Krishna/is

Krishna

Krishna er guðleg vera, holdtekja guðdómsins, avatar, og hann er ein hin vinsælasta indverska hetja allra tíma. Hann hefur fangað ímyndunarafl og trúrækni hindúa alls staðar í sínum margvíslegu myndum – hvort sem það á við hann sem ærslafullt, uppátækjasamt barn, sem elskhuga smalastúlknanna eða sem vin og vitran ráðgjafa hins volduga stríðsmanns Arjúna.

Krishna er þekktur sem áttunda holdtekja Vishnú, annarri persónu hindúaþrenningarinnar. Saga hans er sögð í Bhagavad Gita, vinsælasta trúarriti Indlands, samið á milli fimmtu og annarrar aldar f.Kr. og hluti af hinum mikla indverska sagnabálki, Mahabharata.

Þegar við vottum Krishna hollustu okkar með möntru og helgum söng opnum við hraðbraut kærleika okkar að hjarta Krishna og hann opnar bakaleið þjóðvegsins. Hann endursendir okkur margfalt hollustu okkar.

The historical Krishna

Some scholars see Krishna as an historical figure who lived about 650 B.C. Sanskrit scholar David Frawley believes that astronomical references in Hindu texts as well as recent archaeological findings reveal that Krishna lived at least as early as 1400 B.C. Hindu tradition says Krishna was born in 3102 B.C., the beginning of the present age, known as the age of the Kali Yuga—the Age of Strife.

The name Krishna is derived from the Sanskrit word meaning “black” or “dark blue.” He is often depicted as having dark skin—sometimes blue, sometimes blue-black or black.

Information about Krishna comes to us from various Hindu scriptures. They relate detailed episodes from Krishna’s life, including his early days as a mischievous child and amorous youth. Most scholars believe that these stories are an embellishment of the historical Krishna. Here are some of the highlights that are recounted.

Childhood and Youth

Krishna was born in a region south of Delhi, India. Before his birth a voice from heaven prophesies that he will destroy his uncle, the wicked king Kamsa. Immediately after Krishna’s birth his father, through divine intervention, smuggles the newborn to safety to live among the cowherds.

Kamsa attempts to kill Krishna by sending his henchmen and demons to slaughter all the male babies. But the baby Krishna miraculously slays these demons, one by one. As a child, Krishna is brought up by Nanda, the leader of the cowherds, and his wife Yasóda.

The Sanskrit word for cowherds is gopas. Female cowherds are gopis. Gopala and Govinda are names that refer to Krishna as a young cowherd. Gopala means “protector of the cows” and Govinda means “one who is pleasing to the cows and the senses.” What we realize is that this is symbolical of Krishna being the protector of all souls and also the one who quickens and activates our spiritual senses.

Author David R. Kinsley paints the picture of the child Krishna:

Krishna’s life suggests the freedom of the divine. As a child, Krishna behaves with utter spontaneity. He scrambles around the cowherd village with his elder brother, plays with his own shadow, rolls in the dust, dances to make his bangles jingle, eats dirt despite his mother’s warning against it, laughs to himself or sits quietly absorbed in his own imaginings. Krishna passes his time in play, following every whim, acting without calculation, delighting the entire cowherd settlement.

As a boy, Krishna was fond of mischievous pranks such as stealing butter. This is the story of Krishna’s butter thefts based on A. S. P. Ayyar’s account in his book Sri Krishna, The Darling of Humanity.

[Krishna] had a host of friends among the cowherds of Nanda’s clan. The gopis gave Krishna newly prepared butter, but it was never enough for him and his friends. So he used to go into their houses with his friends and take as much butter as he wanted and distribute it.

Many were the complaints made to his mother. She chastised him and asked him to take as much butter as he liked from his own house, but she would not give him enough for all his friends. But Krishna told his mother that the butter he took stealthily from the other houses tasted sweeter!

Sometimes, the gopis caught him in the act of taking the butter, and they struck him with the churning-rods. He received the blows without wincing. This made the tender-hearted gopis atone for their cruelty by giving him as much butter as he wanted for himself and his friends. Krishna came to be known as “Fresh Butter Krishna.”

The butter left after Krishna helped himself had a finer flavor and was much in request among the buyers. They readily paid twice the price and fought for it. The gopis began to complain if Krishna did not go to their houses and help himself. Many gopis watched with great pleasure from behind a door as Krishna and his friends helped themselves to the butter.

Ayyar says the symbology of this is that devotees love to watch their offerings being accepted by the Lord.

Butter is significant to Hindus. Clarified butter, called ghrita or ghee, is the fuel in butter lamps used in Hindu religious services. To Hindus ghee symbolizes illumination and mental clarity. David Frawley points out that the word Christ, from the Greek word Christos (meaning anointed one), is related by derivation to the Sanskrit word ghrita. And so the interplay between the precious child Krishna and his friends represents the relationship between God and the soul on the path of bhakti yoga, the path of union with God through love. Kinsley explains the comparison:

As an infant and a child, Krishna is approachable. Particularly as an infant (but also as an adolescent and lover) Krishna is to be doted upon and coddled. He is to be approached with intimacy with which a parent approaches a child.

God, revealing himself as an infant, invites man to dispense with formality and undue respect and come to him openly, delighting in him intimately. The adorable, beautiful babe, so beloved by the entire Hindu tradition, does not demand servitude, pomp and praise when he is approached. His simplicity, charm, and infant spontaneity invite an intimate, parental response.

Throughout Krishna’s infancy and youth the wicked Kamsa sends numerous demons to kill Krishna. But Krishna dispatches them all with playful aplomb. One of Krishna’s most famous encounters is his fight with the many-headed serpent Kaliya. Kinsley relates:

Kaliya lives in a nearby stream and has poisoned its waters, causing the death of many cattle. Krishna arrives on the scene, surveys the situation, climbs into a tree and leaps into the poisonous waters, where he begins to bait the monster by swimming and playing there. The enraged Kaliya emerges from his lair beneath the waters and the battle begins.

Kaliya seems to get the upper hand at first, gripping Krishna in his coils. But Krishna is only humoring him. Freeing himself from Kaliya’s coils, he begins circling the demon until the serpent’s head begin to droop with exhaustion. Seeing his chance, Krishna jumps onto the heads of the serpent and begins to dance. By rhythmically stamping his feet Krishna tramples his enemy into submission.

Battered and bloody from Krishna’s dancing, Kaliya finally admits defeat and seeks refuge in Krishna’s mercy. Krishna, at the pleading of Kaliya’s wives, grants him his life but banishes him to an island in the ocean.... The mighty child Krishna is invincible.

Krishna, playing his flute, with the gopis, ca. 1790—1800, Guler/Kangra region

Krishna and the gopis

As a youth, Krishna embodies joy, grace and the transcendent beauty that magnetizes all who behold him. He plays on his flute and the magic of its sound enchants the gopis. When the gopis hear the sound of his flute, they stop whatever they are doing and run to Krishna. The otherworldly sound of the flute even distracts the gods! Says Kinsley:

The whole creation can concentrate on nothing but the sound of the flute.... Its sound puts an abrupt end to man’s mechanical, habitual activity as well as to the predictable movements of nature.... The sound of Krishna’s flute is more than a melody. It is a summons. It calls souls back to their Lord.

The greatest love existed between Krishna and Radha, the most beautiful of the gopis. Radha is the embodiment of pure devotion and divine bliss. Krishna is everything to her. She is considered by some to be the incarnation of Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu who vowed to be with him in all his incarnations.

Krishna’s love for the gopis and the gopis’ love for him are symbolic of the divine romance between God and the soul, the Guru and the chela. Just as the gopis pine for Krishna, so the soul pines for God.

Later years

When Krishna becomes a young man, he and his brother return to the city and kill the wicked king Kamsa. Krishna then goes to the western coast of India and establishes a fortress city at Dwarka. As is the custom of the time, he has a large harem and sires many children.

At the outset of a great war both warring factions request Krishna’s aid. He lends his army to one side and serves as charioteer on the other side. Krishna is the charioteer of the great warrior Arjuna, his friend and disciple. On the eve of the battle Krishna instructs Arjuna about the four paths of union with God. The Bhagavad Gita recounts their dialogue.

After the war Krishna returns to Dwarka. One day the people of the city take to drinking and fighting. A kind of madness overtakes them and they slaughter each other. Krishna retreats to the forest. A huntsman mistakes him for a deer and shoots him in the heel, his only vulnerable point. Krishna dies from this wound.

Bhagavad Gíta

Bhagavad Gíta þýðir "söngur Guðs". Hún er rituð sem samræða milli Krishna og Arjúna. Krishna lýsir sjálfum sér sem „Drottni alls sem andar“ og „Drottni sem dvelur í hjarta allra vera,“ sem merkir þann sem er sameinaður Guði, þann sem hefur náð þeirri sameiningu sem er Guð. Hann segir: „Þegar góðmennskan veikist, þegar illskan eykst rís andi minn á jörðu. Á hverju tímabili kem ég aftur til að frelsa hina heilögu, til að eyða synd syndarans, til að koma á réttlæti.“

Arjúna er vinur og lærisveinn Krishna. Umgjörðin er aðdragandi mikils bardaga til að ákvarða hver muni stjórna ríkinu. Krishna á að vera vagnstjóri Arjúna. Rétt áður en bardaginn hefst hikar Arjúna því hann verður að berjast við og drepa sína eigin frændur. Krishna útskýrir fyrir Arjúna að hann verði að fara í bardagann vegna þess að það er dharma hans - skylda hans eða tilgangur tilveru hans. Hann tilheyrir stríðsmannastéttinni og hvað sem öðru líður verður hann að berjast.

Hin hefðbundna túlkun hindúa á bardaganum er tvíþætt. Í fyrsta lagi táknar baráttan þá togstreitu sem Arjúna verður að eigast við til að uppfylla dharma sitt og endurheimta ríkið. Í öðru lagi táknar baráttan stríðið sem hann verður að heyja innra með sér milli góðra og illra afla — æðra og lægra eðlis síns.

Krishna fræðir Arjúna um fjögur jógakerfi, eða leiðir sameiningarinnar við Guð, og segir að iðka eigi allar jógaleiðirnar. Jógakerfin fjögur eru þekking (jnana jóga), hugleiðsla (raja jóga), vinna (karma jóga) og kærleikur og tilbeiðsla (bhakti jóga). Með sjálfsþekkingu, með hugleiðslu um Guð innra með sér, með því að vinna verk Guðs til að jafna karma og auka gott karma og með kærleiksríkri tilbeiðslu uppfyllum við fjórar leiðir hinna fjögurra lægri líkama — minnislíkamans, hugarlíkamans, löngunarlíkamans (geðlíkamans) og efnislíkamans.

Krishna showing his universal form to Arjuna, print from India from the 1940s

Christ and Krishna

In the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna says to Krishna, “If, O Lord, You think me able to behold it,... reveal to me your immutable Self.” When Krishna reveals his Divine Being to Arjuna, Arjuna beholds the whole universe inside of Krishna. Based on this passage many have concluded that Krishna is the supreme God and the supreme Lord. And of course he is. But just as Lord Jesus never declared himself to be the exclusive Son of God, so Lord Krishna never declared himself to be the exclusive supreme God or supreme Lord.

I believe that Lord Krishna unveiled himself to Arjuna as the incarnation of Vishnu, the Second Person of the Eastern and Western Trinity. Krishna revealed his Godhood so that all of us, as Arjunas, as disciples, could see the goal of our Divinity before us. Truly the one who has attained union with God is become that God. There is no separation.

I see Arjuna as the archetypal soul of each of us and Krishna as the charioteer of our soul. Krishna is one with your Higher Self right now, your Holy Christ Self. Visualize Lord Krishna in his incarnation as Vishnu (the Cosmic Christ) as your Higher Self. See him occupying the position of your Holy Christ Self on the Chart of Your Divine Self as the Mediator between your soul and your I AM Presence, your charioteer for life. He will drive that chariot with you there at his side all the way back to the Central Sun. Lord Krishna can be thought of as your “Holy Krishna Self,” if you will. He can place his presence over each person.

The idea is God-identification. We have identified ourselves as humans. God descends into incarnation as an avatar and so we see what was our original blueprint, what were we intended to be, how far have we strayed from this incarnation of God. What do we see in ourselves that is no longer acceptable when we see ourselves in the mirror and look in that mirror and see Krishna, see Jesus Christ, see Gautama Buddha? We begin to see very quickly there are things we can simply do away with.

Lord Krishna can place his Presence one with your Holy Christ Self, multiplying himself a billion times a billion. Yet there is only one Krishna, one Universal Krishna consciousness. This is something you come to understand as you move into the vibration of Krishna. He is Universal God consciousness as well as Universal Christ consciousness. Does that mean that Jesus is not? Of course not. Does that mean that Gautama is not? Of course not.

This is the great mystery of the breaking of the bread at the Last Supper, that each crumb and each morsel is the equivalent of the whole loaf. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ embodies the Universal Christ consciousness. So does Lord Maitreya, Lord Gautama, Lord Sanat Kumara, the Dhyani Buddhas. Lord Krishna and Lord Jesus teach us the way of Godhood and Sonship respectively. And they—with untold numbers of the heavenly hosts who have realized Christ consciousness, Buddha consciousness and Krishna consciousness—are with us every hour to show us how we can become as they are: God-free beings fulfilling our respective roles as we are a part of the Mystical Body of God.

The ascended masters and all hosts who make up the heavenly hierarchy are surely not in competition with each other for “who is greatest in the kingdom.” They know that one drop in the ocean is as good as the whole ocean. And they know that God has broken the bread of Life so that each one in his own time may become the whole loaf—but never exclusively.

Krishna (Vor í Kúlú), Nicholas Roerich (1930)

Heilun innra barnsins

Drottinn Krishna hefur heitið því að veita liðsjá við að lækna innra barnið þegar við syngjum möntrur og bhajan til hans. Beiðni hans er að við virðum fyrir okkur nærveru hans yfir okkur á þeim aldri þegar við upplifðum tilfinningalegt áfall, líkamlegan sársauka, andlegan sársauka, í þessari ævi eða á fyrrum æviskeiðum. Við getum beðið um að þessir atburðir í lífi okkar líði fyrir Þriðja auga orkustöðina okkar eins og glærur sem færast yfir skjá eða jafnvel kvikmynd. Metið aldurinn sem þið voruð á þegar áfallið varð. Sjáið síðan fyrir ykkur Drottin Krishna á þessum aldri – sex mánaða, sex ára, tólf ára, fimmtíu ára – og sjáið hann standa yfir ykkur og yfir öllu ástandinu.

Ef aðrar persónur eiga þátt í þessari sviðsmynd sem hafa valdið sársaukanum, sjáið fyrir ykkur nærveru Drottins Krishna yfir þeim líka. Farið með tilbeiðslumöntruna og sönginn þar sem þið úthellið svo miklum kærleika til Drottins Krishna að hann taki við ást ykkar, margfaldi hana í gegnum hjarta sitt, endursendi hana til ykkar og umbreyti þessari sviðsmynd og þessari minningaskrá. Ef þið sjáið Drottin Krishna færast yfir alla aðila vandamálsins, reiðina, álagið, getið þið komist í skilning um að þið getið staðfest í hjarta ykkar að það er í raun enginn veruleiki til nema Guð. Aðeins Guð er raunveruleiki og Guð setur nærveru sína yfir aðstæðurnar með persónugervingu sjálfs síns í Drottni Krishna.

Til frekari upplýsinga

Elizabeth Clare Prophet hefur gefið út hljóðupptökur af guðræknum lögum, Krishna: The Maha Mantra and Bhajans, sem hægt er að nota til að lækna sársaukafullar minningar. Fáanlegar hjá www.AscendedMasterLibrary.org.

Heimildir

Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, The Masters and Their Retreats, sjá “Krishna.”

Lecture by Elizabeth Clare Prophet, “Krishna, the Divine Lover of Your Soul,” July 1, 1993. Available from www.AscendedMasterLibrary.org.