Sri Aurobindo on Sri Krishna

1. The boy with the flute is Sri Krishna, the Lord descended into the world-play from the divine Ananda; his flute is the music of the call which seeks to transform the lower ignorant play of mortal life and bring into it and establish in its place the Lila of his divine Ananda.

2. The Semites have inflicted mankind with the conception of a god who is a stern and dignified king and solemn judge and knows not mirth. But we who have seen Krishna, know him for a boy fond of play and a child full of mischief and happy laughter.

3. …the Ananda is the subtle body and being of Krishna.

4. Krishna represents both the universal Godhead and the immanent Godhead, he whom one can meet within one’s being and in all that constitutes the manifested world. And do you want to know why he is always represented as a child? It is because he is in constant progression. To the extent that the world is perfected, his play is also perfected - what was the play of yesterday will no longer be the play of tomorrow; his play will become more and more harmonious, benign and joyful to the extent that the world becomes capable of responding to it and enjoying it with the Divine.

5. Radha is the personification of the absolute love for the Divine, total and integral in all parts of the being from the highest spiritual to the physical, bringing the absolute self-giving and total consecration of all the being and calling down into the body and the most material nature the supreme Ananda.

6. The Radha love... simply means that whatever comes on the way to the Divine. pain or joy, milana [union] or viraha [separation], and however long the sufferings may last, the Radha love is unshaken and keeps its faith and certitude pointing fixedly like a star to the supreme object of Love.

7. Blue is his (Sri Krishna’s) special and significant colour, the colour of his aura when he manifests -that is why he is called Nila Krishna. The adjective does not mean that he was blue or dark in his physical body.

8. The divine Friend of all creatures conceals His friendliness in the mask of an enemy till He has made us ready for the highest heavens; then, as in Kurukshetra, the terrible form of the Master of strife, suffering and destruction is withdrawn and the sweet face, the tenderness. the oft-clasped body of Krishna shine out on the shaken soul and purified eyes of his eternal comrade and playmate.

9. There are four very great events in history, the siege of Troy, the life and crucifixion of Christ, the exile of Krishna in Brindavan and the colloquy with Arjuna on the field of Kurukshetra. The siege of Troy created Hellas, the exile in Brindavan created devotional religion (for before there was only meditation and worship), Christ from his cross humanized Europe, the colloquy at Kurukshetra will yet liberate humanity. Yet it is said that none of these four events eyer happened.

10. He who recognizes not Krishna, the God in man, knows not God entirely; he who knows Krishna only, knows not even Krishna. Yet is the opposite truth also wholly true that if thou canst see all God in a little pale unsightly and scentless flower, then hast thou hold of his supreme reality.

    Living in Krishna, even enmity becomes a play of love and the wrestling of brothers.

11. The seeker after divine knowledge finds in the description of Krishna stealing the robes of the Gopis one of the deepest parables of God’s ways with the soul, the devotee a perfect rendering in divine act of his heart’s mystic experiences, the prurient and the Puritan (two faces of one temperament) only a lustful story. Men bring what they have in themselves and see it reflected in the Scripture.

12. My lover took away my robe of sin and I let it fall, rejoicing; then he plucked at my robe of virtue, but I was ashamed and alarmed and prevented him. It was not till he wrested it from me by force that I saw how my soul had been hidden from me.

13. Rama is the Divine accepting and glorifying a mould of the human mental, while Krishna seems rather to break the human moulds in order to create others from the higher planes; for he comes down direct from the overmind and hammers with its forces on the mind and vital and heart of man to change and liberate and divinise them.

॥