Monday, October 17, 2016

Reading Notes: "On the Track of Love" and "Indra Gets Caught"

Since I have included a small comment about Krishna in my Introduction for my storybook, I decided to focus on stories that included Vishnu or Krishna, who is one of Vishnu's incarnations. The first story I read about Vishnu was called  "On the Track of Love". Some background about Vishnu--Radha is his main love interest when he is incarnated as Krishna, so she is the girl in this story. The other important character is Narada, who basically follows Vishnu around through spacetime, singing songs of love to Vishnu day and night. The story starts out with Narada becoming really jealous of a man called Muthu Mohan because he realizes that Krishna visits the hearts of all his followers, even this guy who only devotes 2 minutes per day to Krishna. Narada fancies himself as a better follower since he praises Krishna all day. To sort through his feelings, Narada recalls a time when Radha became similarly jealous. One night in a forest, Radha was invited to dance with Krishna. In the midst of dancing, she opens her eyes and notices that Krishna had multiplied himself so he could be with all the devotees present at the dance. She ran off, crying. Krishna had tried to explain to her the "Whole remains whole" aspect of being a god, but she couldn't forgive him. Narada remembers that Radha is human and cannot understand these things, but he has the choice to realize that Krishna must be present for all of his worshipers. Narada later asks Krishna why Muthu Mohan was such a great devotee of his. Krishna explains that even a second spent with him is eternity. So when Muthu was spending 2 minutes a day of his busy schedule to pray, he was completely present, which is something that Narada did not do.

Narada Visits Krishna, Pinterest 


The other story I read was called "Indra Gets Caught". In it, Indra is trapped in Ravana's dungeon and calls Brahma to help him escape. It was really beautiful to read because the dialogue switched between Indra's sad complaints and Brahma's calm reassurances. Brahma tells him to let go of the anger he has, since that is imprisoning him more than the chains are. Eventually, with some persuasion, Indra focuses on meditating to find a way out of the dungeon and is surprised to find himself free again.

Bibliography: Ganesha Goes to Lunch by Kamla K. Kapur.

No comments:

Post a Comment