Devaki prayers to the four armed Lord

Venue: Bhaktivedanta Manor
03 05 2016 [53:15]

sa tvam ghorad ugrasenatmajan nas
trahi trastan bhrtya vitrasa hasi
rupam cedam paurusam dhyana dhisnyam
ma pratyaksam mamsa drsam krsisthah [SB 10.3.28]

Translation: My Lord, because you dispel all the fear of your devotees, I request you to save us. You give us protection from this terrible fear of Kamsa. Your form as Vishnu the Supreme Personality of Godhead is appreciated by yogis in meditation. Please make this form invisible to those who see with material eyes.

Purport: The word dhyana dhisnyam is significant in this verse because the form of Lord Visnu is meditated upon by yogis (dhyanavasthita-tad-gatena manasa pasyanti yam yoginah). Devaki requested the Lord, who had appeared as Visnu, to conceal that form, for she wanted to see the Lord as an ordinary child, like a child appreciated by persons who have material eyes. Devaki wanted to see whether the Supreme Personality of Godhead had factually appeared or she was dreaming the Visnu form. If Kamsa were to come, she thought, upon seeing the Visnu form he would immediately kill the child, but if he saw a human child, he might reconsider. Devaki was afraid of Ugrasena atmaja; that is, she was afraid not of Ugrasena and his men, but of the son of Ugrasena. Thus she requested the Lord to dissipate that fear, since He is always ready to give protection (abhayam) to His devotees. “My Lord,” she prayed, “I request You to save me from the cruel hands of the son of Ugrasena, Kamsa. I am praying to Your Lordship to please rescue me from this fearful condition because You are always ready to give protection to Your servitors.”

The Lord has confirmed this statement in the Bhagavad-gita by assuring Arjuna, “You may declare to the world, My devotee shall never be vanquished.” While thus praying to the Lord for rescue, mother Devaki expressed her motherly affection: “I understand that this transcendental form is generally perceived in meditation by the great sages, but I am still afraid because as soon as Kamsa understands that You have appeared, he might harm You. So I request that for the time being you become invisible to our material eyes.” In other words, she requested the Lord to assume the form of an ordinary child. “My only cause of fear from my brother Kamsa is due to Your appearance. My Lord Madhusudana, Kamsa may know that You are already born. Therefore I request You to conceal this four-armed form of Your Lordship, which holds the four symbols of Vi??u—namely the conch shell, the disc, the club and the lotus flower. My dear Lord, at the end of the annihilation of the cosmic manifestation, You put the whole universe within Your abdomen; still, by Your unalloyed mercy, You have appeared in my womb. I am surprised that you imitate the activities of ordinary human beings just to please Your devotee.” Devaki was so afraid of Kamsa that she could not believe that Kamsa would be unable to kill Lord Vi??u, who was personally present. Out of motherly affection, therefore, she requested the Supreme Personality of Godhead to disappear.
Although because of the Lord’s disappearance Kamsa would harass her more and more, thinking that the child born of her was hidden somewhere, she did not want the transcendental child to be harassed and killed. Therefore she requested Lord Vi??u to disappear. Later, when harassed, she would think of Him within her mind.

sa tvam ghorad ugrasenatmajan nas
trahi trastan bh?tya vitrasa hasi
rupam cedam paurusam dhyana dhisnyam
ma pratyak?am mamsa drsam krsisthah

Translation again
My Lord, because you dispel all the fear of Your devotees, I request You to save us and give us protection from the terrible fear of Kamsa. Your form as Vi??u, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is appreciated by yogis in meditation. Please make this form invisible to those who see with material eyes.

So this is the birth of Lord Krishna, what I was meant to talk was the pastimes after He has taken birth and then immediately His childhood pastimes first of all in Gokul and then later on in Vrindavan.

Devaki like every other mother, thinking of the protection of her child. She thinks even her child could be killed, could be harassed, beaten up or could be wounded. So many things are possible, she is thinking like this. That is ignorance on her part.

She is put into that kind of transcendental ignorance. We are ignorant, we are really ignorant, pure ignorance. But then devotees like Yashoda, like Nanda Maharaja, like cowherd boys, like Gopi’s they are also transcendentally in Yoga maya. Yoga maya puts them in some kind of ignorance, especially not letting them know Lord as He is. The transcendental nature of the Lord. So bhakta could have said ‘Hey! He is the Lord and His form is transcendental.’

nainam chindanti sastrani
nainam dahati pavakah [BG 2.23]

‘The soul cannot be killed and he is the supreme soul. What are you talking about Devaki? He cannot be killed!’
No weapon can kill, agni, the fire cannot burn. na sosayati marutah and no amount of wind or hot air can burn or make it dry. The body dries but no amount of water can make the soul wet. Whatever amount of water cannot touch the Supreme soul. So that is the nature of the Lord, that is the form of the Lord, Sac-cid-ananda vigraha. Just see what Devaki is talking about. She is afraid and hence all the prayers here, a lot of prayers of course.

Vasudeva was the first one to take turn of offering prayers which is also unusual. Do you when your child is born, did you offer prayers to the child? No, maybe a thoughtful prayer to the Lord ‘please protect the child, please protect the mother that the whole affair, the delivery may go through smoothly and the less pain.’ Yes for that but we don’t pray to the child.

Anyone here? Child, helpless child and pray to him? But here the Father and Mother Vasudeva and Devaki they both have Pratyaksam, they have seen the Lord. They are the first ones to see the Lord and there is a description of how what the Lord looked like. Sukadeva Goswmi He has also seen and describing what Vasudeva and Devaki saw in the prison house of Kamsa, a little baby baby Krishna. And that is of course before appearing as a baby the Lord had appeared as Visnu. Four handed form ‘hey, how could I hide you?! Your four arms. Please disappear, drop these two additional hands. For sure he will then take you seriously. So my dear Lord.’ Of course he is saying ‘Lord’ so there is some understanding that he is the Lord. But still he is afraid of this ghorad ugrasena atmajan. ugrasenatmajan – the son of Ugrasena. And what he could possibly do, ‘trahi please protect.’

So the Lord has responded to his prayer and he has not completely disappeared from the vision altogether but from four handed form He has become two handed child. And the Lord is going to do a lot of things now. The Lord wanted to protect Himself and because the parents are really worried about Him, their worry is that would He survive? Would Kamsa allow the existence of this child? They were really concerned. So after Lord has gone, Bala Krishna, Baby Krishna and then He has got His own plan. There is a whole strategy. How to get out of there. Before anyone, Kamsa would get to know the eighth child has taken birth and the whole strategy is in place.

He is not consulting anyone, the father and mother are not competent. They do not know what could possibly be done so she was just suggesting ‘okay, okay, okay, at least no four hands. Go for two hands and the let’s see what happens.’ So we go for two hands, two hands, not four hands and then probably. From four hands to two hands status, so Lord He is the Lord. Even as a baby He is the Lord. It doesn’t make Him Lord later on; He is already Lord, already Lord. And He knows exactly what could possibly be done and He has proposed ‘Daddy, my dear father, please get me out of here.’

And Vasudeva probably wondered ‘What? Don’t you see the shackles? I can’t even move, I’m tied down here and you say I should get you out of here, how is that possible? But as the child suggested, he has picked up his baby Krishna with the intention that the Lord is saying ‘okay, get me out of here,’ Vasudeva is now going along and as soon as he picked up the child the shackles were shattered. They were in pieces and Vasudeva was free to do anything and everything, go anywhere and everywhere. As we accept the Lord in the heart, become free.

Radha Gokulananda ki jai!

And Vasudeva begins, Vasudeva is carrying Vaasudev, I usually say this to make sure we are understanding the difference of these two names, how they’re pronounced.

Vasudeva is father and Vaasudev is son. Vaasudevaya – Om Namo Bhagavate Vaasudevaya, you can’t say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. Om Namo Bhagavate Vaasudevaya. Bhagavan Vaasudev, and father is Vasudeva. So Vasudeva is carrying Vaasudev and he is now moving, trying to move out through the door. Locked, giant sized. No problem. Of course as Vasudeva comes the door is not only closed but locked. He is just following the order of the child ‘get me out of here.’ ‘Okay.’ As soon as he comes and is standing in front of that door with the child, locks are unlocked. Door is opened. Automatic, so the system automatic is not a new thing. So there,when I first time went to the airport in ’77 and Prabhupada had arranged a trip to bring his Doctor to Allahabad, Dr. Ghosh, anyway I went into the airport and I had my bag on my trolley and was pushing towards the door. The door was all closed and I was, I parked my trolley and was going forward. I thought I had to open it before I could enter with my hand baggage. As I moved forward closer toward the door opened.
I was like ‘hey what happened, ghost? Who opened the door? So that was automatic. When you don’t know what happened, who did it, automatic. Then we end up saying ‘automatic.’ Factually there is nothing like automatic, there is always a cause. So here the cause of all causes He was getting these doors, they automatically opened. Door after door after door was being opened and of course all the guards, extra security was in place. Of course in those days Kamsa was more alert. ‘The child is expected any day, any day, any day.’ So then he had extra security but then, what good was all that security? They are all snoring, sleeping and there was no-one to stop. Their guns were on the floor and Hari Hari.

So Vasudeva was out of the prison. And then the first person who greeted Sri Krishna, Bala Krishna was Balarama. Balarama had come from Gokul, he had already taken birth and he had come in another form as Sankarshan. And {singing} swagatham Krishna, I don’t think he sang the song but that was the mood.

And he does, Ananta Sesa glorifies the Lord and Balarama serves Sri Krishna. So Vasudeva is carrying, so outside the prison it is also rainy season, you call Shravan? So immediately Sankarshan is taking position, holding umbrella. His hoods are serving as umbrella just over Vasudeva for the baby Krishna going that way. And because it is night time, yes night time? So some time was spent in praying, both offered prayers and then some more time then going through gate after gate after gate.

That night something special also had happened with the moon.
It was the night of asthami, Krishna asthami – half-moon. So moon is half-moon, asthami is moon – is half moon. No moon, full moon and in the middle half-moon asthami. So Lord was waiting, when is moon going to rise? ‘Let the moon rise first before I rise, I appear.’ Because, Krishna was appearing in the Moon dynasty. Chandra Vamsi Krishna, Surya Vamsi Sri Ram. So he is waiting, wanting moon to rise and to appear first. In fact it’s kind of simultaneous, while the moon, the Chandra was rising in the east, Krishna Chandra rose from the oceans like womb of Devaki.

So there was some moonshine but Balarama also was providing some extra light. All his hoods were decorated with jewels and they were providing some glitter, some light for Vasudeva to walk through the lanes and by-lanes and some hidden paths. So hidingly he wanted to go through Mathura town. It is said, I heard this, Radha Govinda Maharaja said this. I don’t know where he found this out from. He said that that night was special in another sense in that the dogs were sleeping also.

All the Mathura dogs were sleeping, the dogs are on night duty. No one employs them but they are around and barking. So they were fast asleep. Because if they had been awake, they would see ‘hey’. Of course they would not know {laughing} they are just dogs. ‘Someone is walking by’ they would be barking. And that barking could have woken up some residents in the area and they would see ‘hey hey Vasudeva, let’s look where is he going?’

And they could they are Kamsa’s men so they could be trouble. Have you made that connection? That’s why even the dogs were fast asleep and so in that way the path was clear and in walking and walking Vasudeva comes carrying Vaasudev.

Come on the banks of the Jamuna, Yamuna Maiya ki Jai! Because it is rainy season, Yamuna is over flooded. So he is standing on the bank of Yamuna. How to cross this flood situation? So the Yamuna took advantage of this flood situation, ‘Here is my Lord! And he would like to go across. I better do something so then my path is cleared, if not I could be in trouble.’

Then she remembered, this is in the Bhagavatam. Everything is originated from Bhagavatam. So she remembered that Sri Ram, when He wanted to cross the Indian ocean and go to Lanka there was some delay on the part of Samudra Devata. The ocean God was delaying then Ram became furious. He took his bow and arrow and the whole ocean was shaken up. All the creatures were in trouble. So if I do not co-operate with the Lord, if I do not rush and do something quick, I could be in a similar situation as Lord was trying to deal with that ocean, disobedient ocean. So remembering that, Jamuna also thinks of another thing ‘oh when Lord grows up and it is the time for His marriage and my marriage, I will be marrying Him. I will be the fourth queen of the eight principles. I will be the fourth one, Kalindi.

So if I don’t behave or assist or co-operate now, then when the marriage proposal comes, then it will not be considered favorably. So I have to be careful.’ So thinking thus, the Yamuna made the whole path clear of the water and Vasudeva entered the whole body of water here and in the middle he is walking, carrying. They also say that initially the water seemed rising a bit because Yamuna was trying to have a touch of the transcendental form of the Lord. Okay she had it so then she cleared the path and Vasudev now across the Yamuna. The destination now is Gokul.

krishna jinka nama hai gokul jinka dham hai

Lord is going to make Gokul as His abode, His residence.

So Vasudeva is going through different emotions as he is carrying baby Krishna to Gokul. He was going very slow and then he would think ‘hey, if I move slow like this then it would take forever to get there and who knows? News may reach Kamsa. And so he would come running, chasing after and catch up with me. I will run!’

Then he would begin running, carrying baby Krishna. But while running with baby Krishna then he would be thinking ‘hey! If I run fast like this I will be in Gokul quickly, very soon. Then I will have to leave this child there and I will be deprived of his association. I better take extra time on the way.’
Thinking like this he would slow down but as he would slow down he would think ‘hey but this is taking so much time. Kamsa may catch up so I better run’ and so he is running. But then while running ‘but hey I will be there in Gokul very soon I better slow down.’ So he was going through this, these emotions. But then finally, what time he arrived in Gokul, for Brahma Muhurta?

Before everyone got up, everyone was till fast asleep and Vasudeva entered not only Gokul but entered Nanda bhavan. Not only Nanda bhavan but he entered those inner chambers, the quarters where Yashoda had given birth to two children. They were Krishna and Krishna anuja. Bhagavatam says Krishna anuja.

‘Anu’ means to follow and ‘ja’ means like a ja here, atma-ja. Ugrasena atmaja, Ugrasena’s atma gave birth to, that’s Kamsa, Ugrasena atmaja. Kamsa is born, ja means janma, birth so Krishna anuja, Krishna appears in Gokul. Yashodanandan and baby daughter also has taken birth. These are some confidential matters, don’t tell anybody.

Only Gaudiya acarya’s have revealed these secrets. So Vasudev Krishna or Mathura Krishna, who is Vaasudev? So that Vaasudev becomes part of Yashoda Krishna, Vrndavan Krishna and the two Krishna’s become one Krishna, okay. There are three now, one coming from Mathura and two children in Gokul. So one from Mathura Krishna and Yashoda gave birth, two in Gokul, so those two Krishna’s become one and the third child, the daughter was this Yoga Maya.

She was asked by the Lord ‘you go! You go to that Vraja. And she was given her whole homework with Kamsa and Balarama and she moved him from Devaki’s womb to Rohini’s womb. So she had done that and now she is also appearing as sister of Krishna, Yashoda’s child. So Vasudeva takes that baby daughter back to Mathura and there are many more things to follow but we could see how the parents were concerned about the protection of the child.

So they prayed, especially Devaki. ‘Please protect, please save. Please save us, give us protection from this terrible fear of Kamsa.’ So first of all their fear is, they are more concerned, more than their own selves, Vasudeva and Deviki’s concern is the protection of the child.

So this is our wonderful Krishna, there’s nothing impossible for Him. Impossible is a word in a fool’s dictionary. So we could still be fools. We have our limitations although it says ‘fool’s dictionary.’ Impossible, for sure for the Lord there is nothing impossible and he protected himself and later on he is protecting Vasudeva and Devaki and he always protects.

Prabhupada is quoting the verse ‘Arjuna go ahead, Arjuna go ahead and declare boldly ‘na me bhaktah pranasyati.’ My devotee never perishes. My devotee is always protected, always protected.’ (Bhagavad Gita 9.31)

So ‘my devotee is always protected’ we have to be a devotee. We better see whether we are his devotees, then expect protection, then protection. Then connection or conclusion, ‘I protect’ devotees are protected, so we have to be devotees and then expect protection. ‘I don’t want to be a devotee and still I want to be protected.’

So then Maya handles, Lord’s external energy handles us and we go through a lot of harassment, a lot of trouble in the form of birth and death, old age and disease and this and that, but those are the main four things. But as we become devotees, surrender unto him, come to him and then we are protected so we know we are protected. So the Lord has kindly, out of his kindness, out of his compassion- we have been chosen and we have been bought to him so the idea of surrendering unto the Lord and knowing the Lord, serving the Lord and then becoming a devotee of the Lord this begins with:

brahmanda bhramite kona bhagyavan jiva
guru krishna prasade paya bhakti lata bija ( CC, Madhya Lila 19.151)

It begins with Krishna again. Then next some of His chosen souls are fortunate and then they are bought to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness whose founder Acarya is Srila Prabhupada ki jai!

Srila Prabhupada led his army, there’s siksha guru’s and diksha Guru’s and there’s vartma pradarshak Guru’s and Chaitya Guru, he remains and continues to be our Chaitya Guru. So together they have made us fortunate and as we have taken shelter of..
Or as Vasudeva just- he was also shackled, bound up but as he lifted Vasudev he was free from all the shackles. Likewise as we lift we accept the Lord in our heart, in our lives. Immediately in different forms including the form of prasadam we accept the Lord, sweet form of the Lord; sweetest form of the Lord. We are free, we are protected. We accept the form – Radha Gokulananda ki Jai! And we serve the Lordships

man mana bhava mad bhakto mad yaji mam namaskuru
mam evaisyasi satyam te pratijane priyo ‘si me (Bhagavad gita 18.65)

We are devotees of Radha Gokulananda, Mad bhakta- become Mad Bhakta, my devotee. ‘Worship me, offer me your obeisances and remember me’

mam evaisyasi satyam te pratijane priyo ‘si me

Then he said that to Arjuna ‘then I’ll bring you back to me’ mam eva – ‘you will come’. Mam eva, ‘to me only you will come.’ So this is all lined up by Guru Gauranga, Krishna, Prabhupada- they have given all this beautiful, wonderful arrangements and we are being benefitted and this arrangement has become fifty years old this year.

ISKCON’s golden jubilee celebration ki jai. We are celebrating fiftieth anniversary of ISKCON and so many, those who come in contact with Iskcon, serve Iskcon, then we serve Guru Gauranga and the protection and perfection is guaranteed. So be part of Iskcon and serve Iskcon, Guru and Gauranga and the protection and perfection is guaranteed.

Haribol.