DEIVATHIN KURAL # 207 (Vol #3) Dated 05 April 2010.

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 207 (Vol #3) Dated 05 April 2010.

(These e-mails are translations of talks given by Periyaval of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam, over a period of some 60 years while he was the pontiff in the earlier part of the last century. These have been published by Vanadi Padippagam, Chennai, in seven volumes of a thousand pages each as Deivathin Kural. Today we are proceeding from page 967 of Vol 3 of the Tamil original. The readers are reminded that herein 'man/he' includes 'woman/she' too, mostly. These e-mails are all available at http://Advaitham.blogspot.com constantly updated.)

NAVANEETHA KRISHNAN – VATA PATRA SAYEE

1. Navaneetam' means, what is newly taken out. Fresh milk is heated and cooled in the morning. Then it is made into a curd by adding some sour - a little bit of curd and let rest for some four hours. Then in the evening, the curd so formed is churned to take out the butter. This butter is Navaneetam. Previous days milk, if curdled and if the butter is taken out the next morning, it is as good as, a day old – not fresh! Slightly not as good or as fresh, that is.
2. We are all cattle that are ‘pasu’. Our minds should be as white and fair as the milk. Then only that dark black chap named Krishna will come to us. It is not a detestable black. It is a color that is attractive like that of the dark clouds. Ghanashyaam. In that word, ‘ghana’ means clouds. In Tamil they will call Him, ‘kaarvaNNan’! Darker the cloud is more the water will it pour. Is that water dark? No. Krishna is the one who showers and drenches us with abundant love. As there is brilliant lightning from that cloud, He is the teacher of Gita, effulgent in Knowledge, Awareness and Gnaana! Though He may seem to be full of mischief and tricks, our innocence is the key to His heart!
3. If we cleanse ourselves to a perfect degree of whiteness, He will come to us as Gopala. He does not drink the milk as it is. It has to be converted to a curd and fresh butter has to be churned out of it. Then He will arrive stealthily, for that butter. If our minds are clarified to a purified state, in the heat of our devotion for Him, it will boil. That has to be cooled, pacified and solidified to the consistency of a curd. With that peacefulness, some centrifugal force of divine concentration has to be applied. Then it will be understood that the basis of all ‘chalanam’ is ‘shantam’, for the coming together of the butter. Chandokya Upanishad says, “shyaamaat chapaLam, chapaLaat shyaamam” (Ch.U.8.13.1.).

4. So we have to churn and churn the semi solid curd, which is static and peaceful. We have to get to know the truth of what is in the pot of our hearts. This urge is called ‘Atma Vichara or Gnaana Vichara’! This urge is the churning tool. One pointed mind is the rope used for churning. When we do so, the butter of ‘poornatvam’ is obtained. Without letting it become stale, when it is still ‘nava neetam’, He takes it! How can that completeness of ‘poornatvam’ remain in this mortal pot? So He takes it as His own, resulting in erasing our separate identity, to become one with Him!
5. Why do we say that He takes it stealthily? It is because, this merging into Him happens, without our knowing, since we are no more! What remains in the process is Him only, no more me, mine, we, us and ours! If He comes as a normal guest, with our clinging separateness, we will be doing ‘all the Raja Upachaara, Deva Upachaara’ as per protocol for the Supreme Leader of the whole Universe, that He is! We will be knowingly, consciously offering the butter to Him. We may or may not then have the mind to do total surrender to Him. We are more likely to retain our separate identity and offer something, ‘as though bribing God’! So, the best would be for Him to come as a thief and annihilate our separateness!
6. Butter is like the Parabrhmam –clean white. Slightly warm it and see that even that white color is gone, becoming crystal clear. In the ‘VeN (whiteness) + nei (ghee) = VeNnei’, that is butter, the whiteness is also gone and only the ‘nei’ part remains! It is colourless; tasteless simply ‘clarified butter’! When the worldly involvement of dynamic activity is gone; fear, dance, drama, anger, greed, jealousy, hate and all the other concomitant hectic activities are over, we reach this supreme peace. When that happens, we are no more we, but Him! Then He re-absorbs us back unto Himself!
7. Milk will mix with water well, whereas butter will be floating separately. Similarly, if we are in the world without dissolving, He will gobble us up! It is our ‘uLLam’, that is a single word for the two entities of heart and mind, that He is interested in. We call Him, “nav neeta chor! Chitha chor!” That literally means ‘butter thief & mind thief’, which further indicates that is our minds that has to become like butter, fully part of the world, but detached!
8. This child with hectic dynamism of continuous mischief, full of pranks, running into every milk maid’s house, climbing everywhere, breaking the pots, stealing the butter; is the same baby which is so peacefully lying on the leaf of the banyan tree, floating on the flood waters of ‘pralaya’! He is totally different in Gokulam! Sometime eons back, He showed His, baby like form, on the leaves of the banyan tree, floating on flood waters of end of the world – ‘pralaya’, for the sake of Rishi Markandeya!
9. Sitting under the banyan tree, the one who does ‘Gnaana Upadesam’ is, Parameswara the Siva! He is the ‘vata vrukcha moola nivaasi’! Maha Vishnu on the other hand is the displayer of his capacity for illusion and delusion, through His Maya! He is assuming the form of a small baby, lying on the banyan leaf, trying to catch His toe and put it in His mouth. May be the stupid human habit of ‘putting one’s foot in the mouth’, started from that! He is the ‘vata patra sayee’! Through such action, of lying as a small baby on the floating banyan leaf, He still gives us Gnaana. Let me explain, how.
10. Through 'Pralayam', is He not indicating that all the worlds and the Universe get completely reabsorbed in Himself? He shows that this entire world is just 'maya' and thus unreal. He shows as to how to get out of the clutches of 'maya'. That is why in this form, He is known as 'Mukunda', meaning the one who relieves us from delusion. The sloka goes thus: - "kara aravindena pada aravindam mukharavinde vinivesayantam I vatasya patrasya pute sayanam baalam mukundam manasaa smaraami II"
11. 'The baby whose lotus like toe of the feet is caught by, His lotus like hands and placed in the lotus like mouth and who is lying half asleep on the banyan leaf, I think of that baby Mukunda with the whole of my mind.' - That is the meaning of the sloka. Why should He be sucking on His toe?
12. Maandata was the name of a king in the Surya Dynasty, much before Sri Rama. He was born directly from his father, without a Mother! At that time Indra told the baby "maamdaata", meaning, 'I shall give you', picking the thumb of the baby and putting it in his mouth! As in every part of the human body, there is a presiding 'Devata' or Deity, the one for the hand is Indra. He arranged for the flow of Amrita the divine nectar, from the thumb to the baby's mouth. That is why we do see many children given in to this habit even today.
13. But, here Bhagawan Sri Krishna is not sucking on his thumb, but the big toe! This is to indicate all the parts of His body from head to foot is 'Amrita Vapu:'! This is one of the 1000 names listed in Vishnu Sahasranaama. What the Deva-s can do with their hands, can be done by His feet, is possibly the message. There is a mantra which says, 'the food is God, the server is God, the one being served is also God'. He is proving that too here. He is sucking on the left foot. Nataraja's lifted foot in the famous dance posture is also the left foot only.
14. Though we may not be 'amrita maya' all over the body, on our left side of the body too, there is a Chandra Naadi. Chandra is the fountain of ‘amrita’, the nectar of immortality. Through Yoga Anushtaana, we can feel the flow of ‘amrita’ in the Chandra Naadi. The Lord is demonstrating that here. Often we think that the leg is a nether region of the body and that Left side of the body is detestable. Here He is demonstrating that, all that is equally good and equally ‘amrita’! Thus inside and out, He is ‘amrita’. Still He has been stealing butter, bluffing when caught and getting physical beatings for doing so. As though that is not enough, He plays with us all sorts of pranks so as to give us His Grace!
15. “Someday, somewhere, somebody saw a small baby floating on a leaf in the flood waters of the world in spate and how can you call that the God Maha Vishnu?” – That may be your question. Come to think of it, we should not see any difference at all between Maha Vishnu and Krishna Paramatma at all! Krishna is not even to be considered as an ‘avatara’ of Maha Vishnu! They are one and the same! “krishnasthu bhagawan swayam” says Bhagawatam 1.3.28. Even to call Him, Maha Vishnu is to qualify and thus restrict His infinite being! Then He Himself says in Bhagawat Gita, 10th Adhyaya, Vibhuti Yoga, “aadityaanaam aham vishnu:”, meaning that amongst the ‘Aditya-s’, He is the Vishnu! Then He also says that, “rudraanaam sankaraschaasmi”, meaning that amongst the ‘Rudra-s, He is the Sankara’. He is Siva and Vishnu. He is the indwelling reality in all of us, which is claiming to be the “I, me, myself!” He says so in as many words that, there is no world other than Him. He is the God, the World and the Universe too!
16. So to come as a small baby and win over our hearts is His main profession or policy. So as a small baby, when He is floating on a green leaf, so helplessly yet so fetchingly, we cannot but think of Him as aal ilai krishna, the vata patra sayee, that is the baby on the banyan leaf!
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.