Q: At one point in Krishna’s life he allowed himself
to be covered in maya and believed that his father was actually beheaded by his
enemy. When he was in maya, he didn’t realize that he was The All-Knowing. How
was it possible that he was able to once again realize who he was? If he fell
into maya wouldn’t he need help from another form of himself or the Guru to
come out of it? How was it possible that he, himself, was not able to remove
the maya from himself?
A: Well, in that particular point, Krishna was never in
maya. If you read the Bhagavad Gita, The Mahabharata,
and the Srimrad Bagavatam, and if
you just read it like that, you will see that yet maya showed her power for
Krishna but he had full control over her. What you see outside, what you read
outside was just an action to show the power of yoga maya, to show how powerful
his own Shakti can be that he can let himself play the game, willingly. In
reality, he was never in the clutch of maya. He was never in the game of her.
You see, maya was playing his game without her knowing. So, when maya has
successfully said: “Yes, I have overcome
the Lord; I have covered the Lord and I get him now. 25.59 Then the Lord said, Hey,
wake up now; it was just an illusion which I cast upon you.” You have to see,
here is the Lord, himself, giving the power to maya and maya said: “I am greater
than you. So, this little pride, which is present into yoga maya, this also has
to be removed.
So in that particular episode of Krishna’s life he portrayed being trapped. You
know Krishna was a rebel, but to rebel against something you have to break something,
but he would not break. He will make things happen, in a way, because he has
the power to do it. The whole creation is in his hands. So, he will act the
drama. Behind the scenes, he is the controller of that drama. So he showed to
maya: “Here you have gotten me. Are you satisfied now? So now that you are
satisfied you think that you have gotten me; now I show in reality that I am still
above you” So that’s why Krishna didn’t need any other aspect of himself or any
Guru to remind him of the power of yoga maya to go out of it, because he was
never in it. He just played that he was in it. The same was when Yasoda tied
Krishna to the pillar, he acted like a normal kid, crying, everything. But yet,
the one who can’t be caught by even the great sages, how can Yasoda catch him?
But due to the love that she has, he let her catch him.
So the same love that yoga maya has for Sri Krishna, the Lord has to let her believe that she caught him in her grip. Like that, she is happy; he is happy. You know even the husband has to please the wife, what will the husband do? He will just be quiet or he will brig a nice gift to the wife. And the wife, the moment she gets the gift - finished. It's happy; if the wife is happy then the husband gets whatever he wants. So, the same way, Lord Krishna acted together to his ow Shakti.
