Sharanagati

(from a lecture of Swami Tirtha, 20.06.2017 evening, Sofia)

(continues from the previous Monday)

So many meanings are there in this name ‘Krishna’. But there is yet another meaning of this word. I think we mentioned that before – ‘iron’. You wouldn’t expect iron to be connected to God Krishna. The all-attractive beautiful God – made of iron? How is that? We know that there is an attractive power in Krishna, yet He is the iron. Where is His attractive power coming from? The iron has no attractive power. Then where does it come from? You know there must be a source. What do you think?

Yashoda: I have some idea. Because Radhika is a metallurgist. She can operate with this iron.

Swami Tirtha: Ha! Correct! I think this is what you have to remember, because if you have a magnet, if you attach a piece of iron to that magnet, the iron will also have this magnetic power. So, if Krishna is like the iron, then His attractive power comes from the real magnet – radhe jaya jaya madhava dayite… Therefore we always say: ‘Radha-Govinda’, ‘Radhe, Shyam’, right? The boss is in the front. She is shakti; the power is behind the person.

Question of Matey: I have heard that Krishna wears some bracelets on His feet and on His hands. Could you please say something more about this?

Swami Tirtha: You might think that this is a decoration, but I think that this is His position – He is not free. His hands and feet are tied up. So you might call it a bracelet, but actually these are handcuffs. He is not free.

Matey: And who has put these handcuffs on Him?

Swami Tirtha: Big question! I have no idea! Maybe the mother, maybe the lover, maybe a very good devotee…? We have to think: who has power over God? Only a superior.

Premprasad: There is nobody, because He is the most superior.

Swami Tirtha: Yet He’s got some bracelets and rings here and there. You can go on thinking and meditating: how it is. But therefore we also have a necklace – to show that we are not free. Not free to run here and there. But we are eternally bound and hurled at the feet of the Lord. Isn’t that beautiful?

(to be continued)