Posted on: 11 May 2024
[Smt. Chhanda Chandra asked:- Swami, in a discussion, somebody commented, “Rama never showed any divinity and Krishna showed several forms of divinity. So, we can say that the devotees who worship Rama are more matured than the devotees who worshipped Krishna” Please reply to this. At Your divine lotus feet always, Chhanda.]
Swami replied:- God Rama was in Tretaa Yuga when the justice was 75% alive. The standard of both Pravrutti and Nivrutti was about 75% strong. Most of the people had the capacity to do some types of miracles because almost all the people were strong devotees of God. Rama came to strengthen Pravrutti because people were more involved in Nivrutti neglecting Pravrutti.
If you take the end of Dwaapara Yuga when God Krishna appeared, the justice was 25% to 30% strong. People were becoming egoistic forgetting Nivrutti. Even in Pravrutti, people were almost towards injustice. The public needed the proof of existence of the unimaginable God through unimaginable miracles. The existence of God will not only help Nivrutti but also Pravrutti because causing fear about God also controls injustice. Hence, there was a very strong need to create at least fear for God, if not devotion. Either bhakti (devotion) or bhaya (fear) is necessary to control the souls. You have to understand the behaviour of the incarnation based on the surrounding atmosphere existing in that time. This means that devotees worshipping God Rama were more matured spiritually than the devotees worshipping God Krishna as per the atmosphere of both Yugas. This does not mean that even now the devotee of God Rama is more matured than the devotee of God Krishna. The above statements are relevant to the general contemporary devotees, belonging to the times of the two incarnations. If you take Hanuman of God Rama and the Gopikas of God Krishna, both Hanuman and Gopikas are in the climax of spiritual maturity.