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.