Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals : 11.7.
Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-7. ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) We have, today, a very auspicious occasion which we call the Rasa Purnima, the full moon day in the month of Asvini, which is associated with the Lilas of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, who is Shodasa Kala Murti, Purna-Avatara, Divinity condescending to come down to the level of our physical perception. Here the glory of the Infinite is condensed or pressed into and focussed through the finitude of human perception. That was Bhagavan Sri Krishna's Avatara in which we have a very fantastic and inscrutable phenomenon of what they call the Rasa-Lila, a sport which He is supposed to have played on the banks of the Yamuna, in Madhuvana, in the sylvan retreat of the holy Vrindavana, on the night of this particular full-moon day. This is not merely a historical or an epic event that we are narrating, contemplating and reciting, but a spiritual phenomenon, because God cannot but be spiritual. If at