Pranavananda Ashram - Our Message

Pranavananda Ashram

Sri Krishna Janma Ashtmi Sunday September 5^th, 2004.

This is the Birthday of Lord Krishna, the eighth Divine Incarnation.

Sri Krishna Janma Ashtmi is about the Birthday celebration of Lord Krishna.The Dwapara Age was the period of duals and conflicts. Towards the end of the Dwapara Yuga, there were unrighteous men like Kansa, Jarasandha and Sisupala. The descent of God on earth - Purna-Avatar, is to remove unrighteous forces and to re-establish Dharma. God descends on earth so that man would ascend into heaven.

Sri Krishna embodied himself on the 8^th day in the dark half of the month of Sravan. Vasudeva was his father and Devaki his mother. Lord Krishna was the greatest personality of that time. He lived in Gokul during his infancy till the age of eleven years to hide himself from the clutches of his maternal uncle, Kansa. His uncle was a tyrant king and a torturer of holy men. Kansa was so wicked and tyrannical that he usurped the throne from his pious father Ugrasena and had him imprisoned to satisfy his own vanity.

Kansa was a demon King who tormented his innocent subjects. His sister Devaki and devoted husband Vasudeva too suffered untold miseries and tribulations at the hands of the wicked king Kansa. He adpoted all means fair and foul to put an end to his sister Devaki's son, Sri Krishna, but in the end Kansa was killed at the hands of the ever compassionate Lord. In order to re-establish righteousness he killed his tyrant uncle, and once again restored the kingdom to the ever righteous Ugrasena.. Kansa with all his power and wealth could not save himself and was destroyed by the hands of God. The people ever devoted and dedicated to prayer and worship to God who brought relief to their miseries and grant protection to them from the tyrannical rule of Kansa.

But more significantly than the destruction of Kansa, Chanura and other Asuras. Sri Krishna is so closely connected with the Mahabharata war, that the War fought on the battlefield of Kurukshetra is where Sri Krishna gave his immortal message of the song celestial - the Bhagavad Gita - to his disciple Arjuna and to entire humanity over Five Thousand years ago. The Bhagavad Gita is a famous and marvellous Sanskrit poem which occurs as an episode of the Mahabharata. In plain, but noble language it unfolds a philosophical system which remains to this day the most translated scripture in modern times. So lofty are many of its declarations, so sublime its aspirations, so pure and tender its piety that the Lord Himself declares in the Gita Ch: 4 Verses 7 & 8.

Yadaa Yadaa Hi Dharmasya Glaanir Bhavati Bhaarata
Abhutthaanam Adharmasya Tadaat-maanam Srjaam-ya-ham
Paritraanaaya Saadhuunaam Vinaasya Cha Duskrtaam
Dharma Samsthaapanaar-thaaya Sambhavaami Yuge Yuge

When goodness grows weak; when evil increases;
I make myself a body. To destroy the sin of the sinner;
To establish righteousness.

Lord Krishna was the pioneer force in the great Mahabharat war fought on the battle-field of Kurushetra. His sojourn on earth lasted for one hundred and five years. The Kali Yuga started the moment Sri Krishna left the earth. The Bhagavad Gita, the divine song immortal is where Lord Krishna gave spiritual instructions to his disciple Arjuna.

However, the Bhagavad Gita is not merely a text book of Hinduism, but a bible to humanity. As such, in its universal application, it has taught methods of self development to suit the mental and intellectual temperaments of both these categories, the active man and contemplative man.

Morality is like the horizon which ever recedes as we approach it. It always keeps us at arms length and perpetually reminds us of our weaknesses. The unaided human soul feels that it is helpless and craves for something which will take it out of the region of perpetual conflict and give it the assurance of victory and peace. A mere moral life cannot give us the feeling of love, joy and exaltation and the spirit of courage and self-sacrifice, which religious life gives. Mere morality, then, cannot abolish our separateness and sin. And as long as we have the feeling that we are separate selves, we are not saved. It is only by fleeing to, and taking refuge in God with love and devotion that we can leave our separate selves behind.

The process is called Bhakti, and bhakti is like poetry in that it brings order and beauty into the confused and tangled facts of our lives. A man who loves god has no wants nor sorrows. He has neither hates nor joys, nor strives with zeal for any ends of his own. For through Bhakti is he moved to rapture, and through Bhakti does he attain peace and is ever happy in spirit. Bhakti is man's love for God. And the response of God to man's feeling is called Prasada or Grace. All Hindu saints teach us that, as sure as day follows night, Grace follows the cry of faith. Worship God at all times with all your heart and with all your mind. Glorify Him in your heart, and He will soon reveal himself to you and you will feel his presence. As Lord Krishna had removed the shackles and bondage of Vasudeva and Devaki, so we too can be unbolted from the shackles of Maya by self-surrender and taking refuge at the feet of the Lord.

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