When we say Krishna,
Most people only think of butter and girls and flute.
From sixteen to twenty-one,
He lived as a brahmachari.
He took sanyas,
Lived as a brahmachari,
Went through severe sadhana.
Everything that he wanted to create failed with Kurukshetra war.
But we call him Lord because through all this he was playful,
Untouched by a terrible reality,
A terrible drama that's playing around you.
This you can also do,
Isn't it?
Today is Krishna Janmashtami.
When we say Krishna,
There are too many misconceptions about Krishna.
When we say Krishna,
Most people only think of butter and girls and flute.
Yes.
But we must understand that his butter business was all till he was six years of age or eight years of age.
So all this girl business only till he was sixteen years of age.
At the age of sixteen,
When his guru Sandipani made him realize what is the purpose of his life,
First of all he left Vrindavan,
Never again came back.
Never again came back to see any of his relatives or the girls or boys of his area.
That was the end of it.
At sixteen,
He left.
When he was leaving,
Today if we say Krishna,
We say Radhe Krishna.
Radhe comes ahead of Krishna because their love,
Their intimacy,
Their romance caught the imagination of a whole culture in the entire subcontinent in such a way that we don't say Krishna Radhe,
We say Radhe Krishna.
But at the age of sixteen,
He saw her for the last time and never again saw her.
And at the age of sixteen when he was leaving,
He said,
I played this flute for you.
Now I'm going and not coming back.
So as an offering to you,
For the love that you are,
I'm going to give this flute to you and never again play the flute again and he never again played the flute.
From then on it was Radha who played the flute.
He never played flute after sixteen.
From sixteen to twenty-one,
He lived as a brahmachari.
He took sanyas,
Lived as a brahmachari,
Went through severe sadhana.
After that his entire life was committed to marry political life,
Political process and the spiritual process.
Well,
It ended up in a disaster,
But he did everything possible.
These things are never spoken of.
In the Northern plains of India,
He set up over one thousand ashrams because he wanted spiritual process not to be a separate thing.
He wanted spiritual process to be a part of life.
As we live,
As we brush our teeth in the morning,
We meditate.
He wanted to bring spiritual process not as a fringe thing,
But as a mainstream life,
Particularly to the rulers of the country,
Of those many countries that India was at that time.
His mission was to spiritualize the political process of the day.
So obviously,
Those days,
Political process was not a democratic process.
So he thought,
The most important thing is,
If the leadership gets it,
Then the benefit will naturally come to the people.
People who handle other people's lives,
For example a king or a prime minister or a president of a country today or even a CEO of a company because they have hundreds of thousands of people under them,
Once you have such a responsibility,
Then every thought that you generate,
Every emotion that you generate,
Every action that you perform impacts millions of people's lives.
When you have such a responsibility,
It's very important you are in a good state.
What you think,
What you feel must be coming from a certain inner space,
Which will work for everybody's well-being.
If I have a narrow view of life,
Every thought that I generate will damage people's lives,
Every emotion that I have will damage people's life,
Actions that I perform and especially actions that I do not perform,
Which I'm supposed to perform,
Will cause immense damage to people's lives,
Isn't it?
So he focused only on leadership.
He wanted the kings of the day to turn spiritual.
Unfortunately,
It ended up in a disaster of Kurukshetra,
A terrible war which wiped out,
You know,
An entire generation of men literally.
But still we worship him.
Everything that he wanted to create failed with Kurukshetra war.
That's one thing he desperately tried to avoid is that war.
But the most terrible war happened and even he,
His own clan,
All fought among themselves and killed themselves.
But we call him Lord because through all this he was playful,
Untouched by a terrible reality,
A terrible drama that's playing around you,
But still untouched.
So this we are saying Lord,
This you can also do,
Isn't it?
Whether you are going to become the biggest success in the world or not is subject to many realities.
But are you a successful human being?
That means,
Are you able to conduct your life consciously or if life pokes you,
Will you become an animal?
This is the question.
This one question if you successfully handle,
You also we will call you Lord.
Yes.
