By Kesava Krsna Dasa
If we were to get a male pig and teach him some martial arts, civilised combat, the use of weaponry, and verbal expression for human understanding, just these suggestions alone will cause people to suspect my sanity. These are ridiculous childish fare. But if Krishna does the ridiculous and insane? If Krishna features as Sri Varahadeva? Who is insane now? Who is being ridiculous?
Let us just imagine the scene: Each of us have the eyes to see a spectacular battle raging in outer space between a Divine male pig and a demon named Hiranyaksha. What will those who consider pigs as vile and untouchable think? This association of God and pigs must surely be blasphemous for them. What will those who believe that God is a serious, no-nonsense and jealous God think? This prankish boar pastime must surely have them chanting God’s names to counteract such metamorphic impossibilities. Fictional Superman might be more believable than a heroic pig who levitates.
By playing the role of a talented male pig saving earth in its darkest hour, Krishna is causing us to suspend rationality and normal sanity. One has to be properly ‘insane’ to believe and worship this combat lila, in a sane way – sane insanity. This is an imaginative fairy tale for kids, but sober and learned scholars of the Vaisnava tradition accept it as reality. Krishna causes His devotees to accept the ‘ridiculous’ as quite normal.
When Krishna says that He is inside of everything and yet outside of everything, and that the cosmos is within Him and yet He is not a part of this cosmos, such playful words will have serious rationalists overworking their cerebral matter to deliberate them. To be far away and yet very near, and the biggest and the smallest, Krishna challenges high IQ standards with bouncy baloney. If we take Krishna’s illogical teasing seriously to heart as faith, it will deliver us from the noose of logic.
If we find ourselves seriously staid and unmoved by fantastic imagery, then witnessing this galactic fight between boar and demon will have us realise that Krishna is seriously funny and playful. To have His back scratched by a mountain as a tortoise, to tug a large boat along in devastating waters as a clever fish, to take the biggest step ever for mankind (Move over, Mr Armstrong) as a dwarf, and other limitless fun antics, Krishna is inviting us to His fun world – all we have to do is be irrational and insane in thoughts of these liberating pastimes.
By devoting ourselves to fun-loving Krishna, we can add fun to our lives. Krishna is waiting for us to play hide and seek with Him and to share His picnic, if we are so inclined. Krishna is fun personified. Krishna is trying to attract miserable and sceptical people with pastimes that make sceptics into bigger sceptics, and to make them more miserable than before. The favour of Krishna’s devotees can make people believe in the unbelievable.
This unbelievable demon-boar rivalry would have out-performed the greatest of firework displays lighting the night sky at great expense. The weapons used, out-size and out-perform the latest technological missile advances of modern armed forces. Even to think about, and to remember this battle and Sri Varadeva’s splendour, can give liberation from scepticism and misery.
To believe that the all-pervasive Supreme Being can drive a chariot for His devotee, hold aloft a mountain for seven days with His pinkie, flies through space on an eagle, swallows forest fires, dances on snake heads, breathes out universes, washes His devotee’s feet, ls frightened of His Mother, is to have faith that God can do anything and everything, with playful ease.
For those who have faith in what Krishna is capable of, possess the greatest fortune. This fortune consisting of flying pigs, a tortoise with an itchy back, and a giant-stepping dwarf are giant leaps of faith, made normal. The fortune of faith helps us understand Krishna’s playful nature, even when He delineates Vedic thought. “Rise above the flowery words of the Vedas” He says.
If all of these Avatara pastimes are fun, we can only imagine how fun Krishna must be. With Krishna around, it is alright to believe in the ridiculous, the unbelievable, the insane, the irrational and every other belief system that keeps us rooted here in misery and scepticism. If people accuse us of being naïve escapists for such transcendental faith, then let it be, because we can escape from misery and scepticism forever with it. Krishna’s pastimes are the real escapism gift.
Ys Kesava Krsna Dasa.
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