20240826 Śrī Kṛṣṇa Janmāṣṭamī Morning Class

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānandaṁ mādhavaṁ śrī caitanya iśvaram
hariḥ oṁ tat sa

Jayapatākā Swami:  

śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda
śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda

Śubha Janmāṣṭamī! Happy Janmāṣṭamī. So we are very happy to be celebrating the sacred Janmāṣṭamī today.  Today is the most auspicious day of the whole year. So we are celebrating, how Kṛṣṇa came from Goloka Vṛndāvana to this planet. Kṛṣṇa comes every day of Brahmā. And He comes to display His pastimes. Of course, He was thinking that He enjoyed His pastimes so much. But it has been a long time since I distributed this prema, He thought. So He decided to come as Lord Caitanya. Today we are celebrating the day that He decided to come as Himself. He appeared as the son of Vasudeva and Devakī.

So, Devakī and Vasudeva were in the prison house of Kaṁsa. Because when Kaṁsa was driving Devakī and Vasudeva on their wedding day, then an ākāśavāṇī, voice from the sky, said, that the eighth son of Devakī would kill Him. Then He wanted to immediately kill Devakī. Vasudeva tried in different ways to pacify Kaṁsa. It is not very good if he kills his sister on her wedding day! But none of these logics had any meaning to Kaṁsa. But then Vasudeva said he would give every child to Kaṁsa after their birth. This pacified Kaṁsa because Kaṁsa knew very well that Vasudeva was a satyavādī, a very truthful person. They were in the prison house and had already given six children to Kaṁsa. The seventh child was Balarāma and He was transferred from the womb of Devakī to Rohiṇī. So they thought that the seventh child was a miscarriage.

So Kṛṣṇa, He doesn’t descend in the ordinary way. The ordinary way is by seminal discharge. So, He came in the mind of Vasudeva. Vasudeva was very effulgent at that time. But no one could see because he was in the prison house. Then from his mind to the mind of Devakī, Kṛṣṇa was transferred. And then from Devakī’s mind Kṛṣṇa came to her heart. And Kṛṣṇa could simultaneously be in her womb. And Devakī at that time was extremely effulgent. She was like a ball of fire which is inside a room and not able to be seen. So although she was effulgent carrying Kṛṣṇa, but no one could see that. So, she was appearing very effulgent and the devas from the heavenly planets, they came and saw Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa appeared on this aṣṭamī tithi. And He came with His hair, jewelry and fully dressed! He wanted to show Devakī and Vasudeva that He was the Supreme Personality of Godhead! They had undergone austerities to have Kṛṣṇa as their child. So, therefore, He wanted to show that He had fulfilled their desires. They were very happy to have Kṛṣṇa as their child! But they were afraid that Kaṁsa would come and take Him away. So then Kṛṣṇa told Vasudeva to take Him to the house of Yaśodā and Nanda Mahārāja. He did not know how he was to cross the Yamunā river. Devakī had told Kṛṣṇa to take a baby form. She thought that He would be safer as a baby. So the Yamunā river made a path for Vasudeva. Yaśodā, she did not know what the gender of her baby was! She had a girl baby and Vasudeva put Lord Kṛṣṇa and took the girl baby. Then he went back to the prison house of Kaṁsa. Then the guards, they all fell asleep. They were asleep when Vasudeva left and when he came back. When Kaṁsa heard was born, then he said, 8^th baby, wow! But Vasudeva said that this baby is a girl! She will become the wife of your son. But Kaṁsa was a demon. So he did not want to take any chances. He grabbed the baby by her feet and wanted to smash her head on the wall! The baby flew out of Kaṁsa’s hands and took the form of Durgā! So, demons are very respectful to Durgā. So, he felt bad that he had killed all these children. And Durgā Devī told him that his death will come from somewhere else.

Even the voice from the sky did not tell the truth. So Kaṁsa was thinking. So Devakī and Vasudeva were released from the prison house. So, there is a whole history how Kaṁsa was born. And so, Kaṁsa did not know where Kṛṣṇa was. But Kṛṣṇa stayed ten years and some months in the house of Nanda Mahārāja and Yaśodā. Kaṁsa had sent his demon friends to try to find Kṛṣṇa. So Pūtanā, she came as a beautiful lady. “Oh, your beautiful child, I would like to feed him my breast milk!” Now Pūtanā came with poison smeared on her breasts. So, the ladies, Yaśodā did not imagine that she was a demoness. So she picked up Kṛṣṇa from the lap of Yaśodā and put Him on her chest. So like this Pūtanā had been killing many babies. But Kṛṣṇa, He could not be killed. And now Kṛṣṇa sucked the poison smeared breast of Pūtanā and sucked out the life air of Pūtanā. Pūtanā was crying, “Ah! Ah! Leave me! Leave me!” And Kṛṣṇa sucked out her prāṇa, her life! So while Kṛṣṇa was still a baby of Yaśodā, He had already killed one demon.

In this way Kṛṣṇa came down from the spiritual world to this planet. He was enjoying the pastimes with His friends and parents. When He was still a crawling baby, He had the dāmodara-līlā. So, Kṛṣṇa was living in Gokula, in Vṛndāvana and Kaṁsa was sending demons. So, Brahmā, he came but he was bewildered by Kṛṣṇa.   He came in his time scale of one second. For our time, it was one year. So Kṛṣṇa had expanded Himself into all the cows and friends of Kṛṣṇa.

While this was going on, Nārada Muni advised to have all the children married. But all the male children were actually Kṛṣṇa. So in one sense everyone was married to Kṛṣṇa. So then Brahma came back after his one second and he was thinking here are all the boys and cows I had kept in the cave, what happened?! Baladeva noticed that the cowherd men and women loved the cows and the cowherd boys earlier, the same way they were loving the calves even more now.  He was thinking what is going on? So like this, the cows were running down the hill to give milk to their calves. So, this was quite amazing to Balarāma! So he was trying to figure out why this change? So like this, because Kṛṣṇa had expanded Himself as the calves and the cowherd boys, so their natural affection for Kṛṣṇa was being manifest.

So we should also be feeling that natural affection for Kṛṣṇa. Like that, Kṛṣṇa was having different pastimes in Vṛndāvana. There were Kāliya, Aghāsura, different demons came. But Kāliya was not sent by Kaṁsa. But in the kāliya-līlā, Lord Balarāma came later because it was His birthday! So He came a little later! Because Yaśodā and Rohiṇī they were doing a birth festival for Him. Just like the devotees when their baby has a birthday, they bring a cake. And they ask me to cut the cake! I don’t know what the birth ceremony was, the anniversary, how they celebrated, I don’t think they had cake but they had some system.

In the GBC Conference they just published that Kṛṣṇa was only in Vṛndāvana 10 years and some months. Then He went to Mathurā along with Akrūra. And He killed the different wrestlers. A ten-year-old boy, fighting with professional wrestlers! Of course, Kṛṣṇa already was experiencing His Kishora age. Then He killed Kaṁsa. So like this, there are different pastimes of Kṛṣṇa.

Lord Caitanya, when He visited Vṛndāvana, He went to all the 12 forests. He went to Mathurā. So He was seeing all these pastime places. And His servant thought that Lord Caitanya when He talked about Vṛndāvana, he would get like a 100 times or 1000 times ecstatic. But when He came Himself to Vṛndāvana, Mathurā, His love and mood was millions of times greater!

Anyway, today is the auspicious day of Kṛṣṇa’s Janmāṣṭamī! He appeared in a prison house of Kaṁsa.

Śrī Kṛṣṇa Bhagavān kī jaya!

Any questions or comment?

I think today they are having a special dress for the Deities! That is why class is early.

Question: Thank you for the very sweet class Guru Mahārāja. When there is a birthday celebration in the family everybody takes part, but why is it that Kṛṣṇa was not present in the birthday of Balarāma, but went to defeat and kill Kāliya?

Jayapatākā Swami: Because He had to take care of the cows. Maybe in your family everybody stays. But Kṛṣṇa’s family was not like that!

So it is 8 o clock, let us go and see the Deities!