Recalling Kunti Devi’s Shloka – Reflections - Who Am I

 

I guess it’s yet again stock-taking time. I’m jobless as I holiday at my daughter’s in Canada, free from routine chores.

It’s the wee pre-dawn hour. The deep silence is tumultuous. I watch in stunned wonderment at the little bird, perhaps no larger than my middle finger, vigorously flap its wings and flit across space with a speed belying its size. I marvel at God’s creation.

As I do at His umpteen other handiwork – rather, don’t ever cease to be mesmerized by His innumerable and fathomless œuvres.

The calm and chaotic, compete in complete confusion. The clear and cloudy, clash in combat. The casual and causal credibly converge. The cerebrum is a cauldron of conflicting conjectures.

Time and again, I recall Kunti Devi’s soulful prayer to Sri Krishna: विपद: सन्तु ता: शश्वत्तत्र तत्र जगद्गुरो । भवतो दर्शनं यत्स्यादपुनर्भवदर्शनम् ॥

Loosely translated, Kunti Devi prays that calamities befall her again and again so that she constantly and steadfastly sees and remembers Krishna, for it is the only means to free one from the fetters of the cycle of births and deaths, and thus attain salvation.

I’m wonderstruck at Kunti’s prayer. While the very prospect of decidedly courting problems for one’s sins is in itself terrifying, to pray for adversity is spine-chilling! I’m certainly no Kunti – in fact, the comparison is ridiculously absurd! I may not ask for anything at all, but would not dare to pray for trouble and disaster!

Nevertheless, I have not been able to get the shloka and its import, out of my head and it set me thinking: Are calamities the only way to always remember Krishna?

The first wail of a new born is music to my ears. Its smile, giggles, babbles and toddles as it grows, are no less hypnotizing. I feel overwhelmed as I sense Krishna’s presence in what I see and revel in.

In the chirping and twitter of birds, in the cacophony of animal sounds, do I not warm to HIS presence!

The wonderment continues as I’m eternally enchanted by the sheer variety of myriad blossoms in motley shapes, colours and fragrances. In the rhythmic change of seasons that unfailingly emerge when it’s their time - who, but HE alone could have made possible!

In gushing streams and rivers, in the ebb and flow of water in seas and oceans, in lofty and majestic alpine peaks that project heavenwards – who else can orchestrate such symphony, but HE!

In the mellifluous strains of music, the ocular humidity I experience stems from the undeniable feeling that I sense only HIS presence and nothing else around me!

I am awestruck when I realize that no two of us share identical features or fingerprints, from the billions of human beings spread across the continents. Do I not call this Krishna’s sleight of hand that none other can replicate!

These are but a handful from the infinite splendorous phenomena that HE alone creates – marvels and miracles that make me bow down in humility and gratitude – happy to be a speck in this vast and varied Creation.

HE is all-pervading - in our inane utterances and routine occurrences in life – OMG (Oh My God), what a providential escape! Thank God, I managed to get there on time! Oh Lord, God, how could I forget to do that!

How often, without using harsh language or expletives, we reprimand someone for a misdoing by saying, O Bhagavane or Arrey Rama, what have you done!

Do our eyes not well up at the sight of suffering living beings? Do we not pray for their suffering to end, while thanking the Almighty that we do not face that unfortunate situation?

To varying degrees, in the unconscious, sub-conscious and conscious realms of the mind, HE, the Omnipresent, Omnipotent and Omniscience, is a certain CONSTANT, by our own volition.

 

In short, I’d rather say this only for myself, when my head and heart are full of HIM in whatever I think, feel and do, or not do, I am nowhere near the exalted Kunti! Why?

These and other questions keep flooding the cells in my brain. A certain rationale provides me a plausible answer. If these casual thoughts, actions and utterances morph into mindfulness, would I be far from the path tread by Kunti? As several others my ilk, I take recourse to saying “Nothing, absolutely nothing, is in our hands. It is all HIS will”. Yet, when it comes to practice, do I take refuge in this and stop worrying or feeling upset?

If I have to be completely honest, my answer is NO! And this is where I am hugely distanced from the mighty Kunti. While my head certainly believes in the fact that nothing is in our hands, the heart refuses to yield, shackled as it is by the bonds of attachment and all else that comes with this emotion. Kunti prayed for misfortune, because she implicitly BELIEVED in Krishna and placed her trust and faith totally in HIM, knowing HIM to be the only saviour. She surrendered to HIM.

Simply put, I lack her confidence to surrender. Perhaps not because I don’t trust Krishna, but because I don’t have faith in myself. I do not know what undesirable vaasanaas and karmic ills I carry from past births! The very fact that I have taken birth bears testimony to my having sinned – God knows through how many births! And I know one cannot escape retribution from one’s sins.

 

 

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Kunti was not explicitly described as being reborn, but rather was the result of a boon given by the sage Durvasa to her previous incarnation, the celestial nymph Prajra-kirti. As Prajra-kirti, she and a demon were cursed by the gods Nara and Narayana to be born as Kunti and Karna, respectively, as a punishment for their perceived arrogance.