Gopis' Love for Krishna

This little episode in Krishna's childhood   showcases how the Gopis of Vrindavan were totally immersed in  Krishna . 

The Gopis' were always so lost in thoughts of Krishna . In the mornings , they would walk through the lanes of Vraja , with the buttermilk pitchers on their heads, calling out - " Who wants to buy my Krishna?..Come , ye all, come have a taste of my sweet Krishna..?  " Of course, what they meant to say was  " Who wants to buy my buttermilk?" . No wonder, Krishna loved each Gopi so much.. Sigh.. 

Kanna, please let me be your Gopi too..

Tulsi Grove

#3

Krishna,  I was worrying a little at my dying Tulsi plants. There was nothing I could do as the soil was bad, so I replanted them. But my hopes of eventually creating a mini Tulsi Van ( a small grove of Tulsi plants) has grown dim.

When Sri Radha sought Pournamasi Devi’s advice on how to win Krishna’s heart, she advised her to please Sri Tulsi Devi , as Tulsi is very dear to Krishna . So, me thought of doing the same. Yet, all is not lost, I am happy to find tiny Tulsi plants growing on my dad’s pots on the terrace. And that too healthy ones. Maybe , Tulsi Devi .. dearest Vrinda gopi..wanted to say "Its alright, you don’t have to make a Tulsi van, I’ll grow anyways..coz I'm still pleased with you? " Hmm.. I don’t know, .. Pollination? ..never heard of it lol.

Bye for now Krishnaa..

* I used to pray to Tulsi devi thus - 

   Tulsi Pranama Mantra

   Vrindayai Tulsi Deviyai
   Priyayi Keshavasya cha
   Krishna Bhakti Prade Devi
   Satyavatyai namoh namaha 

   -  Hey Vrinde, Tulsi Devi, dearest of Keshava, the one who gives loving devotion towards Krishna for all, Hey Satyavati..I bow before you. * 

From My Old Diary ...

So.. Its been a while . I have such a lot going on in my life right now .  I really want to blog about all that as well ,  because I think it would be nice.. like maybe 20 years from now , I’d like to look back on my thoughts, views, hopes , the people that were a part of my life ,  things happening.. Hmm, maybe later though .

So now I’m just going to randomly post a few ‘letters’ to Krishna,  from my ooold diary , where I used to write down my thoughts about him , about 2 years back. It might seem rather juvenile , lol, but here goes ..

#1   When I got my  Idol of Krishna ..

Krishna, its been a while since this realization dawned on me regarding how much of a ‘’bhakt” , as I claim to be , I really am.

You have always been there for those who love you, you yourself make arrangements for us to increase our devotion to you, if we even take just the slightest step towards you.. Why? Because you love us too! Kanna, they say that if we take one step towards you, you take a hundred steps towards us ..

So, there I was, wishing I had an idol of you so that I could have your beautiful form to behold always..so that I could worship my Krishna even more. And you heard my wistful prayers I think . I went searching for you at that shop in Trichy, but you in Bronze was too expensive .. and heavy too, lol. But what a sight greeted me at the Emporium , a dozen blue Krishna statues, right at the entrance! But, I didn’t pick one, for reasons that are stupid , and  selfish . Yet you gave me a second chance . My uncle was going to Guruvayur, and Ammamma ( my grandmom) told him about my wish . Kanna , I really didn’t want you to make this a big deal, I felt a bit silly , becoz now others may start to wonder why I have suddenly gotten it in my head to want a Krishna idol .  Can you be more subtle, Krishna( *angry face at him*)I mean, what next, they’d think I was trying to be like Meerabai .. I am not! Think of that,  Kanna, me  walking the streets , with your idol in my arms, singing and dancing..haha.. Krishna, don’t get me wrong.. I just don’t want others to think whatever it is..They just won’t get it, Madhava. And you can’t blame them. I mean, this is the 21^st century, not the 15^th. 

Yes, you put me in this world in the wrong century!

So, I was caught between being a little mad at you, at the same time a little happy too.. coz this means you heard my wish, right? Maybe you were making this happen? ( More like coincidence..I know, but it’s still nice to think like that :) )  But alas, my ‘’fall from grace” it was to be..

When my uncle asked me what kind of Krishna I wanted, and whether a slightly small one would be fin, what did I do? I had my doubts. I wanted my Krishna to be beautiful, and just the right size. I couldn’t decide if a small one would make me happy, I didn’t want to be disappointed when I finally got you. Result -> I didn’t get you.

There. Can I be more selfish? The reason I wanted you was so that I could please you more, not myself.. not my senses!  How can I even go about wondering if you’d be exactly as I desired or not? If I truly loved you, would I have done that? I was trying to capture your enchanting face in my ‘’never got it’’ idol..how can your face not be as I wanted…(God knows, I imagine you in a thousand different ways ) , when I set my eyes, filled with love , on you?  My claims just proved to be false; I placed more importance on me than you. Dearest Madhava, please remove such stupid thoughts from my mind, I hope one day I would be worthy of You.

Krishna, the Gopis prayed to you to place your lotus feet upon their body and rid their mind of all feelings of false pride and selfish desire. Hari, this unworthy girl requests you to do the same. Make me pure in thought, so that I’ll love you more each passing day of my life.  . Yours, X .

# 2 Dear Krishna,

It has been a while since I wrote to you here ( ie,  my diary) , but quite a lot has happened. The much awaited Guruvayur trip has come and gone . Now it is back to work, debugging etc.. So, I finally got you here, Krishna , in my home..as my sweet Krishna idol. Everyone here totally thinks you look amazingly sweet and beautiful ..that you look like Guruvayurappan himself , you know, like there is this specially adorable something about you.... Kahi lag na jaaye tujhe, Duniya ki poore nazar.. :) Yes, I love you too!

I love the fact that everyone else at my home thinks/ talks about you a little more now, as compared to earlier. And now its no secret that Krishna holds my heart  and Krishna,  I don’t ever want it back .  Kind of cheesy, I know , lol.

Okay , apart from that, work is getting to be really tiring. Hari, please solve that Mahasiva’s ( a client from work) issue tomorrow , or help me . I am sick of trying to get his taxes tallied, and trying to solve  the " Mystery of the Missing Documents ". And Indofil’s and Endurance's issue are pending too.. Why do I get such kind of issues? Hmm..

On a different note, I happened to come across this blog  of a devotee , in some remote location in the world . Krishna, I love it when someone far removed from here , ie India, someone in the Finnish countryside, is your devotee . Wow,,people like that are really inspiring in many ways . So Krishna, thanks for everything you continue to do for me and everything I have . As for these slight ‘ troubles’  in life ( read..Mahasiva’s unsolvable? Issue , etc ..) well , I’ll deal with that. Soo.. bye for now..Love you!

I'd love to wake up like this

This happened a few months back. The early hours of a Wednesday morning. I was sleeping , this wasn't even close to the time I'd normally wake up.   I get up around 7.00 . Something jolted me to consciousness. I was sleepily wondering what, when I heard it . People were calling out Krishna's names..! I could hear their voices coming closer . 'Govinda' ..Gopal ..Bolo'..and the Hare Krishna chants! All traces of sleep left me, and I jumped out of bed . At first I thought it was some Pooja in my neighbours house, and spent a few minutes staring out my window. Thats when the voices got closer . I dashed out my room , across the hall and hurriedly tried to unlock the door to the sit-out. I could hear my brother (in the room across the hall) asking my mom..'Huh? What in the world is that?' Well, by the time I managed to open the door, they had gone past my house. 

Turns out they were people from some Ashram near somewhere. Kind of like the Hare Krishnas ,  I think.  I've only just heard about them and all  .  It was great waking up to Krishnas names like that. My mom was amused at all this. She was like  'Usually you don't wake up even after we calling you a hundred times . But you hear the word 'Krishna ', and you jump out of bed..Silly/Crazy girl..' My brother gave me a resigned look and went back to bed. 

I wouldn't mind waking up like this everyday though :)

Hare Krishna!

'Unending Love' ~ Rabindranath Tagore

I love most of the poems by Rabindranath Tagore. I absolutely , love this one (translated from the original Bengali version by William Radice )

Unending Love

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…

In life after life, in age after age, forever.

My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,

That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,

In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,

Its ancient tale of being apart or together.

As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,

Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:

You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.

At the heart of time, love of one for another.

We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same

Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-

Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you

The love of all man’s days both past and forever:

Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.

The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours –

And the songs of every poet past and forever.

Reminds us of who? ;)

Gopi Gita

Here is one rendering I love. It is not the full version though. The translation is available on the  video too. 

Krishna Is...

( Written on a day when I first heard the Gopi Gita)

Krishna,

The 'Gopi Gita' or the 'Song of the Gopis ' so beautifully portrays the feelings of the Gopis when You left them during the Maharaas. I can only imagine what your beloved gopis went through..when you later left Vrindavan for good, never to return .Your childhood at Vraja had come to an end. Krishna, the part of your life that will , in the times to come , be remembered lovingly was coming to an end .

When I first read about you leaving Braja, in this book someone gifted to my mom 'Krishnayanam', I cried my eyes out. I was around eight or nine , yet i felt so sad . If someone, who has only an image of 'Krishna' , carried across thousands of years, sung,made into serials and writtten upon..be so affected by Krishna's departuure ( as described in a book)..then what would have been the condition of the Brajwasis?

They knew Kanha since he was born. Yashoda's darling son was part of their lives in ways inseparable and unknown even to them.  They were losing their son, friend, lover..for Krishna was all that and more to them . I love the Gopi Geet. But some parts of it are especially sweet..- Like when the gopis remember how Krishna had saved them from Kaliya, from the demons and protected them. Why? Because here we see how the gopis loved Krishna- They knew him since he was a little child. Loved him with that affection that you feel for someone whom you've known your entire life so far, someone who makes your day, whom you can tease, talk about anything with,,with no inhibitions at all. He was an integral part of each Brajwasis' life, not just of the Gopis' . 

But Krishna had to fulfill the purpose of his avataar on Earth. His childhood lilas in Brindavan had to end., to be immortalised forever..the sweetest chapter in Krishna's life had to be closed. 

Imagine, if Krishna hadn't left Vraja, all those other roles he played wouldn't be there for us. If he had not spoken the Bhagvad Gita to Arjuna, what would people in this age  have, to hold on to? For, their link with Krishna is his words. Yes, Krishna's words. Words that urge you to fight for what is right, to shed your weakness, words that give happiness and comfort and timeless wisdom..his promises to those who would love him after he left Earth. 

So, if our Krishna did not leave his childhood home, there would be no Gita, no Draupadi to surrender to Krishna, no Sudama - he would not be someone who lived a full  life. Someone whom everyone can relate or look up to. 

My dad , for instance , is all for the wisdom in the Gita.  He considers Krishna as ..I really don't know..as God? ..as a great soul who spoke words to live by. His childhood and other aspects we love so much, doesn't interest him much. Whenever I see him poring over the Gita, or writing something down..etc. Or, when we go to temples and places like that, and i see all these people selling devotional stuff.. a shop selling idols of Krishna..an old man selling flower garlands for him. These lines always come to my mind ~ 

~ The scholars immeresed in all their pursuits,
And the merchants immersed , in making money,
No matter who, they all are singing,
Govinda Damodar Madhaveti~ 
( parts from an English version of 'Govind Damodar Madhaveti') 

Okay, the whole of that kirtan is about how every one,  in one way or another remembers Krishna.
Krishna, I really don't know what I meant to write here..but just this - 

Thank You , for You, Krishnaa :)

~And as the Gopis finished singing the Gopi Geet, Krishna appeared before them ... :)

Love,
Lost Gopi