Thursday, December 1, 2016

LIKE BROKEN TOYS

How very perfect the Lord's pastimes are. He plays the part perfectly for the pastime.
There is a beautiful section in the SB 2.3.2. This is around verses 25 to 30 or so. Uddhava is remembering the pastimes of the Lord in Vrndavan. 

Uddhava was the only resident of Dvarka to be allowed entrance to Vrndavan. Akrura was the only resident of Mathura to be allowed entrance to Vrndavan. Akrura was sent by Kamsa to take Krishna out of Vrndavan. Uddhava was sent to Vrndavan to relieve the distress the residents were feeling in Krishna's absence. 

Akrura was cursed by gopis and so had to become implicated in the Syamantaka theft and murder of Satrajit the father of Satyabhama, one of Lord Krishna's principal Queens. Uddhava was blessed by gopis with the highest mood of ecstatic love for the Lord.

Uddhava is describing the Lord's pastimes with the cowherd boys, the beautiful setting of Vrndavan with it's trees full of fruits, the fragrant flowers, the flowing river, and all the birds and other animals all there simply to enhance the Lord's pastimes. 

"The forests on the shore of the Yamunā are all beautiful gardens full of trees of mango, jackfruit, apples, guava, oranges, grapes, berries, palmfruit and so many other plants and fragrant flowers. And because the forest was on the bank of the Yamunā, naturally there were ducks, cranes and peacocks on the branches of the trees. All these trees and birds and beasts were pious living entities born in the transcendental abode of Vṛndāvana just to give pleasure to the Lord and His eternal associates, the cowherd boys."

And then there are the different demons who come to try to kill Lord Krishna who is playing like a child. Srila Prabhupada describes these demons as wizards able to appear in any form or shape. It is wonderful how they assumed such unusual shapes and forms. A giant duck, an ugly witch disguised as a goddess, a fat serpent miles long... 

A child's world is filled with unusual shapes and larger than life images. Go into any child's room and you will find unusual toys in very unrealistic forms. Like caricatures of something. A bird toy isn't just a bird, it's a giant bird with unusual exaggerated features brightly colored. 

"The atheist Kaṁsa wanted to kill Kṛṣṇa just after His birth. He failed to do so, but later on he got information that Kṛṣṇa was living in Vṛndāvana at the house of Nanda Mahārāja. He therefore engaged many wizards who could perform wonderful acts and assume any form they liked."
Srila Prabhupada compares Lord Krishna's dealings with these demons as a child playing with toys that get broken in the course of playing. 

"All of them appeared before the child-Lord in various forms, like Agha, Baka, Pūtanā, Śakaṭa, Tṛṇāvarta, Dhenuka and Gardabha, and they tried to kill the Lord at every opportunity. But one after another, all of them were killed by the Lord as if He were only playing with dolls. Children play with toy lions, elephants, boars and many similar dolls, which are broken by the children in the course of their playing with them."
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