Krishna Kills His Enemies, (answer to Sardara Ji)

[Guest guest]

Hare Krishna! All glories to Srila Prabhuapda and Srila

Gaurangapada! Please accept my humble obeisances. I pray that this

meets each and everyone in perfect peace, health and in the service

of Guru and Gauranga!

 

My Dear Sardara Ji:

 

You mention in your last post concerning Sri Krishna, that it

appeared that He only advented only to punish and destroy. In many

instances this may to the material mind appear so, but one must look

deeper into the spiritual aspects of why Sri Krishna does what he

does according to His perfect knowledge. Sri Krishna does not make

decisions on the human level, but having perfect knowledge knows the

jiva from birth to birth.

 

In the Srimad Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 4, Verse 7 it is stated by

Krishna Himself;

 

yada yada hi dharmasya

glanir bhavati bharata

abhyutthanam adharmasya

tadatmanam srijamy aham

 

"Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O

decendent of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion, at that

time I decend Myself."

 

Sri Krishna appears by His own will whenever there is a predominance

of irreligiosity and a disappearance of true religion. Principles of

religion are laid down in the Vedas, and any time there is a

discrepancy in religious principle, this makes one irreligious. The

purpose of the Vedas is to estabilish such principles under the order

of the Supreme Lord, and the Lord directly orders at the end of the

Gita, that the highest principle of religion is to surrender unto Him

only, and nothing more. The Vedic principles push one towards

complete surrender unto Him; and whenever such principles are

disturbed by the demonic, the Lord appears.

 

Sri Krishna can manifest Himself anywhere, everywhere, and whenever

He desires to appear. In each and every incarnation, He speaks as

much about religion as can be understood by the particular people

under their particular circumstances. But the mission is the same,

to lead people to God consciousness and obedience to the principles

of religion. Sometimes He descends personally, and sometimes He

sends His official representative in the form of His Son, or servant,

or Himself in some disguised form.

 

When Sri Krishna does decend, He has to set right what is wrong in a

particular place and in a particular situation. In the Bhagavad

Gita, we read the story of Krishna and Arjuna and the battle of

Kurukshetra. We have to look more at the converstation between

Krishna and Arjuna and the message it conveys, and not the resultant

actions on the battle field. The battle is nothing more than a

backdrop to this conversation. If we dwell on the battle, we find

just like in any battle, there are casualties of war. People are

injured, suffer and many die. But what is the whole purpose of this

battle of Kurukshetra? The whole purpose is the conversation.

Krishna is telling not only Arjuna, but each and every one of us how

to return to him. He is giving us the science of the soul. Before

the conversation even gets started good, Krishna Himself summerizes

everything He is going to say in Chapter Two. Then He goes on to

explain in depth that confidential knowledge.

 

When we read the story of Prahlada Maharaja in the Srimad Bhagavatam,

Seventh Canto, we read of who Hiranyakashipu was, and the type of

individual he truly became. This man was so wicked that even Lord

Indra, the King of Heaven feared him. Sri Krishna advented as Lord

Sri Nrishimadeva to protect His pure devotee Prahlada Maharaja.

Prahlada Maharaja not only worshipped and served Sri Krishna, but

also taught his friends about Krishna. In the evil empire of

Hiranyakashipu, this was intollerable. In the Eighth Chapter, it

states that King Hiranyakashipu could not stand his son's devotional

service and was ready to kill him. King Hiranyakashipu's sin did not

begin and end with Prahlada, but like most demons, he wanted the very

throne of Sri Krishna. So attempting to put himself on the same

level as Sri Krishna, when King Hiranyakashipu during his argument

with his son Prahlada, he stated:

 

YAS TVAYA MANDA-BHAGYOKTO

MAD-ANYO JAGAD-ISVARAH

KVASAU YADI SA SARVATRA

KASMAT STAMBHE NA DRISYATE

 

"OH MOST UNFORTUNATE PRAHLADA, YOU HAVE ALWAYS DISCRIBED A SUPREME

BEING OTHER THAN ME, A SUPREME BEING WHO IS ABOVE EVERYTHING, WHO IS

THE CONTROLLER OF EVERYONE, AND WHO IS ALL PREVADING. BUT WHERE IS

HE? IF HE IS EVERYWHERE, THEN WHY IS HE NOT PRESENT BEFORE ME IN

THIS PILLAR!?

 

so 'ham vikatthamanasya

sirah kayad dharami te

gopayeta haris tvadya

yas te saranam ipsitam

 

"Because you are speaking so much nonsense, I shall now sever your

head from your body. Now let me see your most worshipable God come

to protect you. I want to see it.

 

As the story goes on the next couple of verses, King Hiranyakashipu

picked up his sword, and while getting up from his throne struck a

column in anger. In Chapter 8, verses 15-32, we read the story of

the battle between King Hiranyakashipu and Sri Nrisimhadeva is

described in vast detail. This great epic describes the fear of the

demigods at such a terrible incarnation, one inwhich the three worlds

were shaken to their very foundations.

 

When Sri Krishna decends, and during His lilas He kills demons,

armies, enemies of His devotees, one has to understand the science of

the soul. Sri Krishna states;

 

dehi nityam avadhyo 'yam

dehe sarvasya bharata

tasmat sarvani bhutani

na tvam shocitum arhasi

 

"O decendant of Bharata, he who dwells in the body can never be

slain. Therefore you need not grieve for any living being."

 

and again, Sri Krishna says;

 

na jayate mriyate va kadacin

nayam bhutva bhavita va na bhuyah

ajo nityah sasvato 'yam purano

na hanyate hanyamane sarire

 

"For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has

not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into

being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is

not slain when the body is slain." BG 2:20

 

So when one understands the science of the soul, as Sri Krishna

explains in the second chapter of the Gita, one begins to see the

deaths of so many of Krishna's enemies in a new light. Also, with

this destruction of the wicked, such as Hiranyakashipu, Putana,

Dhenudasura, Pralambasura, the Aghasura Demon, Kesi and Vyomasura,

Kamsa, the army of Dhritarashtra, karma has dictated their place in

this life. Life time after life time these jiva's have decided not

to surrender to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Krishna.

Life time after life time they have abused and tormented the pure

devotees of the Lord. They have completely disrupted any pure

service, sacrifice and worship of the Lord to the point where Sri

Krishna Himself has to decend to set the society back in order.

 

There is a bright side to this though. Sri Krishna give complete

salvation to the enemies that He kills. Srila Prabhupada in his

book, "The Nectar of Devotion" writes:

 

"Another name for salvation is apavarga. Apavarga is the opposite

of pavarga, or the various miserable conditions of material

existance. The word pa-varga indicates the combination of the five

Sanskrit letters: pa, pha, ba, bha and ma. These letters are the

first letters of the words for five different conditions. The first

letter, pa, comes from the word parabhava, which means "defeat". In

this material struggle for existence, we are simply meeting defeat.

Actually, we have to conquer birth, death, disease and old age, and

because there is no possibility of overcoming all these miserable

conditions, due to the illusion of Maya we are simply meeting with

parabhava. The next letter, pha, is taken from the word phena.

Phena is the foam which is found on the mouth when one is very tired

(as is commonly observed with horses). The letter ba comes from the

word bandha, or bondage. Bha is taken from the word bhiti, or

fearfulness. Ma is taken from the word mriti, or death. So the word

pavarga signifies our struggle for existence and our meeting with

defeat, exhaustion, bondage, fearfulness and at last, death.

Apavarga means that which can nullify all of these material

conditions. Krishna is said to be the giver of apavarga, the path of

liberation.

For the enemies of Krishna, liberation means merging into the

Supreme. The demons do not care for Krishna, but Krishna is so kind

that He gives this liberation even to His enemies. There is the

following statement in this connection. "O murari [Krishna]! How

wonderful it is that although the demons, who are always envious of

the demigods, have failed to penetrate Your military phalanx, they

have penetrated the region of mitra, the sun globe." The word mitra

is used metaphorically. Mitra means, "sun globe," and also

means "friend". The demons who opposed Krishna as enemies wanted to

penetrate His military phalanx, but instead of doing this, they died

in battle, and the result was that they penetrated the planet of

Mitra, or the sun planet. In other words, they entered into the

Brahman effulgence. The example of the sun planet is given here

because the sun is ever-illuminating, like the spiritual sky, where

there are innumberable illuminating Vaikuntha planets. The enemies

of Krishna were killed, and instead of penetrating Krishna's phalanx,

they entered into the friendly atmosphere of the spritual

effulgence. That is the mercy of Krishna, and therefore He is known

as the deliverer of His enemies also."

 

In my humble opinion, I do not see Krishna's lilas as punishment of

his enemies as much as liberation of a much higher order. During

times of adversity, the general population has a natural tendence to

call on the name of the Lord more purely, seek His association on a

purer level. It is in these times that the people call out to their

God, (whether it is Krishna, Visnu, Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, etc) for

deliverance from thier oppression. When He does decend, His killing

of His enemies grants relief to the population, at this time he

reinstitues religious principles, and at the same time grants

liberation to his enemies. This is pure mercy.

 

If Sri Krishna did not provide this ultimate mercy, then it is

logical to believe that evil individuals, such as King Hiranyakashipu

and the demons would spend billions of lifetimes in the hellish

planets before they were allowed to return to this one even as the

lowest life form. Srila Prabhupada has taught that it takes millions

of life times in the animal and plant kingdoms to attain human form,

and out of all the humans, it is a rare soul that finds Sri Krishna,

and even rarer still, finds liberation. Sri Krishna in His ultimate

mercy, has allowed these evil jivas to end their incarnations by His

hand alone, and being killed by him, they have attained the

liberation that the sadhus are greedy for.

 

I pray that this has been helpful in your understanding. Again, I

pray this finds you in perfect peace, health and in the service of

the Lord.

 

Your eternal servant;

Arjunananda Gauranga Nitaipada Maharaja