual master H H Mahavishnu Goswami Maharaj has taught us how the the slokas should be sung lovingly in various meters. The transcendental sound has got hypnotic effect in our lives. By reciting, the texture of our skin improves. Maharaj's face never shrunk even at 90, it was always chubby and blooming. This is the secret. So many things happen by singing the verses to the Lord. Learning the verse by heart becomes easy by geya, our bhaava is improved and pronounciation becomes perfect and easy and it is captivating the heart. The transcendental sound is powerful and Krishna Himself is wandering in these verses (adṛṣṭa-rūpo vicarasy uru-svanaḥ - 5.18.26) and is captivating the heart. Last but not the least, Krishna enjoys the verses sung in proper lyric as we see from Srimad Bhagavatam verse 3.8.6, muhur gṛṇanto vacasānurāga- skhalat-padenāsya kṛtāni taj-jñāḥ kirīṭa-sāhasra-maṇi-praveka- pradyotitoddāma-phaṇā-sahasram

The four Kumaaras, headed by Sanat-kumara, who all knew the transcendental pastimes of the Lord, glorified the Lord in rhythmic accents with selected words full of affection and love. At that time Lord Sankarshana, with His thousands of raised hoods, began to radiate an effulgence from the glowing stones on His head.

Here the words 'anurāga' meaning 'with great affection' and 'skhalat-padena' meaning 'in symmetrical rhythm' are very important. When the verses are sung with great affection and in symmetrical rhythm we see that Lord Sankarshana becomes extremely pleased and He radiates effulgence. This is the perfect way to please the Lord that our Guru Maharaj has taught us. If the Lord can be pleased simply by our singing of the verses in the proper lyric, which our beloved Maharaj has taught us with care and love, why do we not try this? Let us carry on the legend of learning the lyrics handed over to us by acaryas like the Shad Goswamis, Srila Prabhupada and our beloved Guru Maharaj for the pleasure of the Supreme Lord. Mother Yashoda was singing to herself. No audience was required and she did not even know that her son is Supreme Personality of Godhead. No glamour for Yasoda mata since no maid servant is there to appreciate her singing because she is singing for the pleasure of the Lord and remembering her son's glories. We should be ready to preach alone and to ourselves. We have to relish ourselves and then only we can give it to others. Brahma did the penance without any sanga for 1000 celestial years except the waves and wind. He did it for the glorification of the Lord and the Lord came. Since it was for glorification of the Lord it has got tremendous effect and when Krishna is pleased naturally we will also become pleased.

Krishna willing we shall learn some more lessons in the subsequent offering.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Sajjanapriya Krishna das Abu Dhabi. Lessons from Mother Yashoda - Part 3

Date: 2012-11-23 Author: Sajjanapriya Krishna das

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev.

1. Personal endeavour in devotional service. 2. Never forget Krishna. Always remember Krishna by singing His glories.

Now let us continue to learn other lessons,

3. Perspire for Krishna: Srimad Bhagavatam 10.9.3 describes that,

kṣaumaṁ vāsaḥ pṛthu-kaṭi-taṭe bibhratī sūtra-naddhaṁ putra-sneha-snuta-kuca-yugaṁ jāta-kampaṁ ca subhrūḥ rajjv-ākarṣa-śrama-bhuja-calat-kaṅkaṇau kuṇḍale ca svinnaṁ vaktraṁ kabara-vigalan-mālatī nirmamantha

Dressed in a saffron-yellow sari, with a belt tied about her full hips, mother Yaśodā pulled on the churning rope, laboring considerably, her bangles and earrings moving and vibrating and her whole body shaking. Because of her intense love for her child, her breasts were wet with milk. Her face, with its very beautiful eyebrows, was wet with perspiration, and malati flowers were falling from her hair.

"While Yashoda Matha pulled on the churning rope, laboring considerably, her face became wet with perspiration ( svinnaṁ vaktraṁ)." This is the way we have to labor hard for Krishna that we start perspiring. This in turn improves our physical health also. As our beloved spiritual master H H Mahavishnu Goswami Maharaj says, body should always be moving or otherwise it will stop moving. We have to labour hard with intense love for Krishna, then our health improves remarkably. We should be ready to sacrifice for the sake of the Lord. We should be ready to serve the Lord even-though we may be physically tired. Whenever we call Maharaj, Maharaj never complained to us that he is tired, even-though we require lot of rest. Srila Prabhupada perspired at the age of 65 to start the revolutionary movement around the world where the people did not even know anything about Krishna. Prabhupada traveled the world 14 times in 10 years and it is unimaginable. As our beloved Guru Maharaj says there is no need to go to the gymnasium and pay money for that. Maharaj always insists that we should have Srimad Bhagavatam on the one hand and the cleaning duster on the other hand. In the same way, walking is the best exercise and it drives away all the diseases. Krishna is described as Vraja jana ranjana. Vraja means to walk and Maharaj says that those who walk, Krishna loves them. Caitanya Mahaprabhu who is non-different from Krishna, personally cleaned the Gundica temple perspiring on his own Caitanya caritamrta Madhya Lila 12.84,

cāri-dike śata bhakta sammārjanī-kare āpani śodhena prabhu, śikhā’na sabāre

Indeed, hundreds of devotees were engaged in cleansing all around the temple, and Sri Caitanya .prabhu was personally carrying out the operation just to instruct othersپMaha

Here the Lord is personally perspiring along with devotees. This lesson we should take it from Yashoda mata and Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Being always absorbed in thoughts of Krishna, Mother Yashoda inspite of her opulent position, perspired for Lord's service without reservation. Lord Ram was very much happy to bless the squirrel even-though it was just taking the sand and putting in the water to help construct the bridge to Lanka. The Lord sees the sincerity of the soul and nothing else. Srila Prabhupada says, "Everyone should be, according to his capacity, engaged to some work."

What is the result of such devotion by Yashoda mata? The Lord immediately gave her darshan after waking up from sleep. He is ready to take milk from Yashoda mata and please her by His naughty activities.

Krishna willing we shall learn some more lessons in the subsequent offering.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Sajjanapriya Krishna das Abu Dhabi. Lessons from Mother Yashoda - Part 4

Date: 2012-11-24 Author: Sajjanapriya Krishna das

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev.

This is in continuation of the previous topic, "Lessons from Mother Yashoda" wherein we were meditating some of the lessons we could learn from Srimad Bhagavatam verses 10.9.1 through 3. In the previous offering we saw the following points:

1. Personal endeavour in devotional service. 2. Never forget Krishna. Always remember Krishna by singing His glories. 3. Perspire for Krishna.

Now let us continue to learn other lessons,

Krishna was taking the milk and Mother Yashoda was thinking about the milk in the oven about to be spilled and she goes and switches off the oven. In the meantime the Lord appeared to have become angry as He was feeding on mothers milk half way through. He broke all the pots and took the butter and went to other room and started distributing the butter to monkeys and birds. Yahsoda Mata comes back and saw the pots are broken and she thought the naughty Krishna has to be corrected for His mischief and started looking after Him.

4. Swiftly Run after Krishna: Srimad Bhagavatam 10.9.10 describes,

anvañcamānā jananī bṛhac-calac- chroṇī-bharākrānta-gatiḥ sumadhyamā javena visraṁsita-keśa-bandhana- cyuta-prasūnānugatiḥ parāmṛśat

While following Krishna, mother Yashoda, her thin waist overburdened by her heavy breasts, naturally had to reduce her speed. Because of following Krishna very swiftly, her hair became loose, and the flowers in her hair were falling after her. Yet she did not fail to capture her son Krishna.

Here the important word to remember is anvañcamānā which means to follow Krishna very swiftly. Yashoda Mata followed Krishna very swiftly. Srila Prabhupada writes in the translation that she did not fail to capture Krishna. We are running after our name and fame swiftly and we don't get anything, even after so much endeavour. But here we see that since Yashoda Mata ran after Krishna, Krishna never left her and her name and fame is etched in the history of devotional service eternally. We compromise on principles of devotional service and the instructions of spiritual master in order just to satisfy our ego, name and fame. Instead, we have to strictly follow the instructions of the spiritual master and the scriptures and thus run after Krishna, then we have the chance to capture Krishna's mercy. If we sleep in this, we will slip. By running after instructions of Guru and Krishna, the result is parāmṛśat we can capture Krishna's mercy without fail.

5. Art of dealing with the children: Srimad Bhagavatam describes that Mother Yashoda, catching her beautiful son by the hand, mildly began to chastise Him. Srila Prabhupada writes that, "When Krishna admitted to being an offender and started crying, Mother Yashoda, of course, did not want to chastise her beloved child very much, and therefore she immediately threw her stick away and simply rebuked Krishna, saying, 'Now I shall bind You so that You cannot commit any further offensive activities. Nor for the time being can You play with Your playmates.' Mother Yashoda wanted to bind Krishna not in order to chastise Him but because she thought that the child was so restless that He might leave the house in fear. That would be another disturbance. Therefore, because of full affection, to stop Krishna from leaving the house, she wanted to bind Him with rope. Mother Yashoda wanted to impress upon Krishna that since He was afraid merely to see her stick, He should not perform such disturbing activities as breaking the container of yogurt and butter and distributing its contents to the monkeys."

Mother Yashoda teaches us the perfect way of dealing with the erring children. When the children commit mistakes, of course they have to be chastised by making it known to them that what they have done is wrong but here we see that Yashoda never used the stick to beat her naughty child. She just threatened him with the stick. In his letter dated 18th November 1972, Srila Prabhupada writes, "Now the thing is, children should not be beaten at all, that I have told. They should simply be shown the stick strongly. So if one cannot manage in that way then he is not fit as teacher. If a child is trained properly in Krishna Consciousness, he will never go away. That means he must have two things, love and education. So if there is beating of child, that will be difficult for him to accept in loving spirit, and when he is old enough he may want to go away--that is the danger. They should run and play when they are small children, not forced to chant japa- that is not the way. If we train children by developing and encouraging their propensity to love Krishna, then we shall be successful in educating them to the topmost standard. Then they shall always very happily agree to do whatever you ask them. You may show the stick, threaten, but better art is to somehow or other, even by tricking them, avoid this matter of force and induce them to obey out of loving spirit. That is success of disciplinary method."

Krishna willing we shall learn some more lessons in the subsequent offering.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Sajjanapriya Krishna das Abu Dhabi. Lessons from Mother Yashoda - Part 5

Date: 2012-11-25 Author: Sajjanapriya Krishna das

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev.

This is in conclusion of the previous topic, "Lessons from Mother Yashoda" wherein we were meditating some of the lessons we could learn from Srimad Bhagavatam verses 10.9.1 through 10 . In the previous offering we saw the following points:

1. Personal endeavour in devotional service. 2. Never forget Krishna. Always remember Krishna by singing His glories. 3. Perspire for Krishna. 4. Swiftly run after Krishna. 5. Art of dealing with the children.

We will see the concluding point as below,

6. Persistently endeavoring with steady determination: Yashoda mata after hearing various complaints about the naugtiness of her child and also personally witnessing the destruction done by the Lord by breaking the pots and creating a mess in the house, decided to bind Him by the ropes. Krishna's waist is very thin and with a small rope she wants to bind Him. But she found the rope was two fingers short. Then she bought another rope, which was also two fingers shot and she went on joining so many ropes but still the shortness could not be overcome. Inspite of repeated failures her endeavour did not stop and in fact she was laboring hard to tie the ropes and found them two fingers short. She was smiling and was stuck with wonder. Normally our nature is that the moment we chant one round, we expect that Krishna should respond to us 100 times. We want everything easy, including the Lord. As soon as we take up devotional service, we expect that all our desires have to be fulfilled immediately and if Krishna did not respond, then we get upset and depressed. Initially we come to Krishna consciousness for peace of mind and happiness and after a few years and once we are branded as senior, then we endeavour very hard for name and fame and nothing else. Gross desires are somewhat evaporated by devotional service, but subtle desire for pratishta, pooja etc are always lurking in our heart. Once there is no reciprocation from the Lord for this subtle desires, we tend to drift away from devotional service and look for opportunities where these can be obtained and our real determination of bhakti takes a back seat. We become unsteady in our sadhana and endeavour. Our real motive for coming to Krishna consciousness is to get purified of all material contamination and tread the path of pure bhakti to the Lord. But in comparison Srimad Bhagavatam tells that how much endeavour Yashoda mata did with steady determination and the result of such sincere endevour is wonderful given in these two verses. (SB 10.9.18 and 19). The Lord becomes subordinate to the love of His pure devotees,

sva-mātuḥ svinna-gātrāyā visrasta-kabara-srajaḥ dṛṣṭvā pariśramaṁ kṛṣṇaḥ kṛpayāsīt sva-bandhane evaṁ sandarśitā hy aṅga hariṇā bhṛtya-vaśyatā sva-vaśenāpi kṛṣṇena yasyedaṁ seśvaraṁ vaśe Because of mother Yashoda's hard labor, her whole body became covered with perspiration, and the flowers and comb were falling from her hair. When child Krishna saw His mother thus fatigued, He became merciful to her and agreed to be bound. O Maharaja Parikshit, this entire universe, with its great, exalted demigods like Lord Shiva, Lord Brahma and Lord Indra, is under the control of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Yet the Supreme Lord has one transcendental attribute. He comes under the control of His devotees. This was now exhibited by Krishna in this pastime.

All these verses are very logically given for us to meditate and contemplate upon through this pastime and Yashoda mata is giving a wonderful way of pure bhakti. Just as Krishna appeared for Yashoda Mata, Krishna has appeared in our lives in the form of holy names, Srimad Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam, Their Lordships in the form of deities. Then comes real test of sustaining in Krishna consciousness and attain pure Krishna bhakti and that is where we always make blunders. So Yashoda mata gives two vital lessons for us. a. Swiftly run after Krishna's glories and kirtans instead of our glories. b. Persistent endeavour and steady determination.

Our persistent endeavour is to improve our quality of our bhakti and devotional service in terms of change in our behaviour and character and that requires very steady determination, even-though we may fail many times. Maharaj said that this is the real struggle and we have to do it and it is good. As the mountains are not deterred by heavy rains and thunder, our steady determination should not be compromised on account of repeated failures. Repeated failures are stepping stones for success. Even we fail in this endeavour there is no loss as this can be continued in our many lives to come whereas material failure cannot be reversed in one life.

It is very easy to analyse and offer to granthraj and the real test comes to me when I try to apply in my life or otherwise it is just a ritual spiritual exercise of my mind and intelligence and nothing more. I therefore pray at the lotus feet of of Mother Yashoda, Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev to shower their choicest blessings so that I resolve to change my character, behaviour and pursue uninterrupted bhakti towards the Lord.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Sajjanapriya Krishna das Abu Dhabi.