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 16 of Isopanishad,
pūṣann ekarṣe yama sūrya prājāpatya
vyūha raśmīn samūha tejo
yat te rūpaṁ kalyāṇa-tamaṁ tat te paśyāmi
yo ’sāv asau puruṣaḥ so ’ham asmi
O my Lord, O primeval philosopher, maintainer of the universe, O regulating principle, destination of the pure devotees, well-wisher of the progenitors of mankind, please remove the effulgence of Your transcendental rays so that I can see Your form of bliss. You are the eternal Supreme Personality of Godhead, like unto the sun, as am I.
We shall continue to meditate on the next glorification - 'The Regulating Principle'.
Glorification 22 - The Lord is the regulating principle: In the above verse, 'yama' means regulating principle. We need rules and regulations to maintain harmony in the society. Every country or government has its own set of rules and regulations. Similarly, when the material world was created, the Lord created rules and regulations for mankind in the form of the vedic scriptures so that they could become God conscious by following them. Those who follow the vedic scriptures are good samaritans (devotees) and those who do not follow are demons. Just as every government has different departments like police etc to govern the rules and regulations, similarly from a varna-ashrama point of view the Kshatriyas/Kings were supposed to govern the subjects. As the number of demons increase in the society it becomes hard for the kings to maintain religiosity in the society. And what to think about a society where the king or politicians themselves are not God conscious and not following the vedic scriptures. This is exactly what is happening in the current era. As Krishna says in Srimad Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4, verse 7, "Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion, at that time I descend Myself." He further says in verse 8, "To deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I Myself appear, millennium after millennium." So Krishna acts as the regulating principle by getting rid of the demoniac forces, by protecting the devotees and by re-instituting the religious principles. When He advented 5000 years ago, He killed innumerable demons and protected the Pandavas and all other devotees. By re-instituting Yudhishtira as the King, He re-instituted the religious principles for the world. Also, when the Lord advented in the form of Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu 500 years ago, He spread the sankirtan movement which liberated so many people and is still continuing to do so.
The Lord regulates the movements of all the parts of our body. He, as the Supersoul is the generating and the regulating force of the ten kinds of air within our body which sustains our life. By His order and mercy the ten airs - Prana, Apana, Udana, Samana, Vyana, Naga, Krkara, Kurma, Devadatta and Dhananjaya circulate within the body. Whenever the functional movement of these airs get blocked, there is ailment in different parts in our body. When the weather is hot, the body temperature gets automatically adjusted to become cooler and when the weather is cold, then the body temperature is adjusted to become warmer. Hence we can understand that we cannot maintain our own body without the mercy of the Lord who acts as the ultimate regulating principle.
The Lord also regulates the entire universe by keeping all the ingredients together. For eg., the wind speed, amount of rain, amount of sunlight, the rising and setting of sun and moon, are all regulated. If we have too much or too little of any of these then we can't live. For eg., if it is too windy like here in Wellington, it is hard to live comfortably. The sun always rises and sets at particular time of the day depending on the weather, it is never late or early. Also, the distance between the sun and the earth is so accurately adjusted that if the sun was a little further from the earth it would be too cold on the earth and if it was a little closer it would be too hot on earth. The different weathers summer, winter, spring and autumn are all regulated. Though in the Kali yuga the weathers get mixed up and may not be on time, but during the reign of Lord Krishna everything was perfectly arranged and regulated.
The Lord is beyond the rules and regulations of the material world, but He still follows them to show an example. He says in Srimad Bhagavad Gita 3.23-24, "For if I ever failed to engage in carefully performing prescribed duties, O Partha, certainly all men would follow My path and If I did not perform prescribed duties, all these worlds would be put to ruination. I would be the cause of creating unwanted population, and I would thereby destroy the peace of all living beings". When Krishna was present on the earth He regulated all the activities of His day. He would get up early in the morning, perform all His morning chores, meditate on Himself, give charity to Brahmins etc. He followed all the customs and regulations of the society for e.g. taking shiksha from a Guru, respecting elders etc.
So, all in all Krishna is the most regulated person and is also the regulating principle for all of us to live and follow Him. When we follow the regulative principles, we become very close to Krishna. Hence, it is very important that we regulate our lives by daily getting up early, performing mangal arati, doing our japa during Brahma muhurta and following all the rules and regulations set forth by Srila Prabhupada and our acharyas. This will help us to progress in Krishna consciousness. Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming emails.
Thank you very much.
Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev,
Anand Patil
Wellington, New Zealand.
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