TEMPLE of GRATITUDE

"Every living entity, especially persons in the human race, must feel grateful for the benedictions offered by the grace of the Supreme Lord." Srila Prabhupada -  S B 2.3.21

Tales of Wheels and Devotion

Tales of Wheels and Devotion

The remembrance of Krishna's pastimes often rides on wheels. 

This poem retells a few events that depict Krishna on a chariot while enacting His pastimes with His devotees.

In the first scene is the bullock cart that carried small Gopal, Nanda Pran, from Mahavan to Vrindavan in order to protect Him from the demon's attacks. It ends with the meeting in Kurukshetra because of the desire of the Gopis to move the chariot with Krishna back to Vraja. 

I hope the reader will also cherish the taste of Krishna's names that are mostly associated with Nanda Baba in order to keep Him in our hearts as the cowherd of the gopis and gopas, even though some pastimes are in His royal disguise. 

BRS 1.2.168 Seeing the festivals (verse 87) from Bhavisyottara : 
"The dog-eaters and other low persons who joyfully see Kesava on His chariot all become associates of the Lord."

---

Tales of Wheels and Devotion

 With many wheels clattering

and stirring up clouds of dust,

  the long line of bullock carts
meandered like a river
  in the light of dusk.
Amidst this clamor of

bugles, bells, bellowing
and colored flags flapping,

songs rose up

from the caravan

leaving Mahavan

out of love for Nanda Pran.

On another day
when the light was the same,

a gilded chariot of royal fame,

 clattered,

sinister and cruel
in a flurry of dust,

taking Nanda Gopal away

so that love melted the stones (1)

with tears of despair.

Winged by the whisper

of the heart,

the chariot of Nanda Kumar

flew to a place afar,

committed to His promise

to reciprocate His devotee's love,

He plucked the precious Lotus,

leaving the proud princes

aghast. (2)

The rattle of wheels and swords

again saw Nanda Kishor

on a chariot.

In a din of shouts and blows,

where the red blood dyed

the dust, the sky and all eyes,

 for love this time

He led the ride.

His curls, sticky and ashen

with sweat and dust,

and His skin smeared with blood,

 He hurled the wheel as He rushed (3)

toward a chivalrous heart,

astounded with awe

by the wondrous sight

of his lotus red eyed foe.

When His heart wept,

heavy with a debt of love,

Nanda Dulal unsteadily

boarded His chariot,

pierced the night,

rode at the speed
of light,

and came to the forest grove,

to the petal bed of His Beloved,

 where, out of intense love

    She was on the verge of death. (4)

The royal chariot

has come back,

without that snake of torment,  (5)

instead, Nandu's friend

is walking ahead

of Nanda Suta,

 adorned with gems;

He is no more a cowherd

in this land (6)

where the Moon sets

but no lotuses bloom.

Let's turn these wheels

and move

them towards Vraja,

but, once amongst those kunds

this cruel chariot,

memento of separation

and tears,

will have to leave 
to remove our fear

of seeing Nanda-Lal carried away,

and the Vanadevis languishing

in love and in madness once again.

1) Bhakti Ratnakara p.144 " What can I say? Only those who saw the scene can understand. All the damsels of Vraja came running to see Krishna with tears flowing like rivers from their eyes. Seeing that scene even wood and stone melted.

2) Krishna kidnaps Rukmini

3) Krishna act as Arjuna's charioteer during the battle. In a Chivalrous rasa with His devotee, apparently playing the part of His enemy, Krishna hurled a wheel to Bhismadeva.

4) "Three logs of wood" story retold by Srimad Gour Govinda Maharja as the first Ratha Yatra.  Krishna inebriated by his feelings for Radha, mounts the chariot to fly to Vraja.  In the same way Lord Jagannath in Puri is carried to the chariot by the pujaris who shake Him as if drunk to remember this pastime. (see also in blog "Canticle of Union")

5) Garga Samhita 5.15.10 "At what inauspicious moment did his mother, in order to give pain to the loving devotees, give birth to Akrura? She did it as Kadru, in order to randomly kill people here and there, gave birth to the species of snakes." Purport [...] Vicious humans may also behave like cruel snakes and since he (Akrura) mercilessly took Krsna away from them, the gopis considered Akrura to be among such horrible creatures whose birth must have been timed a the most inauspicious moment.

6) Kurukshetra. -- When Nanda Suta and the gopis met in Kurukshetra they were emaciated so much so that their rings had become bangles around their wrists, their hair were uncombed and their dresses untied, so Krishna understood the intensity of their pains of separation.  He started a sort of long soliloquy in the attempt to justify what happened that He did not returned. He spoke about yoga, about the will of the  Supreme, about providence, but it all sounded very confused.  The gopis will respond with a single sloka in the Bhagavatam which ends the chapter. 

SB 10.82.48 :""O Supreme Lord, O directly manifest Supersoul, O crest jewel of teachers of philosophical knowledge!  Understanding that we have great attachment to house, wealth and family, You previously had Uddhava instruct us and now personally You are purifying our hearts with knowledge to destroy that ignorance.  Thus we understand that Your pure love for us is free from any motivation other than assuring our liberation. But how can we unintelligent cowherd women fix that knowledge in our hearts? ..[..]" translation by Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur. 

This same sloka was chant by Caitanya Mahaprabhu in front of the chariot of Lord Jagannath.

This is the secret of our Ista-deva, the Lord of the Sankirtan Movement, the Lord of the Universe, fully reciprocating His devotees' love, shows the highest ecstasies in a meeting that follows a long separation and He comes to everyone to exchange that love on the wheels of His chariot.

        

DEBT of LOVE (Lyrics) ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪

Krsna speaks to Rukmini about His debt of love

“Feeling separation from Me, Radha and the gopis have given up Their lives.  Now I shall also give up My life for her.  You will see me in that condition, O Lokanath” (Text 126-127)  Prema-vilas by Srila Nityananda Das.

BG 9.29 "[...] But those who honor Me with devotion are in Me, and indeed I am in them."

"Sri Radha's love for Lord Krishna has no rival and no equal in this world.  It is the greatest love."  Sri Garga Samhita 6.17-38

Read more at the bottom excerpt from Sri Krishna Kathamrita Bindu issue No. 134"

https://soundcloud.com/mauro-auaro/debt-of-love

Lyrics for "Debt of Love"

I am not here,

but there with My mind,

I am so bound

‘cause of a promise of love.

I have a debt

since the day I left

“I will return” - I said this to them

They have given everything up for Me

their love is in Me

There isn’t any other way to repay

but to love ‘ em in the same way

I am their air

for this My heart weeps

I’m in big debt

to their love, the tears they shed,

I've gone away

I did not return,

they trust what I said just before I left

my words are their hope and reason to live

they breath for me

O Queen, how they keep alive gives me pain,

they want to see me once again

You asked before

Who’s this love for?

Tears melt my dreams

When I think of Her

She does not know anything else than Me

She lives for Me

To know this love I’ve to steal Her heart

to love with her love.

I’ll give up pearls and curls, one day
love tears is my debt to repay. 

.

"With that prema they [gopis] have given up everything. [...] By their love, Krishna's promise was broken. His pormise is -'As someone approaches me I reciprocate accordingly' {Bg 4.11} Krishna never becomes indebted, He always repays his debts. But this promise of his was broken by the gopis, because the gopis do not want anything, how will he repay them?

[...] {Bhag. 10.32.22} "I have become completely indebted to you. I cannot pay you back, because you don't want anything. What shall I do?"

To pay back his debt he became Gaura, assuming the mood of Radharani is crying and feeling acute pangs of separation from Krishna. This is Gaura. [...] As Radharani is crying, crying, crying and drowning herself in this unfathomable ocean of separation, similarly Gaura is burning himself with the fire of separations from Krishna." by SGGS

Excerpted from Sri Krishna Kathamrita Bindu Issue No134

The Cowherd Boy is now a King

                                                                                           

CC Madhya Lila 1.56  Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu used to sing this song [♪ ♫ ♪seita parana-natha♫ ♪ ♫] especially during the latter part of the day, and He would think, "Let Me take Krishna and go back to Vrindavana" This ecstasy was always filling His heart.

"It is there alone [in Vraja] that You attract us by wearing peacock feathers in Your turban and playing enchanting music on Your flute.  We can be saved only by seeing You in Vraja and not by any other kind of meditation or theoretical knowledge of the self." Commentary by Visvanath Cakravarti Thakur on Sarartha Darsini 82.48

After long separation from Vraja  Krishna resolves to meet the Brijvasis in Kurukshetra and He goes there from Dwarka with all His royal entourage......

Prayer from the Pillar

My Lion Lord,

I am here,

in this dark dream,

lost and overwhelmed

in a cloudy corner of Your realm;

down ~

beyond the Viraja river

on an expanse of water,

in a cluster of bubbles

exhaled from Your breath,

 further down ~

behind the seven coverings

caused by the false ego,

way down ~ 

within a drop of many drops,

dripped from Your pores

so far down ~

on one of the billion spheres

floating in space,

down here ~

entrapped in fears,

in a form of bleak desires

reduced to a dimmed sparkle

caught between the pliers of the mind,

an infinitesimal dot of existence,

where my soul cries

barely audible,

like words shouted in water.

I am here,

a fossil in a pillar

of million of lifetimes

please break it open with your claws

take me up

to sit on your lap

from where

 I can fearlessly look
  down

at the remains

of this stony heart.

musicforblog

Winged Prayer

A prayer came on wings

for me,

all at once I could not see

the desert of my heart,

the saguaro,

that me

with its thorns

ceased to be;

spiritual awareness

lit up everything,

cupped hands

filled with mercy
from petals and leaves

spread its wings,

took off in the sky

and landed on my soul

in a shower of light.

Like a fulfilling kite,

that whisper

reached far 
and inside brought a whiff of inner delight,

the dimmed flame was fanned

to dance more brightly;

my mind stopped to think,

breathless emotions

in a speechless tide,

because I could perceive,
the wave was me,

stirred up and ruffled

by a love wind.

Some friends went on a pilgrimage to few temples in Madurai, India…

When they came back I was told that for all that day they had said a prayer for me wherever they went, while they offered flowers, leaves and ghee lamps to the Deities of each temple they toured. 

I thought back, reflecting on my feelings on that day, and recalled there was indeed a nuanced difference to how I felt. Those feelings then found their way out of my heart and into this short poem.

I feel it is important to share how powerful the prayers we say for others are, and how it is uplifting and inspiring for both those who utter the prayers and those for whom they pray, as a connection of the heart at once blossoms.