Bharatheeyam : ( 08/11/2012. )

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-13.   ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) This was Bhagavan Sri Krishna's cosmic reply to the individual encounter of Arjuna with the Visvarupa. If the Visvarupa could not be beheld by a mortal eye, the Rasa Lila cannot be understood by a mortal intellect. It is not a temporal activity that took place but, as the Bhagavata tells us, it is a spiritual drama that was enacted by the Master of all powers. Time ceased to be and the stellar system could not move, says the scripture. It was not a night's dance. It was a long, long-drawn play which hushed the movement of time itself. The stars began to gaze at it, as it were, and the celestials were looking at it with wonderment, not conscious of time, space and personality. All particularity-consciousness was completely obliterated. The consciousness of the personality itself was not there. It was not mortality, not humanity, not individuality, but Spirit dancing to th...

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-12.   ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) When God calls the human soul, what happens to it? This, the soul itself cannot understand, let alone the human tongue which is feeble in its expression. The great Veda Vyasa, in his majestic language, and his son, Sage Suka, in his brilliant exposition, try to give us a sort of intimation as to what it could have been. But poor is human understanding to understand its import, and poorer still is the human tongue. Who can understand the Spirit but the Spirit itself! This was the pithy and the short answer given by Sage Suka to King Parikshit when he put a human question in respect of this transcendental matter. "Oh what is this!" exclaimed Parikshit. "How can I grasp this? How can I stomach this? What do you mean by this description which is not capable of being easily appreciated by the human mind?" To this, Suka gave a divine answer in a divine manner, say...

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-11.   ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) Such is the magnitude of the meaning contained in the Rasa-Sport of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, the irresistible surge of the soul for its Maker, that it is not comparable even with the running of the iron filings to the magnet or the movement of rivers towards the ocean. These comparisons are inadequate in this respect. It is the irresistible surge and urge of the soul. 'Irresistible' is, of course, a poor word that we use for want of a better term. It is humanly impossible of description, because it was not the human power that was working. God's call is not like man calling. It is not like a boss calling a subordinate or the mother calling the child. It is not even the lover calling the beloved. Much more than all the illustrations we can think of, is the meaning, significance, import and the stringency of the call of God to the soul of man. Swami Krishnananda   To be ...

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-10.   ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) Pain is not the truth of existence. So it is the Ananda, the Supernal Beatitude, Beauty, magnificence and the lustre of God that has revealed itself in this historical epic movement of the Supreme into the temporal realms as Bhagavan Sri Krishna. Impossible it is for the human mind to understand what the Rasa means, because it is not meant for man to understand. It was God dancing to His own tune. This is the eternal Tandava or cosmic dance which is connotative of all the manifestations – personal, social, political and spiritual. It is the remedy that is administered to the soul of man to cure him of the illness of Samsara. As Sage Suka puts it towards the end of the description of the Rasa Panchadhyayi, "This is the remedy prescribed for the 'illnesses of the heart'." 'Hridroga' is the word used, which means illness of the heart, which has only one re...

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-9.   ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) So, in this wondrous phenomenon called the Rasa dance, the Spirit is dancing with its own manifestations. The Srimad Bhagavata beautifully and significantly puts it, "Reme rameso vrajasundaribhih yatharbhakah svapratibimba-vibhramah": As a child plays with its own reflection seen in a mirror, so did the Lord play with the eternal devotees of Vrindavana. He did not play with personalities, even as a child does not play with anybody when it looks at its own self through the mirror. This is the interpretation given in the Srimad Bhagavata itself in the Dasama Skandha. So it is God playing with God, like a child playing with itself or the Original dancing with its own reflections, connoting the spiritual dance of the cosmos, the attraction of the part towards the Whole, man's inseparability from God, and the soul's agony on account of its bereavement from the Suprem...

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-8.  ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) So, in this wondrous phenomenon called the Rasa dance, the Spirit is dancing with its own manifestations. The Srimad Bhagavata beautifully and significantly puts it, "Reme rameso vrajasundaribhih yatharbhakah svapratibimba-vibhramah": As a child plays with its own reflection seen in a mirror, so did the Lord play with the eternal devotees of Vrindavana. He did not play with personalities, even as a child does not play with anybody when it looks at its own self through the mirror. This is the interpretation given in the Srimad Bhagavata itself in the Dasama Skandha. So it is God playing with God, like a child playing with itself or the Original dancing with its own reflections, connoting the spiritual dance of the cosmos, the attraction of the part towards the Whole, man's inseparability from God, and the soul's agony on account of its bereavement from the S...

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 ...