Who is Radha?
Hello all,
Namaste! Hope all of you had a great week and were able to contemplate on how the Universal intellgence or Brahman can greatly guide us. But it is not enough for us to have the five senses and the normal mind. For the Brahman to interact with us, we need to have an awareness that is as wide as the Universe itself, an intellect as sharp as a sword and a mind that is as focused as a laser.
So, without doing our own inner work, we can't access the greatest Guru or teacher there is. Yes, there are innumerable leaders and teachers all over the world, but this is the teacher even the sages, seers, hermits and mystics seek to clarify their innermost questions on life. But does Brahman differentiate between an ordinary Soul and a highly evolved Soul? No. Then why can't we access the guidance the Brahman is ready to give?
This is purely a communication problem. Let us take an example. We are meeting a Greek person. To converse to that person, shouldn't we speak in Greek? Would that person understand if we speak in English or Spanish? No. Here we are speaking in our language and asking the Brahman to understand us. Sure, Brahman can understand us—Omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. But are we of the same vibration? No. Nor can we understand if Brahman replies. So, it is our duty to develop our intellect and mind in such a way that we can understand when the highest intelligence is replying back to us. Even the sages and the seers had tough time to develop this capacity to understand what lessons and guidances are constantly coming from the Adiguru (First teacher).
The model student: Last week we discussed how a devoted student should act. The first criterion is to develop a deep humility. Many times we humans instead do the opposite. We are full of ego, and the small mind takes over our awareness, attitude, and thoughts. When our mind is already filled to the brim with our own concepts, ideals and perspectives, what can the higher mind or Brahman fill it with?
So, first we need to have a willingness to receive. For that we must remove all the previous notions, attitudes and perspectives to clear our mind. A cup that is already filled cannot accept anything more. When we have to function from a perspective of the Soul or the heart, how can we be bogged down by mere material attitudes and perspectives?
Remember, whose realm is the material world? Maya. Being bogged down in that, we can never grab the higher perspectives or realms. Maya is the realm of Rahu- the fox, the cheat, the magician, the smoke and mirrors. It is a mere show, where nothing actually comes into our hands. A magician shows us all the tricks in the world, but nothing comes to us. So, first we have to remove all the notions and perspectives we have already formed.
Here, am I suggesting that all of us should become a yogi or a hermit? No. What I am describing is that life can be lived from a lower perspective or a higher perspective. A lower perspective would be living without any awareness or involvement of our heart. Just from our mind, that is flying as a balloon with nothing to anchor it. Here this mind cannot stay at one place and do any solid thing for our life. It would be all over the place dragging us along.
Look at our modern life. Isn't that what is happening nowadays? Haven't we become prisoners of our own mind? Look around. We are busy in random mindless activities whether with TV shows, internet, social media, forwarding or uploading random videos/selfies or some other random audio/ video files. Do any of these activities add true value to our life? Do any of these activities help in our Soul's evolution? Most probably not.
Look at the energy as such. It is the nervous, very mental energy with spurts of activity followed by inactivity. This kind of energy doesn't allow our mind to contemplate deeply on profound subjects or to come up with new ideas, perspectives or thoughts. If the mind is every second stimulated by the next video, snap, selfie or opinion, how can it calm down to embrace a thought and contemplate on it deeply? Not going to happen.
The mind is constantly disturbed from one second to next to accommodate the next topic, trend or trigger. So, we surf from one wave of thought to the next. Is this the way the mind is supposed to be used? Here let me introduce Radha. She, in Hindu mythology, was the lover of the god Krishna.
Radha: Krishna, the avatar of the god Vishnu in Hindu mythology was brought as a baby to Gokul, the adopted son of Nandagopa, a cow herd. There he grew up with the kids of other cow herds. The girls were called 'Gopikas'. Radha was the foremost among them. All the Gopikas used to adore Krishna due to his charisma, charm and the naughty things he used to do in Gokul and Vrindavan, both places he stayed.
In some Puranas, Radha is treated as a childhood playmate of Krishna. In some others, she is a married woman who, due to her love for Krishna, left the marriage to be with Krishna. In some other interpretations she is the childhood playmate of Krishna, who grew up to be her lover and is eternally waiting for her love to return to her. In many Hindu traditions she is treated as the Goddess and worshipped.
Even though Radha played a huge role in Krishna's childhood and youth, later her name is not mentioned anywhere. Much later in Mahabharatha, Krishna asks his student devotee Uddhava to go and meet Radha, which Uddhava does. That is the only place Radha is mentioned again. I always used to wonder why Krishna never married Radha? If he was so in love with Radha, why he never married her? That contemplation led to this thought, which I am going to write here.
Radha-Esoteric meaning: We have discussed many times that we are the Soul, the divine speck that weaves us together in the fabric of the Universe. It has also been discussed that the Soul needs to be the Master that directs our life. Of course many times we humans give zero focus towards it's guidance that come as intuition and insights.
Now, who is the servant that must listen to this Master to take actions that bring out the will of the Master? Our mind. We are given a mind that can be used first to rationalize any thoughts or ideas that come up within us. Then we can use the same mind to focus all our intentions as one point and take actions that can bring in the best results for our life.
But nowadays is it one pointed? Focused? Intentional? No. In these modern times we have let our mind wander all over the place without focus or bring in anything that would add value to our life. In the story of Radha and Krishna, Radha's thoughts were always focused on Krishna-one pointed, focused, laser like. Instead of thinking her as Radha, why don't we change it a little bit.
Think of Radha as our mind—the mind that is always focused on Krishna. If Radha becomes the mind, Krishna becomes the Soul, the divine speck within us. Isn't that the real story of Radha? The mind that is always focused on Krishna. Krishna was indeed the divine avatar of god, Vishnu. But we can also think of Krishna as the divine speck in each of us. The divine in all of us, Krishna. Now, what have we discussed all through this blog?
The Soul is the divine spark that is indeed the tiniest speck of Brahman within us. So, that becomes the divine aspect. We, the mind as the being is the one who listens to the Soul so it becomes human part. In the story of Radha, Radha always thought about Krishna and nothing else entered her mind. So, this implies how a mind with awareness should always be focused on the Soul, the Master. No other distraction or thought that turns us away from our Krishna or Soul must be entertained.
Now, what is the main purpose the Soul points us to? To our Dharma- the true purpose. So, making our mind Radha, we would be able to make the mind one pointed to focus on our Dharma, the very purpose we wore this body in the first place for. Isn't Radha's story taking beautiful proportions in each of our life? Instead of realizing this, we think of Radha and Krishna as separate entities from us, build temples for them and pray.
Instead, we need to embrace our inner Krishna, our Soul and Radha, our mind. The mind should become so aligned with the Soul, Krishna and Radha should act as a single unit, one Soul. This is the true perception of Radha and Krishna when we analyze esoterically. Only if we keep our mind as Radha, the other distractions of this modern world won't touch us. Isn't that how we should use our precious resources such as time, energy and mind?
Without concentrating on our Dharma, if we keep wasting our time and energy we would keep coming again and again numerous lifetimes to finish the Dharma we signed up for. So, why not use this lifetime itself and finish our purpose fully and intentionally. Keeping our mind as Radha, focused on our Krishna would help to bring our Dharma, fast and without any obstructions. So, shouldn't we use Radha to work for us to find our own Krishna?
Now, whether to keep our mind as Radha or not is always one's free will and choice!
I wish you a good weekend and I'll see you next Friday!😉
Next week: How should Radha be?
Credits: Images and links from Wikimedia Commons and Pixabay.com
Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance ; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried".
All rights reserved to Jayasree Padmanabhan and SwaroopaBlog.
To my Blog readers: As all of you know, the European Union has passed laws regarding the collection of the user data. This is just to inform all my EU blog readers, I just use Google Analytics, which Google provides, to look at from where readers are reading my blogs. I also use Specific feeds to use their service for a subscription list. I don't collect or intend to collect user data to sell or provide to third-party applications. Regards,
SwaroopaBlog.
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This blog is purely for informational purposes only.
©Jayasree Padmanabhan and Swaroopa LLC, 2019- Eternity
Namaste! Hope all of you had a great week and were able to contemplate on how the Universal intellgence or Brahman can greatly guide us. But it is not enough for us to have the five senses and the normal mind. For the Brahman to interact with us, we need to have an awareness that is as wide as the Universe itself, an intellect as sharp as a sword and a mind that is as focused as a laser.
So, without doing our own inner work, we can't access the greatest Guru or teacher there is. Yes, there are innumerable leaders and teachers all over the world, but this is the teacher even the sages, seers, hermits and mystics seek to clarify their innermost questions on life. But does Brahman differentiate between an ordinary Soul and a highly evolved Soul? No. Then why can't we access the guidance the Brahman is ready to give?
 |
| Brahman - The mysterious teacher if we care to listen! Image credits - Pixabay.com |
This is purely a communication problem. Let us take an example. We are meeting a Greek person. To converse to that person, shouldn't we speak in Greek? Would that person understand if we speak in English or Spanish? No. Here we are speaking in our language and asking the Brahman to understand us. Sure, Brahman can understand us—Omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. But are we of the same vibration? No. Nor can we understand if Brahman replies. So, it is our duty to develop our intellect and mind in such a way that we can understand when the highest intelligence is replying back to us. Even the sages and the seers had tough time to develop this capacity to understand what lessons and guidances are constantly coming from the Adiguru (First teacher).
The model student: Last week we discussed how a devoted student should act. The first criterion is to develop a deep humility. Many times we humans instead do the opposite. We are full of ego, and the small mind takes over our awareness, attitude, and thoughts. When our mind is already filled to the brim with our own concepts, ideals and perspectives, what can the higher mind or Brahman fill it with?
So, first we need to have a willingness to receive. For that we must remove all the previous notions, attitudes and perspectives to clear our mind. A cup that is already filled cannot accept anything more. When we have to function from a perspective of the Soul or the heart, how can we be bogged down by mere material attitudes and perspectives?
Remember, whose realm is the material world? Maya. Being bogged down in that, we can never grab the higher perspectives or realms. Maya is the realm of Rahu- the fox, the cheat, the magician, the smoke and mirrors. It is a mere show, where nothing actually comes into our hands. A magician shows us all the tricks in the world, but nothing comes to us. So, first we have to remove all the notions and perspectives we have already formed.
Here, am I suggesting that all of us should become a yogi or a hermit? No. What I am describing is that life can be lived from a lower perspective or a higher perspective. A lower perspective would be living without any awareness or involvement of our heart. Just from our mind, that is flying as a balloon with nothing to anchor it. Here this mind cannot stay at one place and do any solid thing for our life. It would be all over the place dragging us along.
Look at our modern life. Isn't that what is happening nowadays? Haven't we become prisoners of our own mind? Look around. We are busy in random mindless activities whether with TV shows, internet, social media, forwarding or uploading random videos/selfies or some other random audio/ video files. Do any of these activities add true value to our life? Do any of these activities help in our Soul's evolution? Most probably not.
 | |
| The mental activities that keep us busy in these modern times! Image credits - Pixabay.com |
Look at the energy as such. It is the nervous, very mental energy with spurts of activity followed by inactivity. This kind of energy doesn't allow our mind to contemplate deeply on profound subjects or to come up with new ideas, perspectives or thoughts. If the mind is every second stimulated by the next video, snap, selfie or opinion, how can it calm down to embrace a thought and contemplate on it deeply? Not going to happen.
The mind is constantly disturbed from one second to next to accommodate the next topic, trend or trigger. So, we surf from one wave of thought to the next. Is this the way the mind is supposed to be used? Here let me introduce Radha. She, in Hindu mythology, was the lover of the god Krishna.
Radha: Krishna, the avatar of the god Vishnu in Hindu mythology was brought as a baby to Gokul, the adopted son of Nandagopa, a cow herd. There he grew up with the kids of other cow herds. The girls were called 'Gopikas'. Radha was the foremost among them. All the Gopikas used to adore Krishna due to his charisma, charm and the naughty things he used to do in Gokul and Vrindavan, both places he stayed.
In some Puranas, Radha is treated as a childhood playmate of Krishna. In some others, she is a married woman who, due to her love for Krishna, left the marriage to be with Krishna. In some other interpretations she is the childhood playmate of Krishna, who grew up to be her lover and is eternally waiting for her love to return to her. In many Hindu traditions she is treated as the Goddess and worshipped.
 |
| Radha -The eternal lover of Krishna! Image credits- Raja Ravi Varma [Public domain] |
Even though Radha played a huge role in Krishna's childhood and youth, later her name is not mentioned anywhere. Much later in Mahabharatha, Krishna asks his student devotee Uddhava to go and meet Radha, which Uddhava does. That is the only place Radha is mentioned again. I always used to wonder why Krishna never married Radha? If he was so in love with Radha, why he never married her? That contemplation led to this thought, which I am going to write here.
Radha-Esoteric meaning: We have discussed many times that we are the Soul, the divine speck that weaves us together in the fabric of the Universe. It has also been discussed that the Soul needs to be the Master that directs our life. Of course many times we humans give zero focus towards it's guidance that come as intuition and insights.
Now, who is the servant that must listen to this Master to take actions that bring out the will of the Master? Our mind. We are given a mind that can be used first to rationalize any thoughts or ideas that come up within us. Then we can use the same mind to focus all our intentions as one point and take actions that can bring in the best results for our life.
But nowadays is it one pointed? Focused? Intentional? No. In these modern times we have let our mind wander all over the place without focus or bring in anything that would add value to our life. In the story of Radha and Krishna, Radha's thoughts were always focused on Krishna-one pointed, focused, laser like. Instead of thinking her as Radha, why don't we change it a little bit.
Think of Radha as our mind—the mind that is always focused on Krishna. If Radha becomes the mind, Krishna becomes the Soul, the divine speck within us. Isn't that the real story of Radha? The mind that is always focused on Krishna. Krishna was indeed the divine avatar of god, Vishnu. But we can also think of Krishna as the divine speck in each of us. The divine in all of us, Krishna. Now, what have we discussed all through this blog?
 |
| Radha and Krishna, the mind and Soul as one, united! Image crdits - The Bodleian Libraries, Oxford [CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0)] |
Now, what is the main purpose the Soul points us to? To our Dharma- the true purpose. So, making our mind Radha, we would be able to make the mind one pointed to focus on our Dharma, the very purpose we wore this body in the first place for. Isn't Radha's story taking beautiful proportions in each of our life? Instead of realizing this, we think of Radha and Krishna as separate entities from us, build temples for them and pray.
Instead, we need to embrace our inner Krishna, our Soul and Radha, our mind. The mind should become so aligned with the Soul, Krishna and Radha should act as a single unit, one Soul. This is the true perception of Radha and Krishna when we analyze esoterically. Only if we keep our mind as Radha, the other distractions of this modern world won't touch us. Isn't that how we should use our precious resources such as time, energy and mind?
Without concentrating on our Dharma, if we keep wasting our time and energy we would keep coming again and again numerous lifetimes to finish the Dharma we signed up for. So, why not use this lifetime itself and finish our purpose fully and intentionally. Keeping our mind as Radha, focused on our Krishna would help to bring our Dharma, fast and without any obstructions. So, shouldn't we use Radha to work for us to find our own Krishna?
Now, whether to keep our mind as Radha or not is always one's free will and choice!
I wish you a good weekend and I'll see you next Friday!😉
Next week: How should Radha be?
Credits: Images and links from Wikimedia Commons and Pixabay.com
Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance ; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried".
All rights reserved to Jayasree Padmanabhan and SwaroopaBlog.
To my Blog readers: As all of you know, the European Union has passed laws regarding the collection of the user data. This is just to inform all my EU blog readers, I just use Google Analytics, which Google provides, to look at from where readers are reading my blogs. I also use Specific feeds to use their service for a subscription list. I don't collect or intend to collect user data to sell or provide to third-party applications. Regards,
SwaroopaBlog.
This blog is purely for informational purposes only.
©Jayasree Padmanabhan and Swaroopa LLC, 2019- Eternity
![Raja Ravi Varma [Public domain]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raja_Ravi_Varma,_Radha_Waiting_for_Krishna.jpg){kind=link}
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