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KRISHNA JANMASHTAMIBy SRI SWAMI SIVANANDAOm Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya This is the birthday of Lord Krishna, the eighth Divine Incarnation. It falls on the 8th day of the dark half of the month of Bhadrapada (August-September). This is one of the greatest of all Hindu festivals. Lord Krishna was born at midnight. A twenty-four hour fast is observed on this day, which is broken at midnight. Temples are decorated for the occasion. Kirtans are sung, bells are rung, the conch is blown, and Sanskrit hymns are recited in praise of Lord Krishna. At Mathura, the birthplace of Lord Krishna, special spiritual gatherings are organised at this time. Pilgrims from all over India attend these festive gatherings. The Lord appeared when the moon entered the house of Vrishabha at the constellation of the star Rohini, on Wednesday, the 8th day of the second fortnight of the month of Sravana, which corresponds to the month of Bhadrapada Krishnapaksha according to the Barhaspatyamana, in the year of Visvavasu, 5,172 years ago (from 1945), which means 3227 B.C. Study the Bhagavatam and the Pancharatras, which are equal to the Upanishads. You will know all about the glory of Lord Krishna, His Lilas and superhuman deeds. The eighth Avatara, Krishna, who has become the Beloved of India and the world at large, had a threefold objective: to destroy the wicked demons, to play the leading role in the great war fought on the battlefield of Kurukshetra (where he delivered His wonderful message of the Gita) and to become the centre of a marvelous development of the Bhakti schools of India. There is no true science except devotion to Lord Krishna. That man is wealthy indeed who loves Radha and Krishna. There is no sorrow other than lack of devotion to Krishna. He is the foremost of the emancipated who loves Krishna. There is no right course, except the society of Sri Krishna's devotees. The Name, virtues and Lilas (divine pastimes) of Krishna are the chief things to be remembered. The Lotus Feet of Radha and Krishna are the chief objects of meditation. Sri Krishna is the ocean of bliss. His soul-stirring Lilas, which are the wonder of wonders, are its waves. The honeyed music of His flute attracts the minds of His devotees from all three regions. His unequalled and unsurpassed wealth of beauty amazes the animate and the inanimate beings. He adorns His friends with His incomparable love. His palms bear the signs of a lotus and discus, the right sole of His feet of a flag, lotus, thunderbolt, an iron goad, barley seed, and the Swastika. His left sole has the rainbow, triangle, water-pot, crescent, sky, fish, and a cow's footprint. His Form is composed of condensed universal consciousness and bliss. His Body pervades the entire cosmos. Devotion is the only means of attaining Lord Krishna. Bhakti kindles love for the Lord. When love is directed towards Krishna, man is freed from the bondage of the world. Though Lord Krishna appeared in a human body, He had a divine body not composed of the five elements. He did not take any birth here in the usual sense of the term. He did not die. He appeared and disappeared through His Yoga Maya as He has declared in the Gita. This is a secret, known only to His devotees, Yogis and sages. His enchanting form with flute in hand is worshipped in myriads of homes in India. It is a form to which is poured out devotion and supreme love from the hearts of countless devotees not only in India but also in the West. Millions of spiritual seekers worship Him and repeat His Mantra, Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. Lord Krishna was great in knowledge, great in emotion, great in action, all at once. The scriptures have not recorded any life more full, more intense, more sublime and grander than the life of Sri Krishna. Krishna has played various roles during His stay in the world. He was Arjuna's charioteer. He was an excellent statesman. He was a master musician; he gave lessons even to Narada in the art of playing the veena. The music of His flute thrilled the hearts of the Gopis and everyone else. He was a cowherd in Brindavan and Gokul. He exhibited miraculous powers even as a child. He killed many demons. He revealed His Comic Form to His mother, Yasoda. He performed the Rasa Lila, the secret of which can only be understood by devotees like Narada, Gauranga, Radha and the Gopis. He taught the supreme Truth of Yoga, Bhakti and Vedanta to Arjuna and Uddhava. He had mastered every one of the sixty-four fine arts. For all these reasons He is regarded as a full and complete manifestation of God. Incarnations of God appear for special reasons under special circumstances. Whenever there is much unrighteousness, whenever confusion and disorder set in on account of unrighteousness and baffle the well-ordered progress of mankind, whenever the balance of human society is upset by selfish, ruthless and cruel beings, whenever irreligion and unrighteousness prevail, whenever the foundations of social organisations are undermined, the great Incarnation of God appears in order to re-establish righteousness and to restore peace. An Incarnation is the descent of God for the ascent of man. A ray from the Cosmic Being in His potential state of manifestation descends on earth with mighty powers to keep up the harmony of the universe. The work done by the Incarnation of God and His teachings produce a benign influence on human beings and help them in their upward divine unfoldment and Self-realisation. The Incarnation comes to reveal the divine nature of man and makes him rise above the petty materialistic life of passion and egoism. The greatest manifestations are called Incarnations proper. Rishis, Munis, prophets, sons of God and messengers of God are minor manifestations. The Incarnations usually come with their particular or favourite groups or companions. Lord Rama came with Lakshmana, Bharata and Shatrughna. Lord Krishna came with Balarama, Devas and Rishis. Sanaka came with Sanandana, Sanatkumara and Sanatsujata. Some, like Sri Shankara and Ramanuja, come as teachers and spiritual leaders. Some, like Chaitanya, are born to instill devotion in the hearts of people and turn their minds towards God. The Incarnations proper, like Krishna, come only when there is widespread catastrophe in the world. On the holy Krishna Janmashtami, the ladies in South India decorate their houses beautifully, ready to welcome the Lord. They prepare various sweetmeats and offer them to the Lord. Butter was Krishna's favourite, and this is also offered. From the doorway to the inner meditation room of the house the floor is marked with a child's footprints, using some flour mixed with water. This creates the feeling in them that the Lord's own Feet have made the mark. They treat the day as one of very great rejoicing. There is recitation of the Bhagavatam, singing and praying everywhere. The Janmashtami is celebrated at the Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, with the following programme of intense spiritual activity: 1. During the preceding eight days, Japa of Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya is done intensely. 2. Those who can, will recite the Bhagavatam during this period. Others will listen to it being recited. 3. On the birthday itself everyone fasts and spends the whole day in holy communion. 4. Everyone greets others with the holy Mantra, Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. 5. A grand havan is performed on that day. 6. There is continuous Satsang from 4a.m. early in the morning till night. Yogis, Sannyasins and learned men discourse upon the glorious life and teachings of the Lord. 7. From sunset people assemble in the elaborately decorated temple and sing the Lord's Names and glories. 8. Many hymns and portions of the Bhagavatam, especially the Gopika Geetam, are recited. 9. Towards midnight, there is a grand worship of Lord Krishna. The Lord is bathed with milk while His Name is chanted 108 times. 10. This worship concludes with offerings of flowers, waving of lights (Arati), and reading of that portion of the Bhagavatam which deals with the birth of Krishna. This synchronises with midnight, the hour of the Lord's birth, at which time the murti of the Lord is rocked in a beautifully decorated cradle. After this item, all the assembled devotees partake of the holy prasad or sacrament, and then retire, filled with the Grace and blessings of Lord Krishna. If you cannot read the whole of the Srimad Bhagavatam during these days, at least you should recite the following four most important verses from the book. The leading two verses and the closing verse are the prologue and the epilogue respectively: "Hear from Me the most secret knowledge coupled with the essential experience and its component parts. "May you realise by My Grace, the knowledge of Myself and what form, qualities and actions I am endowed with. 1. "Before creation I alone existed. There was nothing, neither existence nor non-existence. I am that which remains after dissolution. 2. "Understand that to be Maya or illusion which is devoid of any purpose, which is not to be found in the Self and which is unreal like light and darkness. 3. "As the primary elements are amalgamated, with one another and also separate from one another at the same time, so I pervade the whole universe and am also separate from it. 4. "The aspirant should, by the method of positive and negative, know that thing which exists always and everywhere. "Experience this truth through the highest superconscious state so that you will not be disturbed even by illusory objects". There is another beautiful verse in the Bhagavatam which you can recite daily: "In days of yore, the Lord, born of Devaki, brought up in the house of Yasoda, killed the wicked Putana of illusive form and lifted the Govardhana hill, killed Kamsa and the sons of the Kuru race, and protected the sons of Kunti. Thus is recited the essence of the ancient Bhagavat Purana consisting of the nectarine stories of the deeds of Lord Krishna". May the blessings of Lord Krishna and Sri Radha be upon you all! SRI KRISHNA--THE PURNA-AVATARABy SRI SWAMI KRISHNANANDAThe 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 are 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 favorable for the manifestation of God. The Atman 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 upto 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', 'stabilising', '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 endeavour 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 or have control over it. This would also give an idea of the generally unknown fact that our daily efforts 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 speciality 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 are 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.
Note: The Hindu Calendar is based on lunar movements and thus do not match exactly with the Christian calendar.
Note: Hindu Rashis are based on Jyotish and they change in accordance with planetary situations. The Western Rashi are based on fixed dates. Therefore there is considerable overlap of time and the two are not compatible or complimentary.
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