Who is Shri Krishna? His Personality, Colour, the Absolute

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Sri Krishna is the son of Mother Yasoda and Nanda Maharaja and the younger brother of Balarama. He is the boyfriend of Radharani and many other beautiful young girls who live in and around Vrindavan.

Nanda Maharaja has many cows and Krishna takes out the calves to graze, along with his young friends and they play together, swim in the river and eat their packed lunches prepared by their mothers. Every day is a new adventure and Krishna and his friends do nothing but have fun enjoying themselves in the wonderful forests of Vrindavan full of trees laden with fruits and flowers together with the other creatures that live there like monkeys, peacocks, deer, frogs and beautiful birds with melodious calls.

Sometimes Krishna crosses paths with the beautiful young daughters of the other inhabitants of the area. Then there is much teasing and joking, laughter and merrymaking. Then in the night, Krishna meets with these girls secretly and they dance in the moonlight by the river and enjoy each other’s company away from the eyes of all parents.

In the morning Krishna is back home and his mother wakes him, bathes and dresses him, cooking the choicest food preparations especially milky ones from the richest, creamiest milk of all the hundreds of thousands of cows that she and Nanda Maharaja own. She worries and fusses over Krishna who thanks her by breaking her pots of yoghurt and butter and feeding it to the monkeys prompting Yasoda to chase the young rascal with a stick, threatening him, and then tying him up to keep him out of trouble. That results in her losing two big trees in her courtyard and her anxiety redoubling in case anything untoward should ever happen to her beloved son.

He’s also God but that’s less fun so He expands Himself to take care of all that stuff.

Personality of Shri Krishna

Krishna manifests and maintains unlimited material universes, all of which combined are only one-quarter of the spiritual manifestation.

The number of living entities is unimaginable. Not just a humongous number that we can sort of imagine with mathematical symbols that represent how many trillions and trillions of digits are in the number. Even if I start with the biggest number I can conceive of, and multiply it by itself continually till I die, I won’t come close to the number of living entities in existence. Yet, Krishna has a relationship with every one of them that is unique to that person.

In the material world, Krishna will wait patiently for anyone to turn to Him, and then He will immediately act. It matters not to Him how long a person has ignored Him, defied Him, abused His world and His living beings in the world. Even one has committed every crime, sin, atrocity, and abomination known to mankind, as soon as one turns to Krishna, He will act. There is no person to whom the Lord is off limits, no bad time for Him, He is always available to anyone who wants Him.

He is willing to help everyone reform themselves to qualify for their place in the spiritual world, and once a person starts, He will never abandon them.

Krishna needs nothing from anyone in the material world. He has His own spiritual world which runs perfectly. There is nothing lacking there. It dwarfs the total of all the innumerable material universes combined. He is completely renounced, but still, Krishna reaches out to those who left Him, gently saying, “Please come back, I’d like it if you did, but I won’t force you.”

Colour of Shri Krishna

Colour of the Krishna is not fully black, it’s blackish-blue, called shyama, it is a unique colour and not commonly found here on Earth. It is not the blue color visible in the mundane world but is a transcendental variegated colour. I imagine it to be something like a deep blue sapphire or blued steel. It is described to be like a bluish-black cloud that is heavy with rain, it is translucent and effulgent.

Krishna’s divine body on Earth is His divine body when He’s not on Earth also. Unlike us, He is His body as there is no difference between Himself and His body. When He appears on Earth it is the form that exists beyond our universe in Vrindavan which appears. It is not a special manifestation that He chooses for Earth. Krishna doesn’t look in His wardrobe of avatar suits and choose one to put on for a quick trip to Earth. He comes as He is.

Krishna exists eternally in the spiritual world, Vaikuntha, at the center in Goloka Vrindavan, and every day of Brahma He manifests His pastimes on Earth in Gokula Vrindavan. It is the same person in both places, the same form. so the same colour of His form, the same intimate associates, the same clothes, foods, and range of activities. What is demonstrated in Gokula Vrindavan is a glimpse of Goloka Vrindavan.

Being only once in a day of Brahma, Krishna’s appearance is a rare occurrence. Brahma’s day is 4.32 billion years, and his night is the same, so Krishna appears only every 8.64 billion years. When Krishna appears all the other avatars are within Him because He is Avatari the source of all avatars. Krishna exhibits all the five primary relationships that it’s possible to have with Him - śānta, dāsya, sakhya, vātsalya and madhura, and then beyond that the very confidential relationship of parakiya rasa. Except for Balarama the first expansion of Krishna, no other avatar exhibits all these. This is why Krishna is unique and different to every other avatar, He is the origin of all avatars and the colour of His divine transcendental form is shyama - blackish-blue.

Speculating that Krishna is the colour of shyama, because of space, infinity, the sky or the ocean or the amalgamation of all colours is fun, but Krishna just is the colour of shyama. He always has been and He always will be.

venum kvanantam aravinda-dalayataksam-

barhavatamsam asitambuda-sundarangam

kandarpa-koti-kamaniya-visesa-sobham

govindam adi-purusam tam aham bhajami

TRANSLATION

I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is adept in playing on His flute, with blooming eyes like lotus petals with head decked with peacock's feather, with the figure of beauty tinged with the hue of blue clouds, and His unique loveliness charming millions of Cupids. Brahma Samhita 5.30

Lord Krishna exist in everything 

Krishna is the sum total of everything that exists, but that doesn’t mean that everything is Krishna.

Krishna’s form is unlimited. This is not logically possible because a form must have boundaries, and ‘boundaries’ means limits. Nonetheless, Krishna has a form that can be seen and measured, but at the same time is unlimited because everything that exists is within His unlimited form. When mother Yasoda looked inside Krishna’s mouth she saw herself and Krishna and the whole universe, and she was looking inside Krishna’s mouth and seeing herself and Krishna and the whole universe, and on and on. So everything is within Krishna.

At the same time Krishna expands to enter into every atomic particle, and between the atomic particles so Krishna is within everything via His expansion, at the same time He remains separate from His expansions as an individual.

The suns rays have heat and light, just as the sun does, but the sun doesn’t lose it’s existence as a planet because its heat and light expands throughout the universe. The difference between Krishna and the sun, is that all the expansions of Krishna have the full potency of Krishna, but the sun’s rays carry only a part of the potency of the whole sun planet.

Even though everything is made of Krishna’s energy and everything rests in Krishna and Krishna permeates everything, still not everything is Krishna.

Matter is Krishna’s energy, but it is not Krishna. The living entities (you and me) are manifest from Krishna, but I am not Krishna and neither are you. We are a part of Krishna but we are separate individuals from Krishna who is also a distinct individual different even from the other forms of Godhead, while simultaneously all forms of God are one.

Lord Krishna - Absolute

Lord Krishna is absolute because everything is contained within Him. There is nothing superior to Him and nothing equal. Whatever is manifest has its original cause in Krishna. There is no difference between any aspect of Krishna and Himself.

We are different to our body because we can see that our body changes while we remain the same person. We are different to our name, because we can change our name but still be the same person. We are different to our senses and can only taste with our tongue or hear with our ears.

Krishna and His body are the same. Krishna and His name are the same. Krishna exists eternally as the same person, at every time, in every place and under every circumstance. Every part of Krishna’s form can perform all the functions of His whole form. He can taste with His power of sight, He can hear with His fingers, He can see with His lotus feet. He can do anything with any part of His unlimited form.

We are here now and can experience only what we experience. At some point in the future, the person we think we are will be gone.

Krishna exists eternally as the same person, and He can experience not only His own experiences but also the experiences of every living entity in existence simultaneously.






Author

Murari Das is supporter of ISKCON and Srila Prabhupada. He is preaching about Krishna consciousness and message of Bhagavad Gita.