Ancient Culture ( Samskaram ) of India ( Bharatham ) - 11. Swami Krishnananda.

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Chinmaya Mission    

Glimpses from the inauguration of Chinmaya Gurudham, Gurugram on 12th Oct, 2022

The Chinmaya Sevaks at Chinmaya Gurugram were busy during the entire period of covid building their new centre ever since the foundation stone was laid on 5th May 2019.  Pujya Swami Swaroopananda inaugurated the new Chinmaya Gurugram centre where Jagadguru Shri Krishna will be soon installed as the deity of the centre. Shri Sudhir Rajpal, IAS CEO GMDA was the honourable guest at the inauguration and several other dignitaries and Swamins of Chinmaya Mission including Swami Gangeshananda, Swami Chidrupananda, Swami Prakarshananda, Swamini Gurupriyananda were also present to grace and bless the occasion.

Pujya Swami ji reminded all Bhagavan Shri Krishna's teaching on remaining an instrument in Bhagavan's hands (nimitta-mātraṁ bhava savya-sāchin)  so the divine will flows through us to the world around us, even the impossible tasks turn into glory. 

Chinmaya Gurudham has activities from Pre natal, Shishu Vihar for Toddlers, Bala Vihars for children, Teenage groups including Jr. Yuvakendra, Yuvakendra, study groups, pravachans and many more. Lastly Swami wished everyone the best with abundance of blessings.

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1.#Opinion:Friday, October 14, 2022. 09:00. 2890.//
2.#Chapter 7: The Message of the Mahabharatam.-2.
Post-11.

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Sri Krishna went to the Pandava's hut with a large retinue. A lot of gifts he brought, elephants and horses, gold and silver, and so on, and offered them to the elder of the brothers, Yudhisthira, as a mark of respect. Yudhisthira was also disguised as a young Brahmin man. He asked Krishna, “How did you recognise us?” Sri Krishna said, “Fire can be known wherever it is, and there is no difficulty in knowing where fire is.” With this, he departed from that place. They did not talk much. Krishna went to Dvarka

The Pandavas, having been recognised later on, were called to Hastinapura, and it was the wish of Yudhisthira to perform a rajasuya sacrifice, which means to say, the performance of a great ritual, a yajna or a sacrifice, for the recognition of kinghood of the person who performs the sacrifice. All the great men came there, and Sri Krishna also came. All was well.

In that assembly of the rajasuya sacrifice, to which Sri Krishna was invited by Yudhisthira, a question arose. Before a ceremony commences, there is a tradition even today that whenever we have a large ceremony, a sacred function, a conference, etc., the chief guest is honoured first. And so there was a discussion regarding who would be the chief guest. There were thousands of royal men—kings, princes, etc. Krishna was not a king. He had no land and property, he had nothing, but he was recognised as someone very important. Bhishma, the grandsire, knew who Krishna was. Others did not know. So when this question arose as to who would be the chief guest to be honoured before the ceremony commenced, nobody had anything to say because how could they choose one person among thousands? If they chose one, the others would feel hurt that they had not been recognised.

Bhishma stood up and said, “I declare that in this assembly no one can be equal to Bhagavan Sri Krishna, who is seated here. He shall be the chief guest, and he shall be honoured.”

This was enough to rouse the anger of all the princes seated there. “You consider Krishna, a cowherd boy who is not a king, who has no friends, who has no wealth, who has no status, as the chief guest? Have we all been invited here to be insulted like this? Yudhisthira, shame on you!” they all cried out. “Have we, princes and kings, come here to be insulted like this? We quit this place. We don't want to stay here any longer.”

They were all mumbling and raising their arms, and one of them, Shishupala, got very angry. He said, “The time has come that Kali Yuga has descended on earth. This is why respectable kings are insulted in the public assembly and a cowherd boy is being considered as the chief guest.” Shishupala went on haranguing for a very long time, deafening the ears of all people, who could not tolerate it anymore. Some of them stood up in anger to make the man close his mouth, some were merely watching with reddened eyes, and even the Pandava brothers were about to rise up to take some action.

Bhishma said, “Be calm, be calm. Sit down. The time has not come for taking action. This gentleman who has been blabbering all kinds of words just now, his end has come.”

When Bhishma said “his end has come”, Shishupala got still more angry. “You fellow, old man with wrinkled face, you say that my end has come? I will tear out your tongue just now.”

Bhishma replied, “I will tear out your tongue first, but I will not do that because the person who will do it is seated here.”

Sri Krishna uttered not a word, as if nothing was happening. Calm and quiet he was sitting, though an avalanche of abuses in the worst of terms were being poured on him.

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There is a story behind this incident. As a digression I will mention it to you. It appears that Shishupala, this blabbering man, was born with four eyes, four arms, four feet, etc. Some abnormal creature-like thing was born. Everybody was wondering what kind of child this is.

To be continued 

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