An Incident From The Bhagavatam-Part II

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Narrative: Yashoda wanted to tie Krishna with a rope. She brought a piece of rope. She tied one end of the rope to the mortar and the other around His little waist (belly). She found that she could not tie a knot as the rope was short. She went inside the house and brought an additional piece of rope. Again, this was short by some inches. She went looking for more pieces to lengthen the rope and brought all rope pieces in her house. Tying them together, she noticed that they were short by two inches every time. Every time!

Comments: Can devotees also try to bind the Lord to their hearts so that His thought never leaves our minds? Yes, this is possible, not with the gross rope but with the subtle rope of Japa—chanting His name. As goes the saying, 'We do not have any method to cross this ocean of world of relative existence other than that of remembering the Lord"s name."

Rope stands for Karma. Once you fall into the trap of karma, you keep moving from one karma to another, just as Yashoda went on tying rope after rope. But Sri Krishna, the God Incarnate, cannot be bound by Karma. Even if he is in the midst of thousands of karmas, he knows how not to get into the whirlpool of karma. Why was the rope short just by two inches? The Lord has two powers. One is whole-ness (purnatva) and other is pervasiveness (vyaapakatva). How can one bind him who has these two powers? Just to stress this fact, He saw to it that rope was always short by two inches.

From another angle, God can be associated with only a pure, sattvika devotee. The Lord is pure sattva while the rope represents tamas. God is devoid of name and form. How can you bind something that is devoid of name and form? Also, the usual reason for bondage is attachment and hatred. The Lord who is untouched by likes and dislikes, how can they bind him? So, does that mean that the Lord cannot be bound at all? From a devote"s angle, He can be. There are two ways to do this. One is to free oneself from all the samskaras(deep-rooted mental impressions) and make the mind turn towards the Lord. God can be bound by such a devotee only with love. Second is to believe in the presence of the Lord in everything. With such a devotee, the Lord will bind himself.

Did Yashoda ultimately bind Krishna? Read on the Next Page