Sri Krishna
The news these days talks a lot about Prince Harry, the younger son of England’s King Charles III. The press follows him as he turns the spotlight on the embarrassing secrets of the royal family.
His tell-all book, Spare, sold out on the first day. No surprise. Who wouldn’t want a drool-worthy, eyelid-raising look at the skeletons in the imperial closet?
And the irony of it? A bit of Krishna Consciousness could have stopped it all.
Harry’s mad as hell. And he admits it. He bristles at being shoved aside to make way for big brother William (or Will). Yes. Will, the future king, the big wheel, goes before Harry, the spare tire in the trunk.
How to Mess Up a Kid
Two children at breakfast: Will, the future king, gets three sausages. Harry gets two.
Now tell me if that ain’t a sure way to mess up a kid.
(But maybe Harry should have smiled at getting only two pieces of bad karma instead of Will’s three.)
All right. But what does Krishna Consciousness have to do with it?
First of all, the royal family heads the Church of England. Supposedly spiritual leaders. Oh yeah? Do they even know the difference between the body and the person within?
Will and Harry may look like a king-to-be and his less worthy brother.
But are they?
No More Than a Mortal Body?
Does a person amount to no more than a mortal body? What about the eternal soul living in the heart?
Krishna starts out with this topic in the Bhagavad-Gita:
As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.” (2:13)
And again:
That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible. No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul.” (2.17)
And Will and Harry? Two eternal souls going from body to body. Presently, they happen to come together as brothers. Next life? Who knows? And if you see them as souls, who can say that one rises above the other?
Krishna Chose the Third
And Krishna spoke the Bhagavad-Gita to Prince Arjuna, the third-born of five brothers. Why not to King Yudisthir, the first-born?
The royal family may say the first-born always prevails, but Krishna chose the third. And Krishna drove the chariot of the prince, not the king.
But why did Krishna choose Arjuna, the third-born?
That very ancient science of the relationship with the Supreme is today told by Me to you because you are My devotee as well as My friend and can therefore understand the transcendental mystery of this science.” (4.3)
But all five brothers loved Krishna as devotees and friends. Then why Arjuna?
What Can Harry Learn?
I can’t say. But let the royal family take the lesson: The measure of a person’s worth goes beyond his position in the family or in the royal hierarchy.
But why just the royal family? Let the whole world take this lesson.
And does Harry have anything to learn?
Well, Arjuna readied himself to walk into a fire just to protect the reputation of King Ugrasena, of the city of Dvarka. Harry, the destroyer of reputations, could sure learn something from that.
(Krishna stopped Arjuna and solved the problem a different way. But that’s another topic.)
Eternally touching my head to the floor at the lotus feet of my spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada, for showing me all this.
~Umapati Swami, February 13, 2023
Photo top: Naughty Krishna holding a piece of candy (Jishnu Das)
(Note: The opinions expressed in this article are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any organization or any other person.)
Write to me: hoswami@yahoo.com
© Umapati Swami 2023
Scriptural passages and lecture © Bhaktivedanta Book Trust
Srila Prabhupada
His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is the teacher who brought Krishna Consciousness from India to the West and then to the rest of the world. He is the founder of the worldwide Hare Krishna Movement as well as the author and compiler of many works of Vedic knowledge. He left this world in 1977.
Umapati Swami
One of the first American devotees of the Hare Krishna Movement, he became Srila Prabhupada’s disciple in 1966. Since then, he has preached Krishna Consciousness in many countries and is the author of “My Days with Prabhupada,” available from Amazon. Now 85 years old, he has started this blog to share what he has learned.
Umapati Swami's Blog 