SB 10.9.18 – Krishna Agrees to Be Bound by the Love of His Devotee

Giriraj Swami: So, we are in the sacred month of Kartik. During the cycle of the day, there is a period of about two hours before sunrise called brāhma-muhūrta which is most auspicious for spiritual practices. And every tradition, at least the, as you could say, esoteric practice within the tradition, emphasizes rising early in the morning. I had some Muslim friends in Bombay, and they used to come to the Juhu temple before maṅgala-ārati to pray. They said that in their tradition, according to their tradition, Allah hears their prayers more when they pray before sunrise. So, just as that time of brāhma-muhūrta is most auspicious for spiritual practices in this daily cycle, the month of Kartik is most auspicious for spiritual practices in the yearly cycle. Srila Prabhupada compares the benefits of the month of Kartik to a sale in a store.

For example, when a store opens, it will have a sale, and customers can get a very good item for a relatively small investment. So in the month of Kartik, one can get great spiritual returns for a relatively small effort. So during this month, devotees usually try to make vows called Kartik vrata, which may include increasing their chanting, increasing their reading, it may include reducing or eliminating something. Yeah, different devotees make different vows, not to eat before such and such time, not to eat after such and such time. That’s just an example. And of course, our main practice is the chanting of the holy names.

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

which can be done musically in kirtan or on beads in japa. How many of you have not started the practice of chanting japa? Everyone? Do you chant on the beads?

Devotee: Not on beads but I do chant. I do have beads, but I haven’t done it in a while, but I chant pretty much always in my mind.

Giriraj Swami: Well, that’s good. That’s good, but is there any reason why you wouldn’t chant on beads?

Devotee: As of now because I forgot. I do have beads and I do not have an issue but I don’t have my beads right now. I can chant on my beads.

Giriraj Swami: Good.

Devotee: Yeah.

Giriraj Swami: Very good. Okay. And, it’s good to have a fixed minimum number of rounds. You have beads like us? Hundred and eight beads. So, you chant one mantra on each bead, and you go on to the next, you chant the full mantra then go on to the next. And then, you go all the way around, hundred and eight beads, hundred and eight mantras, and that is one round. So, it’s good to have a minimum that you chant, and you should chant that number without fail. Even if it’s not a big number to begin with, you should chant that number without fail. And, if by chance you miss, say, your minimum, just making it up, say your minimum is four rounds, so somehow one day, you only do three rounds. So, then you make it up the next day, and you chant five rounds. And, one round might take seven or eight minutes, five minutes, ten minutes. So how much time do you think you can devote for chanting rounds?

Devotee: Forty minutes.

Giriraj Swami: Forty minutes.

Devotee: Five-six rounds.

Giriraj Swami: Okay. All right. That’s good. So. . .

Devotee: Usually when I get up, I start reading Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Giriraj Swami: That’s good too. Wonderful. All right. So, five rounds, we’ll say to be on the conservative side, five rounds starting tomorrow. Okay, good. Everyone else is chanting some rounds? Does anyone feel they can increase their minimum number? You are nodding your head yes. Okay. Do you mind telling us what your minimum is now?

Devotee: I must call the sixteen. Most days, I do twelve but some few days, I do sixteen. But anywhere from twelve to sixteen.

Giriraj Swami: So, your minimum is twelve. You don’t do less than twelve. And, if you do miss it, you make it up.

Devotee: My goal is sixteen but lately, I’ve only been able to do twelve but my goal is sixteen. I have done sixteen for few weeks, but for some reason, I just haven’t been able to do sixteen. I’m down to twelve, but I need to go up back to sixteen.

Giriraj Swami: Okay, but starting where you are now, your minimum is twelve. And, if by chance you don’t even do twelve one day, do you make it up?

Devotee: Yes.

Giriraj Swami: Okay, that’s good. All right. So, your minimum is twelve. And that?

Devotee: Well, I’m a low-level chanter, and I’m okay to admit it. Yeah, I’m a low-level chanter, and I’m not a consistent chanter. But I will tell you that I’ve always got Krishna in my mind, and I’m always in a book, or in another book, or in another book, or listen to a video, or intellectualizing something. So, yeah, I just have a busy life. But I have beads that I like.

Giriraj Swami: You have beads?

Devotee: Yeah, I have some small ones, and I didn’t do well with those. So, I was in Dallas, and I found some bigger ones.

Giriraj Swami: Okay, all right. That’s a good beginning to like your beads. That’s very important. You have a very important relationship with your beads.

Devotee: I do. I do, and I usually, I know this is odd, but I usually keep the beads under my pillow.

Giriraj Swami: Well, that’s okay.

Devotee: I know that is not a good thing to do, but it’s, I’m always grabbing them or holding them. Again, Krishna is always in my mind. I’ll just say that, and I do need to make a commitment, and I will make a commitment to do four to six every day.

Giriraj Swami: Oh, good. Jaya! Wonderful.

Devotee: I will in [unintelligible 00:10:22]

Giriraj Swami: Great. So, that starts tomorrow. Okay. Wonderful. Excellent. Do you chant on beads?

Devotee: Yeah, I chant ten to sixteen rounds, but at times, I’ll go over. I’ll go to twenty rounds.

Giriraj Swami: That’s okay. There is no limit. No limit. So, your minimum is ten?

Devotee: I try to do close to sixteen but it’s hard. I used to do a lot more when I was riding the bus because it was a lot easier to chant while riding the bus. It’s a lot harder now. Distractions.

Giriraj Swami: What time do you get up?

Devotee: 8:00 a.m.

Giriraj Swami: And, is there a way you could get up earlier? And, when do you go to sleep? Do you work late or what?

Devotee: Yeah, I work all day twelve hours. So, I have days off, that’s when I really catch up on reading.

Giriraj Swami: Oh, I see. Wow. So, what are your twelve-hour shifts? Is it the same time every time or. . .?

Devotee: There are different days. [unintelligible 00:11:50]

Giriraj Swami: I know but when you do work, a twelve-hour shift, is it always 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. or what is your twelve. . .?

Devotee: It is 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Giriraj Swami: 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Well, that’s not bad because you have time before 9:00 a.m. I mean, yeah, I understand you after twelve hours, you’ll be tired. But if you could, say, take rest by 11:00 p.m. then you could get up at 6:00 a.m.

Devotee: I can get up early and start chanting.

Giriraj Swami: Yeah, yeah, and that would be very good.

Devotee: Okay.

Giriraj Swami: We should take advantage of this month, really get the benefit. Okay. So now, so during this month, we recite a prayer called the Dāmodarāṣṭakam, and we offer a lamp or a candle to Lord Damodara. So, have any of you been to the temple for that? But have any not been to the temple for that? Well, it would be nice. That’s a very beautiful ceremony, and it celebrates the pastime of Mother Yasoda binding Krishna with ropes. In fact, the name Damodara, dāma means rope and udara means abdomen. So now, it maybe a little hard to understand because it’s ordinarily in our progression of study. One would begin with the Bhagavad-gītā, and then The Nectar of Devotion, and then Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam beginning from the First Canto and then gradually progress First, Second, Third, and then come to the Tenth Canto, and the Tenth Canto describes Krishna’s pastimes or līlā.

So, ordinarily one would have done some significant study before coming to that discussion. But this discussion is an integral part of the month of Damodara. And although Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the father of every living entity, unborn, eternal but for His play, He appears as a baby.

And then, He accepts two very exalted devotees to play the part of His mother and father. And so, Yasoda is the devotee who plays His mother. And, in this particular pastime, Mother Yasoda was feeding baby Krishna Her breast milk, which is actually Her prema, Her love, but there was some milk on the fire which started to boil over. So, she set aside baby Krishna before He was satisfied, and she went to attend to the overflowing milk pot. So, Krishna being angry, but this is all play, but anyway, He became angry because she set Him aside before He was satisfied. So, He broke a pot of yogurt and began to eat it, and that was a very naughty thing to do. They would have clay pots hanging from rafters. And He knew that He had done some mischief.

So, when Mother Yasoda finished attending to the milk on the fire and she came back, Krishna fled because He knew that He was in trouble. And Mother Yasoda was chasing Him, and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam describes that even great sages and yogis cannot capture Krishna, cannot catch Krishna. But Krishna seeing her sincere labor and desire. . . She wanted to catch Him and tie Him with ropes, I mean, partly as a punishment but more just to prevent Him from further mischief. So, He allowed her to catch Him. And then, she wanted to bind Him with ropes, and she couldn’t do it. Somehow the ropes were the width of two fingers too short. So she brought more ropes, and it was still short by two fingers or two inches. And she brought more ropes, and she had a lot of ropes because they were in a cowherd community, and they had a lot of ropes for the cows.

So, she was joining more and more ropes, and they were always two inches too short. And her friends brought their ropes, and they might have added together miles of ropes, but it was still two inches too short. And this was very astonishing because every morning Mother Yasoda would tie Krishna’s belt around His belly, it was never a problem. So, it was astonishing. It was quite amusing. Mother Yasoda’s friends were quite amused by this phenomenon. But then Krishna, seeing her intense endeavor, her hard labor, by His mercy, allowed Himself to be bound by her, by her love really. And, our learned devotional scholars, acharyas, commentators have explained that the two inches can be covered by a combination, and it is mentioned in the Bhāgavatam.

In fact, I’ll read that verse. It’s always nice to read Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So, please repeat after me.

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

We will read Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Ten, Chapter Nine, ‘Mother Yasoda binds Lord Krishna,’ Text Eighteen.

TEXT 18

sva-mātuḥ svinna-gātrāyā
visrasta-kabara-srajaḥ
dṛṣṭvā pariśramaṁ kṛṣṇaḥ
kṛpayāsīt sva-bandhane

TRANSLATION

Because of Mother Yaśodā’s hard labor, her whole body became covered with perspiration, and the flowers and comb were falling from her hair. When child Kṛṣṇa saw His mother thus fatigued, He became merciful to her and agreed to be bound.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

When mother Yaśodā and the other ladies finally saw that Kṛṣṇa, although decorated with many bangles and other jeweled ornaments, could not be bound with all the ropes available in the house, they decided that Kṛṣṇa was so fortunate that He could not be bound by any material condition. Thus they gave up the idea of binding Him. But in competition between Kṛṣṇa and His devotee, Kṛṣṇa sometimes agrees to be defeated. Thus Kṛṣṇa’s internal energy, yoga-māyā, was brought to work, and Kṛṣṇa agreed to be bound by mother Yaśodā.

COMMENT

So, there are two elements here; pariśrama, which means hard labor, and kṛṣṇa-kṛpā, which means Krishna’s mercy. So, our previous acharyas such as Srila Jiva Gosvami and Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura have explained that those two fingers by which the ropes were too short were eventually covered by this combination of pariśrama, personal endeavor and kṛṣṇa-kṛpā, Krishna’s mercy. And, by that combination, we can bind Krishna, and we want to bind Krishna. We want to bind Him in our hearts, we want to bind Him in our minds, we want to bind ourselves to Him. And so, this is the method, this combination. And, we can employ this method at every stage of devotional service.

If someone thinks, Well, I’ll do it all by my own effort. Well, that’s not correct because you can’t do it all by your own effort. You need Krishna’s mercy. But if you think, Well, I won’t make any effort. I’ll just pray to Krishna for His mercy. That also won’t be successful. So, it’s really the combination that works. And so, when we are chanting, we make our effort, when our mind wanders, we bring it back to the sound of the holy name. But we also need help, Krishna’s help, so we also pray for mercy. But as Srila Prabhupada said, “Practice makes perfect even in spiritual life.” So we should just keep chanting.

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

And the more you chant, the easier it becomes, and the better it gets.

So, according to our schedule, we have reached close to the end of our allotted time. And you all are very busy people because you have to get up early and chant your rounds tomorrow, and I don’t want to keep you too late. But still, yeah, for a few minutes, if any of you have any questions or comments? Yes.

Devotee: Maharaja, with chanting you said, it gets better, and you get more involved or whatever, as you chant more and practice makes perfect and stuff. But I find it too that sometimes, there can be an ebb and a flow where you can be chanting and so deep into it. And then another time, it feels like you are just trying so hard to even concentrate on that. And so, that ebb and flow, is that a natural thing that can happen as far as, as chanting more, and as you are getting more consistent? I guess, my question would be what would cause that to go dry, so to speak?

Giriraj Swami: Well yes, it can happen. I mean, pretty much everyone experiences highs and lows, peaks and valleys in their practices. But you should do the best you can at that particular moment. Whatever the best you can do at that time is, it may not be the best that you’ve done on other occasions. But just do the best that you possibly can at that time. And, pray for mercy. Be humble. In fact, one of the benefits of struggling is that it makes you humble, it makes you realize that you are not the controller, you are not the doer, and you need mercy. Any other questions or comments? So, what is next doctor?

Devotee: Now, we can have Dāmodarāṣṭakam singing.

Giriraj Swami: Oh, we can have Dāmodarāṣṭakam. Wonderful. Okay.

Devotee: And then we can serve prasādam.

Giriraj Swami: And then prasādam. Perfect. All right. Well, thank you very much for joining. Hare Krishna.