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 Srimad Bhagavad Gita. We now move on to the next glorification.
Glorification 29 - Lord is glorified as Madhusudana: In Srimad Bhagavad Gita verse 1.35, the Lord is addressed as Madhusudana. He is primarily referred so because He killed the demon Madhu. In fact He is addressed Madhusudana in many places in the Bhagavad Gita verses 1.35, 2.1, 2.4, 6.33 and 8.2. In the purport to Bhagavad Gita verse 2.1, Srila Prabhupada very nicely describes the significance of Arjuna calling Krishna as Madhusudana. He says, "Lord Krishna killed the demon Madhu, and now Arjuna wanted Krishna to kill the demon of misunderstanding that had overtaken him in the discharge of his duty." Srila Baladeva Vidyabhushana comments that the use of this particular name implies that Krishna can kill grief of Arjuna just as He had killed Madhu in the past.
Srila Prabhupada writes in Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.9.37 purport, "The Supreme Personality of Godhead in His transcendental form is always ready to give protection to His devotees. As mentioned herein, the Lord in the form of Hayagriva killed two demons named Madhu and Kaitabha when they attacked Lord Brahma. Modern demons think that there was no life in the beginning of creation, but from Srimad-Bhagavatam we understand that the first living creature created by the Supreme Personality of Godhead was Lord Brahma, who is full of Vedic understanding. Unfortunately, those entrusted with distributing Vedic knowledge, such as the devotees engaged in spreading Krishna consciousness, may sometimes be attacked by demons, but they must rest assured that demoniac attacks will not be able to harm them, for the Lord is always prepared to give them protection."
Hence one of the important understanding we get from the name Madhusudana is that the Lord always protects us by destroying the enemies in our devotional service. Our enemies are in the form of our doubts, misunderstanding, grief and so many other anarthas. These anarthas bewilder us and are like stumbling blocks in our path of bhakti. But as Srila Prabhupada assures all these demoniac thoughts will be wiped out if we take shelter of Lord. Thus remembering this name of Krishna always gives us a lot of courage in performing our devotional service with full enthusiasm.
Srila Sridhar Swami gives some extra sweetness to this sweet name. He says that the name Madhusudana does not only mean "He who defeated the demon Madhu," but it also means "He who defeats honey [madhu] in sweetness." He defines the name thus: "False ego is as sweet as honey and resides in the heart of everyone, making one forget his own identity. It intoxicates everyone. He who destroys false ego with the torchlight of knowledge is called Madhusudana." By extension, the word madhu refers to both the bumblebee and Krishna. Just as bees tend to enjoy the honey of the lotus, Krishna enjoys the honey of His devotees' love. But for that to happen, we need to become sweet in our behavior in devotional service and also with every living entity who interacts with us.
Let us pray to the Lord that He protect us in all circumstances and destroy our false ego in order for us to selflessly serve Him and His devotees.
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
Pune.
Copyright © 2023. All rights reserved.