Janmashtami: The birthday of Krishna and Yogamaya

Millenniums ago, a lot happened in Mathura and Gokul at midnight on Janmashtami. A child who was radiating divine light, wearing celestial jewelry and a pitambar, and holding a conch, chakra, mace, and lotus was born to Devaki and Vasudev in a prison in Mathura. After offering praise to Bhagavan Krishna, the cause of the universe, mother Devaki requested him to hide his divine form, for she was afraid that her brother, Kansa, would try to hurt him. Krishna soon turned into an ordinary child.

As the Srimad Bhagavata Purana further tells us, Yogamaya, the Goddess, had also been born on the same night to Yashoda and Nanda in Gokul. By her all-pervading influence, Yogamaya opened the gates of Vasudev’s prison and had the guards lose their consciousness so that Krishna’s father could easily transfer Krishna to Gokul and bring her back to Mathura. Vasudev reached Gokul in the midst of heavy rains and a flood in the river Yamuna, who eventually made a way for Krishna’s first journey. The incarnation of the Mother Goddess also turned Yashoda Devi unconscious so that she could recognize Krishna as her real son when she woke up. When Vasudev brought baby Yogamaya to Mathura, the ignorant Kamsa threw her against a wall in an attempt to kill her. The Goddess reached the sky, revealed her divine form, and announced, “O Fool! Don’t kill innocent children. Your annihilator has already taken birth.”

Happy Janmashtami!

The departure of Bhakti Saints

I met an acquaintance last week who discussed when selected Bhakti Saints were born in North India. At one point, he informed me that some academics have a hard time believing that Sant Ravidas was the guru of Mirabai or that Sri Ramananda was the guru of Ravidas. Such a disagreement with popular notions may arise when the dates of a saint’s presence on earth do not overlap with that of his or her guru (assuming an average life span) in the sources that the historian has preferred to use. The thought did not leave me for a while. Can academics choose not to accept poems and books written by Bhakti Saints as trustworthy evidence and maintain their search for alternate sources?

While historians can spend their lifetime in comparing varied timelines, supporting their own hypotheses, and writing balanced arguments to demonstrate rationality, the viewpoint of the devotional and spiritually experienced is very different. They believe in the eternity of the soul and readily appreciate the power of yoga. Their greatest saints, out of their grace, can even provide a darshan and guidance to a disciple years after renouncing their own physical body. For the realized who have gained resemblance to Brahman, transcendence of time and material nature is never a big deal. They have more choices in the universe than we do. For this reason, while we can record when a Bhakti Saint was born on Earth, we can never specify when he or she departed.

Cows, India, and Compassion

In a story written by Munshi Premchand, an Indian peasant has to sell his cow, his sole possession, for money. In spite of financial hardship, he sells it to a Hindu at a lower price, not to a butcher. It appears true that if God gave cows a choice, they would choose to be brought up in a Hindu household or shelter. Even if they end up with a poor cowherd in India and have to sustain on leftover food, they would still die a natural death.

Besides compassion for all beings and support for vegetarianism, numerous devotional and cultural factors add to the reverence of Hindus for cows. Some of them are given below.

1. Cows symbolize piousness and auspiciousness in Hinduism.
2. Because cows are associated with Lord Krishna (known as Gopala) and Lord Shiva (known as Vrishabharudha) in the Epics and Puranas, respect for cows is linked to one’s devotion for Krishna and Shiva.
3. Supporting cows is said to increase prosperity in homes by attracting the blessings of Goddess Lakshmi.
4. Dairy products are offered in temples as prasadam and are used in fire sacrifices.
5. As Mahatma Gandhi tells us, cow protection means protection of the “helpless and weak in the world.”
6. Following the tradition set by Krishna, many Hindus see a cow as a mother.
7. Many Vaishnavas would love to reach Goloka (“the planet of cows”) — the abode of Sri Krishna, where he lives with his devotees and divine cows.
8. Killing a cow is ranked among the worst karma in Hinduism.
9. While cows provide nutrition through their milk, their dung is a fertilizer and gomutra has medicinal value in Ayurveda.
10. In Vedic Astrology, offering food to cows can propitiate afflicted planets in a chart. 

“Hindus will be judged not by their tilaks, not by the correct chanting of mantras, not by their pilgrimages, not by their most punctilious observances of caste rules but by their ability to protect the cow.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Ayurveda

It is believed that during the Samudra Manthan, a mythological tale where the great ocean was churned by the shared labor of the divine and evil forces to gain divine riches from nature, Dhanvantari, the physician of the gods, appeared from the ocean holding a pot containing ambrosia, which could confer immortality. Though the recipe for immortality could be consumed by the gods alone, as per Vishnu’s wish, Dhanvantari had something for all beings: Ayurveda, the science of life.

The principles of Ayurveda map the five elements, from which we all are created, to the three doshas—vata, pitta, and kapha. An imbalanced ratio of these three humors is responsible for our poor health. Ayurveda aims at taking the refuge of Mother Nature when our material nature (five elements and the mind) is out of balance, mainly due to our own karma, to reach our natural state of perfect health. While the current focus of this alternative system of medicine remains primarily on medication (herbal) and hatha yoga, mantras were also prescribed by the physician in the older days as a remedy along with plant extracts to bring the body and mind in harmony with nature again.

(Text is excerpted from Devotional Hinduism: Creating Impressions for God; iUniverse Inc, 2008.)

Kalki: The tenth incarnation of Vishnu

Because Kalki has not visited us yet, we can not say much about him. Like the other nine incarnations of Lord Vishnu, he is expected to incarnate when our ethical condition becomes deplorable — too low to be improved by saints. Scriptures say that in the last phase of kaliyuga, which may be a few hundred thousand years away, people stop engaging in good karma altogether, hypocrisy defeats God’s remembrance, citizens renounce their prudence, and spiritual knowledge is completely lost. This sets the platform for God’s final visit to Earth to trigger another cycle of four yugas, beginning with satayuga.

Kalki’s name is mentioned in many Puranas, including the Vishnu Purana, the Srimad Bhagavata Purana, and the Harivamsha Purana. According to the Vishnu Purana, he will be born to a Brahmin named Vishnuyasa in a village named Shambhala to annihilate all the wicked rulers and citizens of Earth. After Kalki guides the remaining humans towards their appropriate dharma over the last few days of kaliyuga, their minds will get purified as if they have “woken up at the end of the night.”

How can the author of the Puranas say anything about a future incarnation of Vishnu? Firstly, parts of the future can be seen by maharishis like Ved Vyas, who have divine vision. Secondly, though Kalki has not visited Earth in the current era, he has been here before in a previous cycle of yugas, according to Hinduism’s popular notion about incarnations. In fact, as Hindus believe, all incarnations of Vishnu are born repetitively in different eras or in different universes.

Asteya: Non-stealing

In Hinduism, Asteya, often translated as “non-stealing,” is a yam — a tenet for yogis. It refers to not accepting what does not belong to you. While stealing can downgrade anyone’s karma, spiritual aspirants and students may be more seriously wounded by it. Why? Because it may nullify the sole purpose of their actions.

If you are a “devotee” who offers money earned through questionable means, say bribery, in a temple, feeling that God will be pleased and offer you incentives in terms of spiritual advancement, you may need to think again. Can you steal and still surrender to a form of Brahman? Can you enjoy breaking a principal yam and still practice Bhakti Yoga? If you say “yes,” something is seriously wrong with your assumptions. At a lower level of offense, if you copy-paste a paragraph from someone’s website to your own religious website and feel that you are aiding in the promotion of your favorite path to God, you need to hold back and think for a while.

For students, cheating in an examination definitely disagrees with asteya. Getting your essays written by a professional writing service and submitting them for a grade at school may not be too different. But what if no one at school finds out? What if you regularly steal information and still get a high-paying job from the degree you “earn”? Because your self always sees everything, stealing blocks the absorption of knowledge from your self to your mind. What you miss by not following this yam is your own educational and spiritual growth, not transitory success.

Mahabharata: Karna and his friendship

In the Mahabharata, Bhishma lectures Yudhisthira about the types of friends a ruler has.  Basically, he talks about (1) “natural” friends, who share a similar temperament with you or belong to your family, (2) friends whose ancestors have been loyal to your family, (3) friends with whom you share a relationship of mutual profit, and (4) “contrived” friends, who you can pay to follow you. Then he talks about a rare class of friends — the dharmatma (“righteous soul”). Though everyone may wish to have a few righteous friends, they are not someone you can easily search for. Also, once you find them, they are not permanent. Because they are detached, they may move away if you leave your virtuous path, as the scripture suggests.

After raising general concerns about the trustworthiness of friends from the first four classes, Bhishma gives features of friends you can trust: (1) they are happy to see you happy and sad to see you sad, and (2) they are never jealous of your progress but get alarmed in your adversities. Unsurprisingly, trustworthy friends form a class of their own.

Based on this model, Karna appears to comfortably qualify as a trustworthy friend for Duryodhana. But is he a righteous friend as well? This is not an easy question to answer. A key given in the text is that you have to be a righteous soul yourself to attract a righteous soul as your friend. Accordingly, no matter how good a person Karna was, the scripture may hesitate to label a friend of Duryodhana as "righteous." Only a king like Yudhisthira deserves a dharmatma as a friend.

So how would you grade Karna's friendship? Please feel free to share your views in the comments section.