Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis,
Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!
We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the last few offerings, we were seeing few of the glories of Lord mentioned in verse 8 of Isopanishad,
sa paryagāc chukram akāyam avraṇam
asnāviraḿ śuddham apāpa-viddham
kavir manīṣī paribhūḥ svayambhūr
yāthātathyato ’rthān vyadadhāc chāśvatībhyaḥ samābhyaḥ
Such a person must factually know the greatest of all, the Personality of Godhead, who is unembodied, omniscient, beyond reproach, without veins, pure and uncontaminated, the self-sufficient philosopher who has been fulfilling everyone's desire since time immemorial.
We shall continue to meditate on the following quality - pure and uncontaminated.
Glorification 14 - The Lord is supreme pure: In the above verse śuddham means pure or antiseptic. Krishna is Supreme pure. In Bhagavad Gita verse 10.12, Arjuna glorifies the Lord as 'pavitraṁ paramaṁ', Supreme pure. So simply by hearing about Him and His pastimes, we become pure. Material contamination and anarthas are big obstacles in the path of spiritual progress. In his wonderful purport to verse 1.2.18 of Srimad Bhagavatam, His Divine Grace mentions that how association of Bhagavatas, (both book Bhagavata as well as person Bhagavata), gradually we become free of anarthas and fixed in devotional service. So we should regularly hear Krishna katha and also humbly serve the devotees. The Lord is often compared to the Sun. The sun extracts moisture from many untouchable places on the earth, yet it remains pure. In fact, it purifies obnoxious things by virtue of its sterilizing powers. If the sun which is a material object, is so powerful, then we can hardly begin to imagine the purifying strength of the all powerful Lord. Krishna's Names are also pure. Srila Rupa Goswami mentions in Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu 2.2.233,
nāma cintāmaṇiḥ kṛṣṇaś caitanya-rasa-vigrahaḥ
pūrṇaḥ śuddho nitya-mukto ’bhinnatvān nāma-nāminoḥ
The holy name of Krishna is transcendentally blissful. It bestows all spiritual benedictions, for it is Krishna Himself, the reservoir of all pleasure.Krishna's name is complete, and it is the form of all transcendental mellows. It is not a material name under any condition, and it is no less powerful than Krishna Himself. Since Krishna's name is not contaminated by the material qualities, there is no question of its being involved with maya. Krishna's name is always liberated and spiritual; it is never conditioned by the laws of material nature. This is because the name of Krishna and Krishna Himself are identical.
Glorification 15 - The Lord is uncontaminated: In the mantra 8 of Isopanishad Krishna is also referred here as apāpa-viddham which means He is without any material contamination, or in other words nothing sinful can affect Him. Just like sunshine. Infection cannot touch sunshine. Some viruses/bacteria can infect us because we have less potential. But it cannot infect the sun. Rather, the sunshine will sterilize the infection. So anything infectious, anything sinful cannot infect Krishna. Rather sinful activities in touch with Krishna will become purified. Srila Prabhupada explains in a lecture in this regard, "Just like if we go into the fire, we burn into ashes, but if Krishna enters, nothing happens to Him. Once there was a forest fire in Vrindavana, the cows, the cowherd boys, all the inhabitants, became very much afraid of the forest fire. But they had no means to stop it. They began to pray to Krishna, "Krishna, save us." Krishna easily swallowed up the fire. That is Krishna. That is the difference between Krishna and ourselves."
Krishna says in Bhagavad gita 18.66, that ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi - So Krishna is so powerful He can immediately takes up all the sins of others and remove them. In the pastime of Putana, we see that she actually came to harm Krishna, but Krishna out of His causeless mercy, actually purified and liberated her and made Putana as His mother in spiritual abode. There is also another instance wherein some of the cows and calves in Vrindavan wandered in the forest away from Krishna His gopa friends. Bahula, one of the cows was caught by a tiger who attempted to eat her. Bahula tried to explain to the tiger that she had begotten a calf few days back and it was really important for her to feed her calf. The tiger initially refused but then gave in with the condition that Bahula would have to return back the next day. Bahula went to her cowshed, fed her calf and went back to the cave next day. Seeing the honesty of Bahula even her cowherd owner and the calf followed her without her knowledge. Now the tiger had 3 choices as preys. Bahula didn't want her calf to die hence she desperately prayed to Krishna. Krishna immediately appeared there and chastised the tiger for not honoring the honesty of the cow. Krishna just touched the tiger and the tiger became sober and granted back the life of all 3 and left the cave. This pastime shows that just by the touch of the Lord, even a ferocious animal like the tiger gets transformed and purified.
In the Jharkand forest, tigers and deers danced together in joy, when Mahaprabhu submerged them in the bliss of Hari kirtan. Because Caitanya Mahaprabhu was pure and uncontaminated, He was able to purify even lower living entities like lions and deers. Similarly, Srila Prabhupada by establishing the Hare Krishna movement, has been continuously saving millions of souls from the quagmire of illusion. The only way to show our gratitude to His Divine Grace and Mahaprabhu is by glorifying them and thereby purify our existence.
Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming offerings.
Thank you very much.
Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev,
Anand Patil
Wellington, New Zealand.
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