How to Meditate on Shree Krishna Part 1 of 7
Jagadguru Shree Kripalu Ji Maharaj
कुंज-लतान तरे खरे हरि ।
Kunj-latãn tare khare Hari.“Shyam Sundar, Krishna, is standing in a kunj (a grove).”
What is He doing? He is doing devotion. Devotion is such that without it neither a soul nor God can find happiness.
So whose devotion does Krishna do?
In the Gita it says,
ये यथा मां प्रपद्यन्ते तांस्तथैव भजाम्यहम् |
Ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tānstathaiv bhajāmyaham.
This is Gita philosophy. “With whatever feelings, in whatever way, and to whatever extent a soul worships God, with the same feelings, in the same way, and to the same extent God also adores a soul.” This verse says, “Bhajamya-ham.” Krishna said, “I adore.”
Understand this in simple language: We desire God’s service, and God also desires our service to the very same extent - not more or less. It is exactly equal. We love God with feelings of shānt bhāo (the mood of peaceful adoration), dāsya bhāo (the mood of servitude), sakhya bhāo (the mood of friendship), vātsalya bhāo (the mood of parental affection), and madhurya bhāo (the mood of Divine Belovedness). God adores us with exactly the same relational feeling. Devotion is done with these five styles of relational feeling.
Yogis experience shānt bhāo; it is not important for devotees. Dāsya, sakhya, vātsalya, and madhurya bhāo - devotion is done with these four styles of loving remembrance. In other words, for taking “Bhagwān” (God) out of “Bhagwān Krishna,” there are these four kinds of devotion.
Take “Bhagwān” out, then only Krishna would remain.
Krishna is my Master.
Higher than this, He is my Friend.
Even higher than this, He is my Son.
The highest: He is my Beloved.
Out of these, dāsya bhāo Saints reach only up to prema bhakti (Divine love). They don’t reach beyond this. The devotion that you are doing is sādhana bhakti (devotional practice). Beyond this will come bhāo bhakti (the stage of devotional sentiment). Through bhāo bhakti, your mind will be purified 100%. Then, with your Guru’s grace, you will receive prem bhakti.
So the one who worships Krishna as his Master reaches up to prem bhakti. The devotee who loves Krishna as his friend goes beyond this and crosses sneh bhakti (deep affection), mān bhakti (love mixed with loving anger), praṇay bhakti (intimate oneness), and rāg bhakti (deeply attached love). He crosses these four classes, but only reaches up to rāg bhakti.
Beyond this come the devotees who love Krishna as their Child, like Yashoda and others. They go beyond prem bhakti, sneh bhakti, mān bhakti, praṇay bhakti, rāg bhakti, to anurāg bhakti (ever-fresh love). They go one more class ahead.
Finally, the Gopis of madhurya bhāo go beyond anurāg bhakti. This mahābhāo bhakti (the highest devotional ecstasy) is the ultimate limit of bhakti. Beyond this there is one more state of Divine love: mādan bhakti (the pinnacle of devotional ecstasy). But no soul can attain this. It is reserved only for Radha Rani - Madanakhya Mahābhāo. Madanakhya bhāo remains only in Radha Rani.
You have to do sādhana bhakti now, but your goal should be to attain mahābhāo bhakti. So you have to make madhurya bhāo your aim. There is great convenience and facility in madhurya bhāo. Whenever you wish, think of Krishna as your Beloved, as your Son, as your Father, as your Friend, or as your Master.
In other words, the mind’s nature is to desire constant change. This is its nature. If we could, we would constantly change the appearance of our face, eyes, and nose. But since we can’t, instead we use makeup to color the eyebrows red yesterday, blue today, then black. Today it’s one lipstick color, another tomorrow, another the next day. A woman mixes and matches in vain. If she could, she would change all of her features every day. Our habit is to desire change.
When you have all the bhāos (devotional moods) at your disposal — if madhurya bhāo doesn’t suit your mood, then imagine Krishn as your Son. If you get bored, imagine He is your Friend and make Him into a horse. You are free to love Him with all the bhāos.
But a dāsya bhāo devotee can’t think of Him as a Friend. What to say then of loving Him as a Son or Beloved? This would be a transgression.
Tulsidas went to Vṛindāban (the sacred land of Krishn), to the Rādhā Raman Mandir (temple), and saw Radha Krishna standing and embracing each other. He wasn’t seeing a stone Deity; he saw Their actual forms. We see the stone Deity — what is the miracle in that? Tulsidas had Their Divine vision.
As soon as he saw Their Divine form, he lowered his eyes because Tulsidas regarded God as his Mother, Father, and Master. If a servant’s masters are expressing love for each other, a servant does not have the right to see this. He is not permitted.
But he did see that pose. He went to see the temple, and in place of the stone Deity he saw Radha Krishna standing there. Krishna is very naughty; He played a humorous leela (Divine pastime).
So Tulsidas closed his eyes and said, “O Lord! Please take up a bow and arrow in Your hands (as Ram). If not, then the world will say Tulsidas violated devotional discipline. I don’t care for myself, but this would blemish the path of devotion.” So Krishna had to take up a bow and arrow.
A devotee of dāsya bhāo has to observe great disciplines. We could say that it is nearly impossible to follow dāsya bhāo. Imagine there is a Guru. He has a dāsya bhāo disciple. If that Guru were to walk inside this building, wherever the Guru places his feet, the disciple shouldn’t walk. It would be a transgression.
When Ram went into exile and Bharat went to meet Him, people said to Bharat, “Please sit on the chariot. How far will you walk? You will get tired. You are a delicate prince.”
Bharat said, “The dharm (duty) of a servant is that wherever the master places his feet, that is where the servant should place his head. But it’s not possible to walk on one’s head.”
There are many disciplines in dāsya bhāo. There are fewer in sakhya bhāo, even fewer in vātsalya bhāo, and in madhurya bhāo disciplines come to an end.
Source: Excerpt from the lecture published on Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat Philanthropy YouTube channel.