Miscellaneous - Religion   

Bounteous grace

CHENNAI : The descents of the Supreme Being in the world in human form were actually to make Himself accessible to His devotees even though the scriptural texts state that the Lord incarnates to reinstate Dharma whenever there is threat to it. From a spiritual perspective it is because of His manifestations that man is able to experience His gracious nature at first hand as otherwise whatever knowledge he can gain is from the scriptural texts.

In his discourse, Sengalipuram Sri B.Damodara Dikshitar said the Lord was most accessible in His incarnation as Krishna. His inimitable deeds in His childhood endeared Krishna to the cowherd community and among His frolics His act of stealing butter took centre stage that it became the leitmotif in devotional literature. The Puranic accounts relate that the Gopis made Him dance for butter. Why did the Lord pander to them? Besides, why should the Almighty, who is the Lord of the entire creation, yearn for the produce of the cowherd community in Gokul and go to the extent of stealing? It was their unalloyed devotion that made the Gopis forgot their hearths and homes the moment they remembered Krishna. Though they pretended to be angry with Him whenever He stole butter from their larders they actually attained the bliss that Yogis experienced in meditation because their minds were totally absorbed in Krishna. Hence His stealing butter was an act of grace to reciprocate their devotion.

Though He afforded immense delight to all the Gopis it was His foster-mother Yashoda who was singled out for His grace in bounteous measure. On a particular occasion when she was absorbed in her daily chores and did not immediately attend to Him, Krishna became angry and broke the pot of curd, and fed the butter to the monkeys. Pretending to be angry with Him she took a rod to threaten Him, seeing which Krishna ran with her in hot pursuit. Finally, when she caught Him she tried to secure Him with a rope to a mortar but it fell short every time she attached more pieces to it. Finally seeing her exhausted He, who is boundless, allowed Himself to be bound (Damodara).

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