Don’t Be Ritualistic :So what makes it such an important event that we are here today to celebrate? The story is given by Srila Sukhadeva Goswami in the tenth canto of Srimad Bhagavatam. There it is described that the Govardhan puja has many very very deep meanings. When Krishns performs a pastime, He has so many lessons for everyone to learn.
It is described that after Krishna showed His mercy to the wives of the Brahmans, the yagnic Brahmans, in Vrindavan, He saw Nanda Maharaj and the other cowherd men arranging beautiful preparations for a big big yagya. So Lord Shri Krishna asked, ‘What is this that you are doing?’ to Nanda Maharaj. He said, ‘What is this ritual? Who is it for? And what will you accomplish by performing it?’ This is very important, the first line of the story. Krishna disapproves of performing any ritual without a deep understanding of what you are doing and why. Krishna wanted to tell us all that if you are performing some ritual, if you are performing some religious yagya, you must know what it is for, you must know who it is for, you must know how to perform it and you must also know what is it that you are going to accomplish through it. Lessons To Be Learnt :o Understand Fully Before Doing.o Practice What You Preach.
How many people today perform their puja simply to carry on their family traditions? Or perform a puja because they are superstitious. They are afraid that something may happen if they do not do it. Krishna was asking Nanda Maharaj, why? For who? And what are you doing? And then because Nanda Maharaj was quite quiet, Krishna explained that do you know that if people perform this yagya with ignorance, without understanding these things, then you will get no good result. If you perform it with knowledge, then you will get the result. So I want to know, what is this? And, you should tell me because I am intimate family member. And amongst those who are highly qualified in religious life, they have no secrets from their friends and family members. In fact, such person should have no secrets from anyone. Their lives should be like an open book. Here Krishna is instructing another great lesson, that we should practice what we preach. We should not have two lives. We should not have a private life and a public life. What we say, we should establish by our actions. Acarya means one who teaches the truth according to the scriptures, and one who lives according to that truth. Such a person has no secrets, nothing to hide in his life. Nanda Maharaj’s Explanation :So Nanda Maharaj, he began to speak, he said, ‘My dear Krishna, we are performing the Indra yagya. Because, you see we are cowherd community, we grow grains, we take care of cows, we are completely dependent on rain. If it does not rain, we will have no success in our life. And Indra is the devata, the demigod, who bestows when he is pleased, rain upon the earth. So this yagya is meant to please Indra, so that he will provide plentiful rains. And, then we will live a nice life in prosperity, and the cows will be happy.’ Krsna’s Reason For Govardhan Puja :1. Karma Mimamsa :When Krishna heard this, he was looking at Nanda Maharaj like is that the reason? I think, as far as I am concerned, Indra really doesn’t have anything to do with it. Because, according to the laws of karma, if you act good, you will get good results. And if you act bad, you will get bad results. And Indra is simply the deliverer of your karma. So if you are performing good works, Indra has to give rains. And if you are sinful, Indra has to hold it back. It is something like in the government you have telephone, you have electricity, you have water. If you pay your bill, then you get the water, you get the electricity. If you don’t pay your bill, it gets turned off. You don’t have to flatter the minister of water, or the minister in charge of electricity. Go and say you are very great man, you are very wonderful. If you pay, they give it to you.So Krishna was explaining if you just do good works, why do you have to waste all this time trying to satisfy Indra? It’s like flattering. You are pious man, he has to give rain. And then he explained that karma-mimansa philosophy. 2. Surrender To Me :Krishna wanted to establish, to His devotees that it is an offence to Him, in His presence to worship the demigods. That here He was personally living in Vrindavan, the Supreme God of all gods, Parameshwara, and they are worshipping Indra for rains. Krishna explains in the Gita, that the demigods, whatever they have they are getting from Me. And if you worship Me, you have no other obligations to anyone.
devarñi-bhütäpta-nåëäà pitèëäàna kiìkaro näyam åëé ca räjansarvätmanä yaù çaraëaà çaraëyaàgato mukundaà parihåtya kartam[SB 11.5.41]
That all one’s obligations to one’s forefathers, to the government, to the demigods, to one’s teachers – we have obligations to all of them. They are all automatically fulfilled when we surrender to Krishna, because He is the source of everything. When you water the root of the tree, automatically every part of the tree is nourished. When you surrender to Krishna, when you please Krishna, the whole universe and all living beings within the universe are fully nourished. You have no other obligation. So Krishna wanted to show that if you are not My devotee, then it is your duty to worship the demigods because they are giving you so many benefits and gifts and you are ungracious if you do not, but if you are My devotee then all that is taken care off. sarva-dharmän parityajyamäm ekaà çaraëaà vrajaahaà tväà sarva-päpebhyomokñayiñyämi mä çucaù[BG 18.66]Krishna says abandon all varieties of religion, just surrender to Me. I shall relieve you of all sinful reactions, do not fear. So, Krishna very very cleverly wanted to dissuade from Indra puja, but there was another reason. 3. Krsna’s Mercy Is In Curbing Pride :Because, Krishna knew that Indra was very proud. You see, when Krishna appeared on earth, not everyone understood that He was God. ye yathä mäà prapadyante, täàs tathaiva bhajämy aham [BG 4.11]. Only those who had hearts full of true devotion understood that He was God. Others considered that He was just a very great powerful mystic, but He was a human being or some thought of demigod, but they didn’t understand He was God. And even amongst the demigods in heavens, many of them did not understand that this Krishna was the original Avatari. So Krishna knew, that Indra is very proud. Why? Because he was in such a position of control and in this world, it is very very difficult to have a high position, wealth, beautiful looks, power or authority over others and not become condemned by false pride. It is almost impossible. Unless one really and seriously takes shelter of the lotus feet of the sadhus, it’s not possible.
So, Krishna knew that Indra, although he was His devotee, he was intoxicated by his high position in the world. And because Indra was His devotee, Krishna was so merciful – He wanted to curb this pride. He wanted to purify his life.
So Krishna simultaneously wanted to give pleasure to the Vrijwasis, He wanted to establish to His devotees there is no need to worship anyone but Me, and He wanted to curb the pride of Indra. So he began to speak in such a way to convince Nanda Maharaj to stop this Indra puja. 4. Athiestic Philosophies :He said, ‘Nanda Maharaj, work is worship. You just do your work you gonna get the results. Whether there is a God or is not a God, it doesn’t really matter, because God is subservient to your karma.’ Krishna was preaching atheistic philosophy. In fact, where do you think the atheists get all their arguments from? You think they have the brain substance to think of it themselves. They get it from Krishna. If you don’t want to surrender to God, if you don’t want to believe in God, if you want to be your own God, then Krishna is within your heart, sarvasya cähaà hådi sanniviñöo, mattaù småtir jïänam apohanaà ca [BG 15.15] he gives you just the proper philosophy of atheism to justify your position. And just to prove that Krishna was teaching atheism, that – “may be there is a God, may be there is not a God, but what difference does it make? If you do your work properly, the results have to come. So what is this? Wasting your time trying to satisfy this Indra”. And then he explained that according to the varnasrama system, if you just act according to your natural propensity, as a Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra, then all the needs of your life will be fulfilled. So just perform your duty, you are cowherd man. 5. Practical Situation :And after all, where are you getting all of your gifts from? From Govardhan hill, from the cows and from the Brahmans. Govardhan hill is supplying grass, the cows eat the grass, give milk and by the blessings of the Brahmans, they give us Vedic knowledge, so therefore you should take all of these beautiful articles of paraphernalia for worship and worship the Brahmans, the cows and Govardhan hill. Brajwasis – They Just Love Krsna :So, because Nanda Maharaj and all the elder cowherd men they loved Krishna so much, that they had to do whatever Krishna wanted. They knew that Krishna was simply jokingly preaching these very very bogus philosophies – for the less intelligent people. But they didn’t care what the philosophy was. They just wanted to please Krishna. And therefore they said, ‘Yes Krishna, teach us how to do it.’ Cook mountains of prasad. Make payasam, and make puris, and make halwa and rasagullas and gulab jamuns and laddoos and chapatis and rice and subjis and dahls and make all sorts of nice cakes – fried cakes, and cakes soaked in various milk preparations, and then all the stock of all your milk and all your grains, make wonderful big offerings for the pleasure of the Brahmans, the cows and Govardhan hill. And then after that let every one in Vrindavan decorate themselves with the nicest jewellery, with the nicest clothes and then let us take the bullock carts with all the cows in front of us and let us circumambulate Govardhan hill. Krsna Is Giriraj :So, they performed this wonderful ceremony. And how wonderful, as they were circumambulating Govardhan hill, mountains and mountains of bhoga, wonderful foodstuffs they were all chanting the glories of Krishna and Balarama. And after the ceremony was over, every one was so happy, so joyful and Krishna said, ‘Now, with this prasad, make sure afterword that we must offer it very humbly to Govardhan’. So as they were offering it, right before their eyes, the Govardhan hill assumed a personal form, and this personal form grew so big and it was non-different than Krishna Himself that assumed this form within the hill. And then Govardhan hill began to speak that I am Govardhan, I am the Supreme. I have come to accept all of your offerings. And then right before their eyes, the Govardhan hill, with great pleasure ate all of the offerings. And upon seeing this, while Krishna was incarnated as Govardhan hill, He was at the same time the seven year old little cowherd boy along with the Vrijwasis. And in order to teach all the Vrijwasis and in order to teach all of us for all life to come, the importance of this great avatar, Krishna Himself bowed down and offered His obeisances to Giriraj. And all of the Vrijwasis followed and did the same. And after Giriraj partook of all the offering, before every one’s eyes, again he gave it all back. Then Krishna explained; now we must distribute it to the Brahmans and then we must distribute it to all other classes of men. We must specially sumptuously feed those who are very poor and we must sumptuously feed the dogs, the cats, the cows, everyone. Let everyone enjoy the wonderful mahaprasad of Shri Giriraj.And after this wonderful wonderful feast took place everyone was so happy – they all dancing in transcendental ecstasy remembering Krishna in the heart of their hearts returned to their homes.Wish you all very Happy Krishna conscious Padva and new year ahead. May you have blissful journey on spiritual path in upcoming years.Thank you very much. Your servant, Renuka
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