Dr K K Aggarwal

eMedinewS Editorial

The Message of Love and Happiness as Understood from Krishna

Reading about Krishna, one understands the way of acquiring inner happiness. It can be understood by the four cycles of Krishna described in the vedic literature: Krishna the Child; Krishna the Husband and Friend; Krishna the Preacher and Krishna the Sanyasi.

The childhood of Krishna describes the methodology and components of a child education. Krishna, pure consciousness, was born as the eight child of Devki representing that during pregnancy one needs to follow the eight limbs of yoga to get a child with no disease.

A newborn and during initial childhood, the child is full of pure consciousness that spreads love to everyone without any discrimination. The only thing the child does during this period is to steal and spread love and that is what Krishna as Makhan Chor depicts.

With time, the child’s mental faculties start developing that distract the child’s mind. During this phase of life, the child needs to be taught to control the thoughts and mind by learning viveka (discrimination between good and bad) and doing abhyas. The episode of Krishna entering into the pond (thoughts) fighting with Kaliya (mind) and controlling it represents the same. This also coincides with the time a child should be sent to the school.

The next phase of childhood is activation of intellect which in Krishna’s life is depicted as the questions in his mind such as “Radha kyun gori, main kyun kala?” This starts when the child is exposed to the worldly atmosphere and starts getting attached to it. This is the time when the child should be taught control of mind and intellect by one point concentration on the object of concentration. This is also the time when the child should be taught the purpose of life, and the aim for which he has to live in future.

In Krishna Leela, Krishna controls the intellect by winning over Indra and raising Govardhan Parvat on one finger. One finger here indicates one point concentration on the object of concentration. Once the child is taught control of intellect, he/she completes his/her spiritual education and learns about the true self. In Krishna Leela, it coincides with Ras Leela where Krishna is seen dancing with Radha and every Gopi. This also reflects the time for the internal ego to be destroyed and one acquires the qualities of humility. Killing of Kansa depicts destroying the ego. Once the ego is killed and humility is acquired, Radha and flute are no more required and Krishna is now a perfect man and enters into the Grahasth ashram.

Krishna is always depicted in blue color with yellow clothes and a flute in his hands. Blue color indicates everything is possible and yellow clothes indicate that one can acquire it, provided one has the flute which is a hollow wood representing egoless nature.

Whenever Krishna is shown with a flute, the lady alongside is Radha with blue sari whose skin is golden in color, along with Gopis dancing around them indicating that the thoughts of the mind are in symphony with each other and there is a union of mind, body and soul. Here the soul is represented by Krishna, egoless mind by the flute and body with the Radha.

The subsequent phase of Krishna’s life is shown as a perfect achiever and friend, which is evident from the story of Sudama.

The third phase of Krishna’s life represent Krishna as an advisor, which shows his role in Mahabharata and his preaching in Bhagwad Gita.

The last role of Krishna as a sanyasi is the end of Krishna’s life. The four cycles also coincide with the four ashrams of life.

The message from Krishna’s life is to learn to make efforts to control the mind, to win over the intellect by one point concentration and to acquire qualities of humility and killing internal ego to achieve inner happiness. Only then can one acquire the personality of a perfect man like Krishna.

Dr KK Aggarwal
Editor in Chief