Canto Ten / CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Krishna Rescues Nanda Mahārāja from the Abode of Varuna

Nanda Mahārāja was intent on breaking his fast during the Dvādaśī day, of which there remained only a few minutes. Thus he entered the water to bathe at an inauspicious time, before the first dawn light.

The servant of Varuna who arrested Nanda Mahārāja is stated here to be an asura, or demon, for obvious reasons. First, the servant was foolishly ignorant of Nanda Mahārāja’s position as the pastime father of the Supreme Absolute Truth. Also, Nanda Mahārāja’s intention was to carry out the injunctions of scripture; therefore Varuna’s servant should not have arrested Nanda on the technical grounds that he bathed in the Yamunā at an inauspicious time. Later in this chapter Varuna himself will say, ajānatā māmakena mūdhena: “This was done by my ignorant servant, who is a fool.” This foolish servant did not understand the position of Krishna or Nanda Mahārāja or devotional service to the Lord.

In conclusion, it is clear that Lord Krishna wanted to give His personal audience to Varuna and simultaneously accomplish other didactic purposes. Thus this wonderful pastime will now unfold.

Viśvanātha Cakravartī Thākura explains that when Nanda Mahārāja went to bathe in the river, he was accompanied by several cowherd men. When Nanda did not come out of the water, they began to cry out, and Lord Krishna immediately came there. Understanding the situation, Śrī Krishna entered the water and went to the court of the demigod Varuna, determined to free His father and the other cowherd men from fear of a mere demigod.

Varuna ecstatically exclaims here that since he has now seen the infinitely gorgeous body of Lord Krishna, the trouble of assuming a material body has now been supremely justified. Indeed, the artha, the goal or real value of Varuna’s life, has now been achieved. Because Lord Krishna’s form is transcendental, those who accept His lotus feet go beyond the boundary of material existence, and thus only the spiritually unaware would presume that the Lord’s lotus feet are material.

The word śrūyate is significant here. Śruti, or Vedic literature, consists of authorized statements made by the Lord Himself or His enlightened representatives. Thus neither the Lord nor recognized spiritual authorities would ever say that within the Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead, there is the fault of illusion. Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī points out that the word brahmane here indicates the Lord is full in Himself, and that the term paramātmane indicates He is the controller of all living entities.

Thus within the supreme being, complete in Himself and omnipotent, we do not find any jurisdiction of the material, illusory energy.

The word ayam, “this one here,” clearly indicates that Krishna’s father, Nanda Mahārāja, was present as Varuna was speaking. In fact, Viśvanātha Cakravartī Thākura states that Varuna had seated Śrī Nanda on a jeweled throne and had personally worshiped him out of respect.

Technically, Nanda Mahārāja was correct in entering the water just before sunrise. The following explanation is given by Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī in his commentary on the first verse of this chapter: After an especially short Ekādaśī, measuring only eighteen hours, about six hours of the lunar day in which the fast had to be broken, namely the Dvādaśī, had already expired before the dawn. Since at sunrise the proper time for breaking the fast would have passed, Nanda Mahārāja decided to enter the water at an otherwise inauspicious time.

Of course, Varuna’s servant should have been aware of these technical details, which are meant for strict followers of the Vedic rituals. Above and beyond that, Nanda Mahārāja was acting as the Supreme Lord’s father and was therefore a most sacred person, beyond the touch of insignificant cosmic bureaucrats like the foolish servant of Varuna.

In this pastime, Lord Krishna gives a sublime demonstration of His position as the Supreme Lord of all lords. Varuna, the demigod of the seas, is most powerful, yet he was happy to worship even Lord Krishna’s father, what to speak of Krishna Himself.

The cowherd men were filled with excitement upon hearing how Krishna had gone to the abode of Varuna to rescue His father. Suddenly realizing that they were in fact dealing with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, they joyfully conjectured among themselves about their auspicious destination after finishing their present life.

Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī has elaborately explained how this verse applies to the eternally liberated residents of Śrī Vrindāvana, the Lord’s abode. One of the fundamental philosophical principles of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the distinction between two types of illusion, Yoga-māyā and Mahā-māyā, the spiritual and material states of existence, respectively. Although Krishna is God, the omnipotent, omniscient Supreme Being, His intimate associates in the spiritual world love Him so much that they see Him as their beloved child, friend, lover and so on. So that their ecstatic love can transcend the boundaries of mere reverence, they forget that Krishna is the Supreme God of all the universes, and thus their pure, intimate love expands unlimitedly. One may consider their activities of treating Krishna as a helpless child, a handsome boyfriend, or a playmate to be a manifestation of avidyā, ignorance of Lord Krishna’s position as God, but the residents of Vrindāvana are in fact ignoring the secondary majesty of Krishna and focusing intensely on His infinite beauty, which is the essence of His existence.

In fact, describing Lord Krishna as the supreme controller and God is almost a type of political analysis, referring as it does to a hierarchy of power and control. Such analysis of levels of power and hierarchies of rule is significant in a context in which one entity is not fully surrendered, in love, to a higher entity. In other words, control becomes visible, or is consciously felt as control, when there is resistance to that control. To cite a simple example: A pious, law-abiding citizen sees a policeman as a friend and well-wisher, whereas a criminal sees him as a threatening symbol of punishment. Those who are enthusiastic about government policies feel not that the government is controlling them but rather that it is helping them.

Thus Lord Krishna is seen as a “controller,” and hence as “the Supreme God,” by those who are not fully enchanted by His beauty and pastimes. Those fully in love with Lord Krishna focus on His sublime, attractive features and, because of the nature of their relationship with Him, do not much notice His controlling power.

A simple proof that the residents of Vraja have transcended lower states of God consciousness rather than failed to attain them is the fact that throughout the pastimes of the Lord they often “remember” that Krishna is God. Usually they are astonished at this remembrance, having been fully absorbed in seeing Krishna as their friend, lover and so on.

The word kāma is conventionally used to indicate a material desire, or else a spiritual desire so intense that it becomes somehow analogous to intense material desires. Still, the fundamental distinction remains: material desire is selfish and self-gratificatory; spiritual desire is free of selfishness, being wholly for the pleasure of the other, the Lord. Thus the residents of Vrindāvana executed their daily activities solely for the pleasure of their beloved Krishna.

It should be remembered that the entire purpose of Krishna’s descent into this world is to attract living beings back home, back to Godhead. Two things are required for this: that His pastimes display the beauty of spiritual perfection, and that they somehow seem relevant and hence interesting to the conditioned souls of this world. The Bhāgavatam often states that Lord Krishna plays just like a youthful actor, and He undoubtedly engages His eternal devotees in the dramatic presentation. Thus Lord Krishna here muses to Himself that people in this world certainly do not know their ultimate destination, and with an obvious touch of the facetious He also thinks in this way about His own eternally liberated associates, who were playing in this world like ordinary members of a cowherd village.

Apart from the double meaning obviously present in this verse when it is applied to Krishna’s liberated associates, Krishna here makes an entirely direct and pointedly critical observation about ordinary people. When applied to conditioned souls who are actually wandering throughout the universe, His statement that people are acting out of ignorance and lust is not mitigated by any deeper, spiritual meaning. People in general are simply ignorant, and they do not seriously consider their ultimate destination. As usual, Lord Śrī Krishna is able to say many profound and complex things in a few simple words. How fortunate we are that God is not a dry field of energy, a transcendent, effulgent blob, or nothing at all — as various people would have it. In fact, He is the most wonderful Personality of Godhead, full of absolute personal qualities, and certainly whatever we can do, He can do better, as evidenced by His brilliant way of speaking.

It is clear from this verse that the Absolute Truth dwells in His own eternal abode. Everyone of us tries to live as comfortably as possible, surrounding ourselves with peace and beauty. How can we, in the name of “logic,” begrudge the Supreme Lord, our creator, the supremely beautiful and comfortable abode known by people in general as the kingdom of God?

In text 14 Lord Krishna revealed to the residents of Vrindāvana His own abode, the spiritual planet of Krishnaloka. This and innumerable other Vaikuntha planets float in an infinite ocean of spiritual light called the brahmajyoti. That spiritual light is in fact the spiritual sky, which Krishna also, quite naturally, revealed to the residents of Vrindāvana. For example, if we want to show the moon to a child, we say, “Look up in the sky. See the moon over there in the sky.” Similarly, Lord Krishna revealed the vast spiritual sky to the residents of Vrindāvana, but as emphasized in text 14 and in the following text, 16, the actual destination of the Lord’s associates was His own spiritual planet.

The unlimited extension of spiritual light, called the brahmajyoti in text 15, is compared to a lake called Brahma-hrada. Lord Krishna submerged the cowherd men in that lake in the sense that He submerged them in the awareness of the impersonal Brahman. But then, as indicated by the word uddhritāh, He lifted them up to a higher understanding, that of the Personality of Godhead in His own planet. As clearly stated here, dadriśur brahmano lokam: They saw, just as Akrūra did, the transcendental abode of the Absolute Truth.

The evolution of consciousness may be briefly summarized as follows: In ordinary consciousness we perceive and are attracted to the variety of material things. Rising to the first stage of spiritual consciousness, we transcend material variety and focus instead on the undifferentiated One, which lies behind and gives existence to the many. Finally, rising to Krishna consciousness, we find that the absolute, spiritual One contains its own eternal variety. In fact, since this world is a mere shadow of eternal existence, we would expect to find spiritual variety within the One, and indeed we do find it in the sacred text of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Astute readers may note that the pastime involving Akrūra takes place later in the Bhāgavatam, after the present affair with the cowherd men. The reason Śukadeva Gosvāmī says Akrūra saw Vaikuntha purā, “previously,” is that all these incidents took place many years before the conversation between Śukadeva Gosvāmī and Mahārāja Parīkshit.

Although the residents of Vrindāvana considered themselves ordinary persons, Lord Krishna wanted them to know of their extraordinary good fortune. Thus, within a lake in the Yamunā River the Lord showed them His personal abode. The cowherd men were amazed to see that the kingdom of God had exactly the same spiritual atmosphere as their own earthly Vrindāvana and that, just as in their Vrindāvana Lord Krishna was personally present, in their unique vision He was present as the Lord of the spiritual world.

As Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Thākura points out, these verses emphasize that Lord Krishna did not merely show the cowherd men a sample Vaikuntha planet but that He specifically revealed His Krishnaloka, the greatest of eternal abodes and the natural home of the residents of Vrindāvana, who loved Krishna more than anyone else did.