SB 2.7.32 – Sri Govardhana-puja

Giriraj Swami: We welcome you on this most auspicious occasion of Govardhana-puja, which is one of the most blissful and instructive of Krishna’s pastimes. I will read one verse and purport by Srila Prabhupada from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Two, Chapter Seven – “Scheduled incarnations.” Text Thirty-two. Please repeat after me.

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

TEXT 32

gopair makhe pratihate vraja-viplavāya

deve ‘bhivarṣati paśūn kṛpayā rirakṣuḥ

dhartocchilīndhram iva sapta-dināni sapta-

varṣo mahīdhram anaghaika-kare salīlam

TRANSLATION

When the cowherd men of Vṛndāvana, under instruction of Kṛṣṇa, stopped offering sacrifice to the heavenly King, Indra, the whole tract of land known as Vraja was threatened with being washed away by constant heavy rains for seven days. Lord Kṛṣṇa, out of His causeless mercy upon the inhabitants of Vraja, held up the hill known as Govardhana with one hand only, although He was only seven years old. He did this to protect the animals from the onslaught of water.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

Children play with an umbrella generally known as a frog’s umbrella, and Lord Kṛṣṇa, when He was only seven years old, could snatch the great hill known as the Govardhana Parvata at Vṛndāvana and hold it for seven days continuously with one hand, just to protect the animals and the inhabitants of Vṛndāvana from the wrath of Indra, the heavenly King, who had been denied sacrificial offerings by the inhabitants of Vrajabhūmi.

Factually there is no need of offering sacrifices to the demigods for their services if one is engaged in the service of the Supreme Lord. Sacrifices recommended in the Vedic literature for satisfaction of the demigods are a sort of inducement to the sacrificers to realize the existence of higher authorities. The demigods are engaged by the Lord as controlling deities of material affairs, and according to the Bhagavad-gītā, when a demigod is worshiped the process is accepted as the indirect method for worshiping the Supreme Lord. But when the Supreme Lord is worshiped directly there is no need of worshiping the demigods or offering them sacrifices as recommended in particular circumstances. Lord Kṛṣṇa therefore advised the inhabitants of Vrajabhūmi not to offer any sacrifices to the heavenly King Indra. But Indra, not knowing Lord Kṛṣṇa in Vrajabhūmi, was angry at the inhabitants of Vrajabhūmi and tried to avenge the offense. But, competent as the Lord was, He saved the inhabitants and animals of Vrajabhūmi by His personal energy and proved definitely that anyone directly engaged as a devotee of the Supreme Lord need not satisfy any other demigods, however great, even to the level of Brahmā or Śiva. Thus this incident definitely proved without a doubt that Lord Kṛṣṇa is the Personality of Godhead and that He was so in all circumstances, as a child on the lap of His mother, as a boy 7 years old, and as an old man of 125 years of age. In either case He was never on the level of the ordinary man, and even in His advanced age He appeared a young boy 16 years old. These are the particular features of the transcendental body of the Lord.

COMMENT

Hare Krishna.

So we, conditioned souls, are born in ignorance. We are ignorant as to our own natures and as to the purpose of our lives. And what to speak of the Personality of Godhead. But by the association of devotees, by hearing from them the knowledge of the Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and other Vedic scriptures, we can awaken from our dream of illusion and ignorance, and begin to realize our actual natures and identities as eternal servants of Krishna. And then we can engage in devotional service. But sometimes it may happen, that even someone engaged in the service of the Lord, when he gains some wealth or prestige or position or fame, he may forget his actual position as the eternal servant of the servant of the servants of the Lord, and think that he is the supreme. And such was the case with King Indra. He is a devotee, but somehow he became bewildered by false prestige. And when the inhabitants of Vrindavan stopped his sacrifice, he became so mad, so furious, that he forgot everything and he was ready to kill all the residents of Vrindavan, all the innocent animals, everyone by summoning the samvartaka clouds that are used at the time of universal devastation. And it is described in scripture, that for a moment Krishna thought, Let me just finish this nonsense. But then He considered, He is my devotee, even though he has become totally maddened. He needs to be humbled.

All of us, in order to take shelter of the Lord need to be humble. And therefore, pride is the deadliest enemy of the living entity. And it is the special mercy of Krishna that when a devotee or an aspiring devotee becomes bewildered by pride, that He will act in such a way as to remove the devotee’s pride. And that is His mercy upon the devotee. When He does so, at least in the initial stage, the devotee may not appreciate it because he is bewildered. He thinks he is great, but when he comes to his senses he will repent and try to make amends and avoid such illusions in the future. And that example was shown in the dealings between Lord Krishna and King Indra. Indra is the mighty king of heaven, the controller of the thunderbolts and Krishna, just a little boy, He didn’t change His form to subdue Indra. He could have assumed a gigantic form like the Visvarupa, the universal form or any form, but He maintained His form as a little cowherd boy. And just like a little child will pick up a mushroom without any effort, He picked up the Govardhana Mountain and held it over His head with His little finger, the tip of His little finger, which is more or less the weakest part of the body. So He was showing that just this little tip of His left finger was more than enough to defeat the mighty King Indra.

And for the devotees who were surrendered to Krishna and dependent on Krishna, the seven days that Krishna held Govardhana Hill aloft was a great transcendental festival. Generally, during the day when Krishna would go out to pasture the cows with the cowherd boys, He would be together with them. But the residents of the Vrindavan village would be bereft of His association and they would be in separation. And then when Krishna came home in the evening and entered the house of Nanda Maharaja and Yasoda Mai, then the friends who were with Him during the day they were bereft of His association. So there is always meeting and separation throughout the day in Krishna’s pastimes in Vrindavan. But during the govardhana-līlā, all of the residents of Vrindavan were with Krishna continuously. So it was a great festival for them. So they didn’t lose at all, in fact they gained. And that also demonstrates the principle that if we surrender to Krishna, we don’t lose but we gained many times over. But because Indra was a devotee, is a devotee, he eventually did come to his senses and he repented. He realized that he had committed a serious offense and he wanted to make amends. He wanted to apologize to Krishna and be forgiven by him. So he went to Bṛhaspati, who is the guru of the demigods. And Bṛhaspati said, “Oh no, you have committed a very serious offense. I can’t help you. Better see Lord Brahma.” So he went to Lord Brahma, and Lord Brahma said, “Oh, a little while ago I myself became bewildered and committed an offense against Krishna by stealing the cowherd boys and calves. I can’t help you. But you should go to Surabhi, the mother of the cows because Surabhi is very dear to Krishna and if she intercedes on your behalf, Krishna will be inclined to listen.”

And this is also a very important principle in devotional service, that we cannot approach the Lord directly but we can approach Him through His dear devotee. And there are many examples of say, the Kāliya serpent who is also very envious, very offensive, very poisonous. And when he realized his mistake and within himself surrendered to Krishna, then his wives who were great devotees of Krishna they prayed to Krishna, “Please forgive our husband, please accept our husband,” and Krishna did. So Lord Indra, King Indra, he went to Surabhi. Surabhi came and together they worshipped Krishna. And Krishna forgave Indra and rectified him. And this is our constant struggle or constant effort to be freed from this demon; the different demons of especially pride. Today we are talking about pride, of many demons; lust, anger, greed, but any of them or in particular pride. In order to be freed from those demons we cannot fight them on our own strength. If any of us have made a serious effort or sincere effort to become free from these demons, we know we cannot do it on our own. They are too powerful; just like no one could kill Kāliya or any of these demons, so many demons that attacked Vrindavan. And the vrajavāsīs, as pure simple devotees, they would always take shelter of Krishna and Krishna would save them. So if we do that, Krishna will save us from these demonic propensities, this lust, anger, greed, envy, madness, illusion. But we have to be humble. That is the only way. And so sometimes Krishna will arrange, if we pray sincerely He will arrange to humble us. And that is His mercy and we should take it gratefully as His mercy and take the opportunity to take shelter of Him.

There is a beautiful verse at the end of the Fourteenth Chapter of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in that section after Lord Brahma stole the cowherd boys and calves. And it is considered the summary of that part of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and it is very appropriate here. And it is appropriate to all of us at every moment. We used to sing this prayer every morning in the Boston temple, it was something that we did there. I don’t know if it was done in other temples.

samāśritā ye pada-pallava-plavaṁ

mahat-padaṁ puṇya-yaśo murāreḥ

bhavāmbudhir vatsa-padaṁ paraṁ padaṁ

padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadāṁ na teṣām

This prayer means that the material world is like an ocean and there is danger at every step. But for one who has taken shelter of the lotus feet of Krishna, who is known as Murari—the enemy of the Mura demon, he can kill these demons within us. That vast ocean becomes just like the water contained in the hoof print of a cow. Although there is danger at every step, the devotee crosses right over it without any difficulty. So we are in the ocean of material existence. There is danger at every step. We may think things are going nicely for some time but inevitably there will be some calamity; some financial calamity, some health crisis, some broken relationship. They will come. We are in the material world, they will come. And the only permanent shelter, the only permanent security, the only permanent love is under the lotus feet of Krishna. So these festivals, this whole month of Kartik or Damodara, and these special days such as Govardhana-puja are meant to help us come to our senses, come back to our senses to realize we are not the controllers, we are not the enjoyers, we are not the proprietors, but we are the humble servants of the servants of the servants of Krishna. And when we are in that position we are safe and secure and happy. And when we try to take the position of Krishna out of false pride and illusion, we are in anxiety and we are just tossed. We are subject to being tossed around by the waves of the material ocean.

So, Srila Rupa Gosvami has a beautiful prayer to Lord Krishna, in which he prays for us that “May the left hand of Lord Krishna which lifted the Govardhana Hill just like a child lifts a play thing protect you all.” And this is his blessing that, may the left hand of Krishna which lifted Govardhana Hill, just like a toy, and gave shelter to the residents of Vrindavan give shelter to us all. So we should all gather together under the shelter of Govardhana Hill, under the shelter of Krishna’s lotus feet. And in that position there are no differences. You can’t imagine one vrajavāsīs think, Oh, why did He have to get under the hill? Couldn’t he have just gotten washed away and left the good ones like me, like the heartless poem. But no, just forget all these silly conceptions we might have about good and bad in relation to devotees, and just all come together under the shelter of Govardhana Hill, under the shelter of Krishna’s lotus feet, and chant the glories of Krishna and His devotees by singing the holy names.

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

Hare Krishna.