Dr KK Aggarwal
Padma Shri and Dr B C Roy National Awardee
President, Heart Care Foundation of India
Krishna teaches us the path of acquiring inner happiness. It can be understood by the four cycles of Krishna described in the Vedic literature: Krishna the Child, Krishna the Husband and Friend, Krishna the Preacher and Krishna the Sanyasi.
The childhood of Krishna describes the methodology and components of a child education. Krishna, pure consciousness, was born as the eight child of Devki representing that during pregnancy one needs to follow the eight limbs of yoga to get a child with no disease.
Initial childhood is full of pure consciousness that spreads love to everyone without any discrimination. The only thing the child during this period does is to steal and spread love and that is what Krishna as Makhan Chor depicts.
With time the child’s mental faculty starts developing distracting the child’s mind. During this phase of life the child needs to be taught to control the thoughts and mind by learning viveka (discrimination between good and bad) and doing abhyas or hard work. The episode of Krishna entering into the pond (thoughts) fighting with Kaliya (duality of mind) and controlling it represents the same. This also coincides with the time a child should be sent to the school.
The next phase of childhood is activation of intellect which in Krishna’s life is depicted as the questions in his mind “Radha kyun gori, main kyun kala?” The incident is during Krishna playing Holi with Gopis and Radha. This happens when the child gets an exposure to the worldly atmosphere and starts getting attached to it. This is the time for the child to be taught control of mind and intellect by one point concentration on the object of concentration. This is also the time when the child should be taught the purpose of life, and the aim for which he has to live in future ( usually adolescent by this time).
Krishna controls the intellect by winning over Indra (intellect) and raising GovardhanParvat (turmoil of the mind) by one finger and saves the public from the rainy storm (wavering thoughts). One finger here indicates one point concentration on the object of concentration. Once the child is taught how to control the intellect, he or she complete spiritual education and learns about the true self.
Krishna is always depicted with a blue colour God with yellow clothes and a flute in his hands. Blue colour indicates everything is possible and yellow clothes indicate that one can acquire it provided one has the flute which is a hollow wood representing egoless nature.
Whenever Krishna is shown with a flute, the lady with him is Radha with blue sari and yellow colour, along with gopis (thoughts) dancing around them indicating that the thoughts of the mind are in symphony with each other and there is a union of mind, body and soul. Here the soul is represented by Krishna, mind by the flute, thoughts with the gopis and body with the Radha.
The second phase of Krishna’s life is shown as a perfect achiever and friend, which is evident from the story of Sudhama.
The third phase of Krishna’s life represent Krishna as an advisor, which shows his role in Mahabharata and his preaching in Bhagavad Gita. He teaches the message of Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Gnana Yoga and Raja Yoga for acquiring excellence in life and inner happiness.
The last role of Krishna as a sanyasi is the end of Krishna’s life. The four cycles also coincide with the four ashrams of life.
To achieve inner happiness the message from Krishna’s life is to learn to make efforts to control the mind, to win over the intellect by one point concentration and to acquire qualities of humility and killing internal ego. With this only one can become a perfect man like Krishna.
