Damodara’s Name, Damodara’s Mercy

Giriraj Swami: All right. Well, this is a small book with a commentary on the eight prayers that we say. The commentary is by a learned scholar and self-realized soul named Sanatana Gosvami. We could discuss each of the verses in detail, but I will just focus on one which is especially appropriate tonight. It is the sixth verse. One thing about Sanskrit is that there is no set order of the words in terms of syntax, in other words, we generally have subject, verb, and object—John hit the ball. But Sanskrit is not like that and therefore, any word in any part of the verse can relate to any other word in any other part of the verse, and therefore each verse can have multiple meanings, and they are all correct. And learned devotees help us understand the different meanings in relation to the philosophy and practice of bhakti-yoga or Krishna consciousness. So if you see a difference in a translation, it doesn’t mean that one was wrong and one was right. It just means that the translator has chosen to link different words to other words in the verse and bring out a certain meaning. So this is Text Six which we all sang. Here the translation is rendered:

“I bow down to You, O my Lord. You are affectionate, merciful, omnipotent, independent, and omnipresent. Please, show me Your grace. I am drowning in an ocean of sorrow, and I am helplessly ignorant. Please, revive me with Your merciful glance. Appear before me in Your divine form.”

I will read a little of the commentary first.

“In a sudden wave of love aroused by the glorification. . .” 

The sudden wave of love in the author of the verses.

“. . .he now hopes to see the Lord directly.”

Up until now he was praying for the Lord to be manifest in his mind or his heart; to see him in meditation. Now he is actually praying to see the Lord directly, face to face, which is possible.

“Aware that the chanting of Lord Krishna’s names is the supreme resort in this circumstance, he prays with humility – namo deva damodarananta visnu, prabho prasida! ‘Obeisances to You.’ After bowing down, he entreats: ‘O My Lord! Give me Your grace.’ ”

That is the meaning of prabho prasida.

Now this whole pastime of Krishna which we have read about in the translation and which is basically described in the first two verses, involves Mother Yasoda binding Krishna with rope. Now as Sarvatma Prabhu said, Krishna is God; no one can catch Him, no one can bind Him. But out of affection for His pure devotee He may allow Himself to be caught by the devotee and bound by the devotee. But at the same time God is not cheap. It is not so easy to get God; it is not even easy to get material things like an “A.” Well, that is not so hard, or a million dollars. So what to speak of getting God. the source of all creation. So to get God, to approach God, we have to make an effort. Anything we want in the world we have to make an effort, it is just the way the world is. 

And in this particular pastime Mother Yasoda was endeavoring very hard, first to catch Krishna when He was fleeing from her and then after she caught Him to bind Him with ropes. And when she put the rope around Him, she found that the rope was two inches too short. So she got some more rope and added it on, and it was still two inches too short. So she got some more ropes; there was still two inches too short. She belonged to a cow herding community so they had lots of ropes. And then her neighboring friends, lady friends, she asked them to bring ropes. They also brought ropes of different colors, tied them all together, but no matter how many pieces of rope, of however great length, it was always two inches too short. So Mother Yasoda and her friends were quite bewildered by this phenomenon, but at the same time they were amused. This is quite extraordinary, quite unusual. And eventually the neighboring ladies told her that, “You are not going to be able to tie Him, so you should just give up.” But she would not give up; she felt that it was her duty as His mother to tie Him; not to punish Him exactly, but to prevent Him from further mischief.

Other scholars in the line have explained that what she wanted to do is to tie Krishna around the waist to the grinding mortar. Krishna had stood up on the grinding mortar to get butter that was hanging in a pot from the rafters. It was a sport that he would steal butter; behind this figure of Yasoda and Damodara there is a picture of Krishna eating butter. One of his names is Makhan-cora, which means butter thief. In the material world, to be a thief is something bad but because God is absolute, Krishna is absolute, everything He does is all good. In fact, Krishna used to go to the homes of the neighborhood and steal butter from the ladies’ homes, and they would complain to Mother Yasoda that, “Your Krishna is coming into our homes and stealing our butter, you have to do something to control Him.”

So although Krishna is God, He reciprocates with His devotees’ desires to enter into a personal relationship with Him according to their desire. So just like we have different relationships in the material world, but these are actually inverted reflections of our relationships with Krishna. So in the material world someone might want to have a good master, so Krishna will be a perfect master. Someone might want to have a good friend; Krishna can be your perfect friend. Someone might want to have a beautiful child; Krishna will be the perfect child. Someone might want to have a good husband; Krishna will be a perfect husband. So Mother Yasoda wanted to have the relationship with Krishna as His mother. She wanted Him as her son, and so He agreed. And in this loving reciprocation, she fully identified with her role as Krishna’s mother and He perfectly reciprocated and fully identified Himself as her son. And this is the special feature of Krishna; this particular form of God called Krishna in Vrindavan, that in order to facilitate these very intimate relationships, Krishna arranges that His devotees forget that He is God. Because if you are conscious that Krishna is God, you could never treat Him as a friend, or as a son, or as a lover. So by Krishna’s arrangement, His devotees in Vrindavan, because they have such pure love for Him, they forget that He is God. They lose consciousness of the fact that He is God, which enables them to engage in very intimate past times with Him.

Anyway, in spite of failing again and again to bind Krishna, and in spite of her friends’ advice to her that she give up the effort, she continued. And when Krishna saw how sincere she was and how intent she was in her hard labor, He gave His mercy to her and allowed her to bind Him. So it is described that we can capture God or bind God by this combination of our effort and God’s mercy. At all times but especially in the present age, the best way to get God’s mercy is to chant His names. And so the first lines of the sixth verse are basically Satyavrata Muni, chanting God’s names. Now, someone may say, and it is also true, that God has no name. But God does have forms; He has qualities; He has activities; He has associates; and therefore we can refer to Him by His forms, qualities, pastimes, and associates and those become His names; those serve as His names. And this is true in every culture, every religious culture. For many years I was based in Bombay and from Bombay I would visit different neighboring countries like Sri Lanka and Pakistan. And in Pakistan I came across a book called The Ninety-Nine Names of Allah, but each name has a meaning. Allah itself means great; God is great. One name I used to like in Pakistan was Habib. Habib means friend. So similarly in Vedic culture there is a thousand names of Vishnu, but each name really has a meaning. It refers to one of Krishna’s attributes, and the name Damodara in particular refers to His quality of being affectionate to His devotees. But of all the names, the name Krishna is actually considered the best or the most complete because Krishna means all attractive.

So any form of God, any quality of God, any pastime of God, will be attractive. Any good quality is attractive. So this name all attractive includes all the other names because it includes all the forms, all the qualities, all the pastimes. And therefore, this Hare Krishna mantra that we chanted earlier is the best mantra, the most powerful mantra. During the month of Damodara, we do sing the Dāmodarāṣṭakam but actually if you just chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, you really don’t need to chant any other mantras. The Hare Krishna maha-mantra includes all other mantras, and by chanting you develop your dormant love for God. Right now, unfortunately, our love is misplaced. We have love for so many things which are temporary. First and foremost, love might seem like an odd word to refer to it, but we love our bodies; we are attached to our bodies. If there is a fire in a house, we will think of saving ourselves first; that is natural. Then we will think of our husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, pet, or whatever else.

Now why do we love the body? We love the body because the soul is in the body. If the soul were to leave the body, we wouldn’t care for it. We may love someone but when the soul leaves the person’s body, we want to get the body out of the house, because it is going to decompose. Our relationship is really based on the soul not the body, but because of ignorance or illusion, we identify with the body and we think we are attracted to the body. But what is really attractive is the soul, because as soon as the soul leaves the body we are not interested in the body. And why are we attracted to the soul? Well, the individual soul is part and parcel of the Supreme Soul of Krishna; it is an expansion of the Supreme Soul. And because it is an expansion of the Supreme Soul, it is attractive. But the real source of attraction is Krishna, the Supreme Soul, and therefore Krishna is really the supreme object of love and we can only be satisfied when we develop our love for Krishna. Anything else will ultimately frustrate us, and people are frustrated.

A friend of mine told me a story that might be a little extreme but it illustrates the point. I think he had met a man who got married. He wasn’t happy with his first wife so he got divorced and then he got a second wife. He wasn’t happy with the second wife so he divorced her and got a third wife. He wasn’t happy with the third wife so he divorced her and he got a fourth wife. He wasn’t happy with her, divorced her and got a fifth wife. He wasn’t happy with her, divorced her got a sixth wife. He wasn’t happy with her, divorced her and got a seventh wife. He wasn’t happy with her, divorced her and thought he would try the sixth wife again, thinking it didn’t work the last time around but maybe it would work this time, so he married the sixth wife for a second time. He still wasn’t happy with her so he divorced her and married the ninth wife. That is as far as our information goes. So it is an extreme case but it is a phenomenon that we enter into a relationship, we have certain hopes for it and in the end, we are disappointed and then we look somewhere else. Or, death will come and take away that person to whom we were so attached and then we are left without our loved one. There is a void that we have to fill somehow. But with Krishna, He can fully satisfy us in whatever relationship we want to have with Him and He will never die, He will never leave us. Sometimes we have a good friend but the friend somehow, just doesn’t understand us. We think the friend does but then we go through something, we realize the friend doesn’t really understand. Krishna always understands. Or we have a problem; we need some help. A friend understands the problem and wants to help but he doesn’t have the capacity to help. Krishna has. He is all-powerful; He has the capacity to help. So therefore, devotees they take shelter of Krishna and depend on Him.

Generally, we think that we can depend on our own strength, our resources, our friends, our doctors, our bankers, our employers, our employees, but actually ultimately, they cannot protect us. Only Krishna can protect us. And there is a nice verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that says a man may have. . . say someone’s very rich; he can afford the best medical treatment. But even if he has the best doctor and gets the best treatment there is no guarantee that he will live. Unless he has the mercy of Krishna, even with the best doctor and medicine, he can die. Another example is, even if you have a very strong boat but if you don’t have the mercy of Krishna, you can drown. The Bhāgavatam was written thousands of years ago, but whenever I read that line, I think of the Titanic. The Titanic was advertised as a ship that could not sink; such a strong ship, a luxury liner. And so many of the elite of the day, aristocrats, they were on the ship for its maiden voyage and it hit an iceberg and eventually sank. Many of the people on board; most of the people on board drowned. And the other example is that even if a child has very good parents, attentive parents, or vigilant parents; but without the mercy of Krishna the child may die. So ultimately, we may think that we are being protected by our doctors, or our parents, or whomever, but ultimately they cannot protect us. Ultimately only Krishna can protect us.

So sometimes people think people who don’t have anything else going for them, they don’t have anything else, they go to Krishna, but I have. I have my family, I have my money, I have my house, I have so many things. I don’t need Krishna, people who don’t have anything go to Krishna. But that is an illusion; all those things that you think will protect you cannot protect you. Only Krishna can protect you. And great devotees in very opulent royal families who really did have a lot of resources; wealth, servants, soldiers, and everything else but they felt that “without Krishna we have nothing; unless Krishna is with us, we have no protection.” So when we come to that stage that we realize that our real protector is Krishna, no one can protect us ultimately except for Krishna, and a real relationship is with Him not with this body or somebody else’s body. The body is a machine actually, the real living person is the soul within the body and the body is a machine. It is like a vehicle; it can take new bus but it requires the driver. If the driver leaves the vehicle, the vehicle doesn’t work. I had a godbrother; he is a disciple of the same guru and once he commented that kissing, this phenomenon of kissing in the material world, it is like two tractors but they have a big thing in the front to push back, yes bulldozer. So kissing is like two bulldozers; they come together. It is just so external; it is just the two machines.

Of course, we did read that Mother Yasoda kisses Krishna, but that is different. Krishna doesn’t have a material body like we do, and His associates in the spiritual world they also have spiritual bodies like He does. And we also have spiritual bodies within us; we have the soul within us and that soul, when we become advanced in Krishna consciousness, that soul develops into a full-fledged spiritual body. But it is actually the soul that is conscious, it is the soul that is active, it is not the body. We may think, kissing is really good, I am not against kissing but if the soul weren’t in your partner’s body, there wouldn’t be any charm in kissing, so it really comes back to the soul. So when you are mature in spiritual realization, your soul instead of being encapsulated in this machine, this body, it emerges as a full-fledged spiritual body that has all the faculties that the physical body has. In fact, whatever benefit we get from the physical body is due to the soul, but none of the disadvantages; no disease, no old age, no death. It is just everything we want from the body minus the disadvantages of the body.

So that is the beautiful life that awaits us if we become perfect in Krishna consciousness. And that perfection can be achieved primarily through the chanting of the holy names, and especially the maha-mantra—

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

And that can be done in any station of life. You can be an unmarried student, you can be married, you can be retired, you can be renounced. Most devotees end up getting married, so marriage is allowed, having children is allowed, everything is allowed but the central point should be Krishna. How can I develop my relationship with Krishna? How can I help my spouse develop his or her relationship with Krishna? How can I help my children develop their relationship with Krishna? Nothing is negated; everything can be accepted but in the spirit of devotion to God, and then everything is very pleasant and congenial.

We are getting together, we are talking like people talk, we are singing. Someone said he likes the music; he came for the music. A lot of people come for the food, whether they say it or not, we know that they come for the food. So we sing, we dance, we talk, we eat; we do the same things that everyone does but because the central point is God or Krishna, it all becomes spiritualized. And instead of degrading our consciousness and making us vulnerable to different attacks of maya, it elevates our consciousness and brings us closer to God. And as Sarvatma Prabhu said, it can actually solve your problems; even these most fundamental problems, ultimately of repeated birth, old age, disease, and death. Or it can help you rise above the problems, that you realize that it wasn’t even really that big of a problem. Someone might say something that really disturbs you. You feel hurt, offended, but you chant, you realize you are not the body, you realize who cares, it is not me; it is just the body or the mind. You don’t take it seriously; you just go forward in your relationship with God.

So there are many gifts to be received and by associating with devotees, chanting the holy names, discussing the topic of Krishna consciousness, seeing the deities, worshipping the deities, even taking the vegetarian food offered to Krishna, these can gradually elevate us and we can really taste some of these divine fruits of Krishna consciousness. Hare Krishna.

Do any of you have any questions or comments? Yes, what is your name? David.

Devotee: So in making offerings to Krishna, is butter a good thing to give Him?

Giriraj Swami: Well, Krishna does like butter. But Mother Yasoda and the other elderly ladies they used to churn the butter. What Krishna really likes is the love and devotion that goes into an offering. He is God; He creates everything that we could ever offer Him. He doesn’t need to eat in any case but what He really relishes, is the love and devotion. So yes, if you are thinking, “Krishna likes butter; I will offer Him butter,” that is okay, especially if you look for some good organic butter made on a farm where they don’t mistreat the cows because Krishna likes cows. But whatever you make with love and devotion Krishna. . . but it has to be no meat, fish, or eggs, or onions or garlic. Other than that, whatever you make with love and devotion.

Yes, what is your name? Gianna.

Devotee: I was hoping that you could shed some light on the male and female aspects. There is Mother Yasoda, there is Radha and Krishna. Can you shed some light on this interaction; the gopīs, the cowherd girls, between these females and male counterparts. What does it mean to be male and female in all these contexts?

Giriraj Swami: Okay, very good question. I especially brought my bead bag with Krishna and gopīs, so it is complete; both are present. Well, the first point, I am sure you understand but still, is that Krishna and Mother Yasoda or Radharani, they don’t have material bodies. Their bodies are completely spiritual. In our case there is a difference between the soul and the body. The soul is spiritual, it is eternal; the body is material and temporary. But in the case of Krishna and the gopīs, their bodies are spiritual and eternal. So they are not male and female like we have male and female bodies with different hormones and [Unintelligible 00:44:18]. But they are the original, and so they are not male and female like we have male and female bodies, but there is… Krishna is a spiritual male. So as far as their relationship, it depends on what their relationship is. Yasoda was playing the part of Krishna’s mother, Yasoda has a husband named Nanda, who plays the part of Krishna’s father.

There is a whole transcendental family in the spiritual world. The father Nanda, has his brothers Sunanda and Upananda, so they are Krishna’s uncles and those elders have parental relationships with Krishna. And then Radharani, she is similar age to Krishna, a little younger; they have a relationship of boyfriend and girlfriend. All the relationships are based on pure love; that is the essence. Pure love means a desire to make Krishna happy. In the material world we call it love but it is actually lust because what we really want to do to some degree or another, is make ourselves happy through the relationship and that is why the relationship is great. I want this girl to make me happy but if she is not making me happy, okay find another one. I want this man to make me happy, he is not making me happy, okay find another one. It reminds me of a Beatles song that I used to hear before I met Srila Prabhupada. “Please, please me my love and I will please you.” You please me and I will please you; it is like a business exchange. You give me some money and I will give you the product you want. It is not love; it is an exchange; it is a business transaction.

So whatever the relationship is with Krishna, it is based on pure love. There is no selfish desire. But by serving Krishna, by desiring to make Krishna happy, we naturally feel happy because we are part and parcel of Krishna. The hand is part of the body, so if the hand feeds the food to the stomach, then the benefit is distributed throughout the body; the hand benefits. But if the hand thinks, “Oh why should I give all the food to the stomach, I am going to enjoy the food myself,” and tries to absorb it directly; it is not going to get anything. The process is, you feed the stomach and then from the stomach the benefit is distributed to all the limbs. So we are like that, we are trying to enjoy independently; give me this, give me that. We actually have to offer everything to Krishna and then when we give everything to Krishna we benefit. But we are not thinking I am going to do this because I will benefit. We know that but in pure love you just want to see Krishna happy and seeing Krishna happy fills the devotee with sublime bliss.

Any other questions or comments?

Devotee: In regards to the first question, you mentioned that the principle is pure love; that is what Krishna likes, and the preparation may take a secondary role or secondary position.

Giriraj Swami: If you love someone you want to give them what they like.

Devotee: So then the question comes in regards to Gaudiya Vaishnava institutions such as temples, for example, where there has to be certain standards of deity worship, offerings of food. How does one take into consideration this essential principle of bhakti or pure devotion being the primary ingredient and avoiding the potential criticism of that standard being particularly and geographically, ethnic, or geographical of a particular region, particular time, recipes for example that are specific to a particular region of the planet?

Giriraj Swami: We know what Krishna likes from the scriptures and from the spiritual master, and in Srila Prabhupada’s temples he has established certain standards based on the scripture, in terms of what we should offer to the deities. In our temples there are six offerings a day. There is a temple in Jagannatha Puri, in India; they have fifty-six offerings a day. That is amazing, but we have six. But even that is a lot. So when Krishna wakes up, the devotees give Him milk sweets. So, once a disciple asked Srila Prabhupada, “How do we know that Krishna likes rasagullā?” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “Therefore you require the spiritual master.” Not everything is mentioned explicitly in the scriptures. In fact, someone told me something very interesting. So they wake up the deities say quarter to four in the morning and then they give them milk sweets. Then there is an ārati ceremony at 4:30. Now in any case, those early hours, say an hour and a half before sunrise, is very conducive to spiritual progress. If you chant at that time, it is really powerful. But the other day someone told me something else that was very interesting; that it is very good to pray to Krishna during the morning ceremony from 4:30 to 5:00 because He has just had His milk sweets, so He is in a very good mood. So that is a good time to ask Him for benedictions. Say the rāja-bhoga meal, which is the biggest meal; so Srila Prabhupada said there should be three vegetable preparations, but it is not dictated what the vegetables are or how they should be prepared, but there is a general standard—three vegetables, dahl, two sweets. Again, there is scope to choose what sweets you want to make. But if you read the books of the acharyas, it does give some pretty detailed descriptions of what Krishna eats.

In Caitanya-caritāmṛta, there are many long lists of the preparations that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu ate. In the temple in Jagannatha Puri, that paramparā that has been going on for thousands of years, they have been offering the same things for thousands of years. But if you like pizza or popcorn, you can prepare those with love and devotion and offer them to Krishna. I am sure in China they offer chop suey; that is also okay. In her house they offer strudel and kugel. That is okay; that is very good; and here they offer everything; very expert, many different cuisines. But in the temple, there should be a standard; regular standard. We can add but there should be a basic standard.

Okay, this conversation seems to be veering in the direction of prasāda somehow, so maybe it is a sign that Krishna is hungry. Oh, He already ate.