Celebrating Lord Krishna – Janmastami

Jaya Sri Krishna.

Audience: Jaya Sri Krishna.

This word jaya means—it can mean victory, can mean glory, can—it’s a statement of celebratory praise. So there is one state in India, in Gujarat, and it’s very common there for people, when they— even when they answer the phone or they meet in the street or they enter someone’s house or a business, everybody says, “Jaya Sri Krishna,” which is very very, nice. And that is because during the time that Lord Krishna appeared on this Earth, five thousand years ago, He lived for some time on the coast of Gujarat in Dwarka, so people there have a very strong and affectionate connection to Krishna.

I’m going to actually read something, and what I would like to ask you to do is to really open your mind and open your heart to considering what it is that I am about to say. Spiritual life is a deeply personal undertaking. It’s not a team activity. It’s about an individual’s journey to reconnect with their actual spiritual identity which we have forgotten. We have for so long assumed that this body that we are currently inhabiting is us. We take it to be us. We describe ourself with the labels of this body, like male and female, age, height, weight, ethnic extraction, etc. And it’s just like absolutely not true. That’s not you. It’s a temporary shell that you have inhabited, and you will leave. This is called death. And so to discover in a lifetime, a precious human lifetime, your actual spiritual identity is of paramount importance. There is nothing more important that you can do, in this very lifetime, than to discover your actual spiritual identity, to actually embrace and live in that identity.

The Vedas, they teach that there is a higher truth, a transcendent reality, an absolute truth. According to Vedic teachings, amongst the limitless ocean of living beings there is one being that is unique. A very ancient Upanishadic verse:

nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam

Amongst all the eternals there is one that is unique. Amongst all conscious beings there is one that is unique.

This unique being we describe as the Supreme Soul, param brahma.?? This same Supreme Soul may be known by different names, and according to different traditions, different parts of the world people have a variety of different ways of relating to this Supreme Soul. But from the Vedic perspective this Supreme Soul is unique and is only one. In the higher spiritual reality, we are all connected, because we are all parts and parcels of this Supreme Soul. Therefore in Vedic teaching they do not think or speak in terms of this very limited idea of a Hindu God, or an Indian God, or a Christian God, or a Buddhist God, or a Muslim God. That is not considered an appropriate appreciation of this higher transcendent reality.

This Supreme Soul is also referred to in Sanskrit as the Cause of all Causes. That’s an extraordinary idea. For most people it’s kind of like. “What!? What does that mean?” But it’s actually a really profound idea when we consider that everything has a cause, there is a cause behind everything. And one of the references to this higher transcendent reality, the Supreme Soul, is the Cause of all Causes.

There is one ancient text, the Brahma Samhita, in the fifth chapter, the first sloka—it’s actually really beautiful, and unfortunately Sanskrit is not a very common language at all, but it goes:

īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ

sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ

anādir ādir govindaḥ

sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam

 

and translated it means,

“He who is the origin of all, and who has no other origin, and He who is the prime cause of all causes. He is known as Govinda and He has a beautiful and eternal blissful spiritual form. He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead also known as Sri Kṛṣṇa.”

This spiritual sound, this name, this holy name, Krishna, it means “the all-attractive.” That is a really profound idea, a beautiful idea. You will see in this world people are attracted—we are attracted to different things. We are attracted to people that are powerful. I mean if the president or prime minister of some country shows up, or a big time CEO of some big corporation, and people hear it, “Oh, who’s that? Who’s that?” everybody’s rubbernecking. We have an attraction. We have an attraction to physical prowess and strength. We have an attraction to people that are deeply knowledgeable. But one of the things that we have a profound attraction for is beauty. We seek beauty. We are attracted to beauty in so many different ways, even in the ugly! You know, you have art forms that are ugly, and people are drawn and attracted because it’s indicative of something; it is the opposite to what we seek, our attraction to that which is beautiful.

The word Krishna, it means “the all-attractive.” If we could pierce this veil of material consciousness and see beyond it into that transcendental realm, all living beings would be infinitely attracted, drawn limitlessly and ecstatically, towards the most beautiful, the most wonderful, the highest objective love. And so, for this reason, this highest transcendent truth is called Krishna.

It is not that this is the only name, there are unlimited spiritual sounds, transcendental names of this infinite and highest truth, but Krishna is a name that has great transcendental attraction for the transcendentalist.

The day that Lord Krishna—

We have this term avatara.  Now they apply the word avatar to stupid things, this false personality that somebody adopts to be present on social media. Everybody wants to hide behind something, because of our massive insecurities, and they have what they call an avatar; but actually this word is a great—has deep spiritual meaning. Avatara means “He who descends.” It means the Divine personality of Godhead, when He descends into this world He is described as an avatar.

So, 5,000 years ago Krishna appeared in this world with His original transcendental form. The day that he did this, or initiated this, is known as Janmastami, the day of the Holy appearance of Lord Krishna. And it is literally celebrated by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

When we speak of Krishna we are not speaking of a foreign person. You know the word foreign? What does it really mean? Means it’s not connected to me; it’s from another place; it’s disconnected; it’s foreign. Krishna, He is not foreign. Even though we may not have heard much of Him or know much about Him, it does not remove the reality that He is not foreign. We are not speaking about somebody that we do not already have a relationship with, a connection with.

You know this concept of “soul mate”? It’s actually misapplied. The soul, the eternal spiritual being, does have a soul mate. In the Upanisads they give this example: they use an analogy of two birds sitting in the same tree, and one of those birds is busily hopping from branch to branch, trying to enjoy the fruits in that tree, but all the while feeling lonely and morose. There is a second bird within that tree. That second bird is described as the eternal friend of the first bird, and that second bird is simply waiting for the first bird to turn and recognize its eternal friend.

We have an eternal bond of kinship with the Supreme Soul. Our desire to love, which is really powerful, the desire to love and to be loved, this desire actually arises from the soul itself, and it is connected to the fact that we have an eternal and deep bond of kinship and love with the Supreme Soul. That is why we yearn for love.  That is why we seek love. And even when we find someone, an animal even, to try and love, and we may enjoy that experience, but we know in our hearts, this is not everything. This is not the highest experience of love. And we crave, we crave for a more perfect love. We crave for a more perfect union. This desire, this craving, actually originates from the soul itself and will only be perfectly fulfilled when we reunite with our eternal friend, with the eternal Lord of our Heart.

It describes in the Vedas that the reason, the very reason that this Cause of all Causes, this infinite and beautiful personality, described as the Supreme Soul, the reason that He manifests within this world is to make it possible for us to reconnect with Him, to meditate upon Him, to hear His transcendental instructions on how we can come back, how we can reunite, how we can find our way home.

This is something that strikes everybody’s heart, the desire to have a home. The problem is, in this world, anything we call a home is temporary. It will be taken from us, or we will be taken from it. But we have a desire for a home, for our home, that place where we are secure, where we are protected, where we are loved. This world is not our home. It is not the home of the spiritual being. It is a temporary place that we are residing in; and spiritual life means to return to our true home, to the eternal spiritual dimension with the Supreme Soul.

So, what is Krishna’s relationship with us and our relationship with Him? In the Bhagavad-gita Krishna says that, “I am the goal…” I am the goal! Everybody has a goal. We’re running after so many things, and when we attain our goals, almost instantly we experience it’s not what we really wanted; and again we develop another goal; again we are searching. That place, or that situation, where, when we arrive at, we are limitlessly satisfied, is the goal. And Krishna states in the Bhagavad-gita:

“I am the goal, I am the sustainer, the master, the witness, the abode, the refuge and the most dear friend.  I am the creation and the annihilation, and I am the basis of everything, the resting place and the eternal seed, and I am the seed giving father of all living beings.”

Our eternal desire for love, for that perfect love, as I said, is a spiritual desire. It cannot be completely fulfilled with limited material personalities. That highest state of pure and transcendental love, which is love for Krishna, it actually resides eternally within the deepest recess of our heart of hearts. It is not something to be gained from another place. It has simply become covered. No one can give us love. You know the rock anthem, “I wanna know what love is, I want you to show me”? Nobody can show you what love is. Love is the inherent nature of the soul itself. We must seek to uncover it. It is part of our eternal being.

So that pure spiritual love that is already there within the depths of our heart of hearts is awakened, or uncovered, by our immersion in the beautiful transcendental sounds, these spiritual names, or holy names. These holy names, like Krishna, these are not mundane sounds, they are not a doorway to a spiritual reality, they contain an entire spiritual reality. In thinking of Krishna, meditating upon the beautiful form of Krishna, chanting His sweet names, it purifies the heart and the mind so that love is awakened. If we simply take shelter in these spiritual sounds, if we rest in these spiritual names, His names, you will actually come to know and experience spiritual happiness. And of course, with that will come the most profound inner peace. It’s actually what you’ve all been looking for, for your whole life. You may not have realized it yet. If you can remove the conditioning and the material conception that we apply to the things that I am speaking of, then every single one of you, and all living beings, will have the same spiritual experience, the same realization. We must simply take Krishna into our hearts. We must embrace Him. That’s a very deep idea.

We are so prone to embrace material conception, new philosophies and ideologies, but look what they produce: bitterness, unhappiness, anger, jealousy, envy, fear. The great experience of the transcendentalist is that when they chant these transcendental sounds, the names of Krishna, or like Krishna, they experience a deep transcendental and wonderful reality. And so, we invite people to simply drop the barriers. We are so defensive because we are frequently hurt, because we have a difficult time finding someone to trust, but with Krishna one should not maintain these barriers. One should lower these barriers.

If you want Krishna, if you want love for Krishna, if you want to be connected with Krishna, this highest transcendent reality, if you want to be free from emptiness that comes from being separated from Krishna, then you need to consciously give your heart and give your life to this transcendent and beautiful personality, Krishna. Krishna is actually here before you. He is, my spiritual master says, He is closer to you than your own breath. He resides eternally within your heart.

So what I would like you to do now, I—my friends have put together a little video presentation with some brief but transcendentally extraordinary instructions from our beloved spiritual master, Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa, and what I’d like to invite you to do is to open your heart, to take these truths in and consider them deeply. We will all be very blessed by them.

Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda:

Krishna is all attractive. His names are so inviting. Krishna appears in this world—every aspect of His appearance in this world is an invitation to you, “Come, come to My party, come to My world, come live with Me, come and be happy.” It is an open invitation to an ongoing party, to a love festival that never ends and is all satisfying, yet you never get satiated or tired of it. You always want more.

An analogy to Krishna’s appearance is made sometimes. His appearance is like the sun. The sun rises in the morning. But you know, when the sun rises in the morning, a person is in darkness. The sun rises—it’s all dark, you’re bumping into trees, you’re cold, as soon as the sun starts to rise then all your fears of the crooks in the forest and the punks and the centipedes and the mosquitoes and the cold and everything else, the ghosts, all disappears. There’s—the sun is rising.

And now I ask you this question, “If you are here in darkness, and the sun rises, just tell me, where will you look? Where will your eyes go? When the sun rises where does your eyes go?” Your eyes go to the rising sun. This is Krishna’s appearance. Krishna appears in this world like the rising sun in the dark—from a dark ocean, the dark sky. You can’t help but look; you can’t help but be moved by the beauty of the sun, the appearance of the sun.

The sun arises, and then it disappears, but the sun doesn’t stop existing. The sun continues to exist. Krishna continues to exist. His abode, His world of warmth and love continues to exist. It is simply a matter of making the decision to enter into His abode, to enter into His world—that’s all—to accept His invitation, to accept His love. And that decision we make. He cannot make that decision for us. We make that decision.

We make that decision by humbly receiving His names into our heart and chanting His names. We accept His invitation by hearing His pastimes, reading His words. In these ways we accept Krishna’s invitation, and we enter into His abode, enter into His party, enter into His joy and happiness, the joy and happiness of His abode.

He is inviting us not just for the future, He is inviting us now. His invitation is there; and you can accept His invitation simply by saying Krishna, that is to accept His invitation. Saying the names of Krishna, Krishna, you enter into His world. Thank you very much.