Posted on: 08 Sep 2022
O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,
[Mrs. Chhanda asked: Padanamaskaram Swami, Swami, You always say that the aim of our life is to find out the contemporary Human incarnation and participate in His mission in terms of service and sacrifice. Hanuman and Gopikas are the most suitable for this. In one of our discussions, I got stuck in the case of Meera Bai who was the incarnation of Radha. She devoted herself to Lord Krishna who was a past incarnation. Does it mean Meera Bai did not find her contemporary human incarnation or it was sufficient for her (as Radha herself) to concentrate on a past incarnation only. Please explain. If I am asking something irrelevant, I beg Your pardon. At Your divine lotus feet, Chhanda]
Swami replied:- Meera is the incarnation of Radha and Radha must be the standard. Then, why did Radha not worship the statue of the previous human incarnation, Rama (like Meera worshipped the statue of the previous incarnation, Krishna)? Between Radha and Meera, who is a higher standard? Did Radha reach Goloka (the higher than the highest fruit) or did Meera reach Goloka? Meera could follow the concept of human incarnation and did not follow the old concept of energetic incarnation like worshipping Vishnu as Prahlaada did. In fact, his father asked Prahlada to worship him, which is the concept of the contemporary human incarnation! Prahlada did not worship Hiranyakashipu because Hiranyakashipu was not the human incarnation of God at all. Similarly, Meera did not worship her real contemporary human incarnation, but, worshipped the real past human incarnation in the form of a statue. A statue of the real human incarnation is better than a contemporary human being claiming to be an incarnation. Hence, Prahlada refusing to worship Hiranyakashipu and Meera worshipping a statue of Krishna are justified. There must be some serious reason in the case of Meera. She was born and married in the Rajaputra dynasty, which is very very strict in such paths like sweet devotion towards God.
In fact, everybody opposes it because fraud human incarnations are exploiting this concept. Meera was always sleeping alone without allowing her husband near her since she declared that she is the wife of Krishna. In such extreme case of the life of Meera, is there a possibility of the entry of the contemporary human incarnation with which there is every possibility of exploitation by fraud souls? Krishna came as the contemporary human incarnation in her time also and seeing the serious circumstances, God planned in a special way due to the following factors:- 1) Meera is the incarnation of Radha and Radha exists in Meera, who is well acquainted with the physical features of Krishna and hence, the contemporary human incarnation was born with the same physical features of Krishna. 2) Even though Meera was the incarnation of Radha, Meera was seriously worshipping Krishna’s statue, which was having some different features (because the original photo of Krishna did not exist) and Meera would be pleased with the features of the statue. The contemporary human incarnation came to Meera during nights decorated as Krishna, who was appearing as the original Krishna to Radha and with the features of the statue to Meera simultaneously so that the inner Radha and the external Meera were simultaneously satisfied. Meera was sleeping alone in her bed room since she declared that her husband was Krishna only. God tested Meera (testing is inevitable in view of public satisfaction) and the secret talks of Meera and God were overheard by people. Meera was given a cup of poison as punishment. Meera drank it and God saved her from death. All this is a very complicated incident and this was done because Meera was the incarnation of Radha.
Jambavaan, a strong devotee of Rama, fought with Krishna, who was the re-incarnation of Rama whereas Hanuman, the climax devotee of Rama recognized Krishna as the same Rama. In fact, Rama and Krishna were having almost the same physical features. Jambavaan refused Krishna because the matching of features was not 100%. Hanuman never bothered about the external features because the real divinity of God lies in the internal qualities (Mainly, the spiritual knowledge of God Brahma, the love to devotees of God Vishnu and the miraculous powers of God Shiva by which only every divine incarnation of God Datta is recognized.), which is the internal beauty and recognized Krishna as Rama. Jambavaan was a bear-animal, which is very famous for its foolish rigid grip. The path of Hanuman is devotion assisted by analytical knowledge and hence, is true. Emotional devotion without the assistance of true analytical spiritual knowledge is like traveling in darkness without a torch light in hand.
ISKCON and Christianity are good religions since they accept the concept of the human incarnation. But, they are rigid about some past human incarnation only. Whether you worship the statue of the past human incarnation or that of the upper world energetic incarnation, how does it matter?, because both are inert statues only standing as representative models alone. Of course, worship of the statue or photo as the representative model of God is also good to develop theoretical devotion in initial stages. Krishna said that He will reincarnate whenever necessary (Yadā yadā hi…) and Jesus also said that He will reincarnate again and again whenever necessary (I will come again).