Do you know that Krishna had to take up a challenge in order to marry Nagnajithi? She was the daughter of Kumbha and Darmada. Kumbha was Yashoda’s brother. (Najnajithi was later referred to as Neela Devi in our scriptures.). One day, He saw her smile and fell in love. He decided to simply take up anything in order to hold her hand! 😊 Her father declared a challenging task for the interested bachelor. What was it?!

He had to tame 7 extremely strong majestic bulls. The way Krishna conquered the strength of each bull awed every single one and it still continues to. It wasn’t sheer courage and efforts, but it was the medley of courage and beauty, the way he moved, the way he held the animal, the way he jumped over, the way he pulled them down while keeping their spirits alive. This showed how he conquers “everything” but not kill them. (Note: this isn’t about physical fight alone, it shows how one must conquer negative energy not by mere fierce suppression but by friendly and strongly determined control – the aim is: don’t let that negative energy rule you, it will exist because it is part of our existence – the beauty comes in raising above it)

Do you know that Sri Rama Chandra also took up a challenge? This was when Sugreeva wanted to wage fight with Vali to win back his kingdom. Sugreeva gave Rama an introduction to Vali’s fitness and power. He doubted Rama’s strength to help him win Vali. He gave an example where Vali could push an arrow from one end of a tree to another. This tree is not a normal one, it is called Arjun tree (maddi chettu in Telugu) and has the hardest trunk.  

Rama held his arrow and aimed at 7 extremely strong randomly placed trees. The arrow hit the trunk of one tree, cut it down, moved to the next tree (by itself) and repeated the same till all the 7 of them were hit down. The arrow then headed back to Rama and took its position in His quiver! Sugreeva stood there simply speechless. After watching that, he did not have any second thoughts about whether Rama would be able to defeat Vali. (Note: Vali’s strength was in no way comparable to that of Rama’s. But, Rama did not speak great of himself when Sugreeva kept praising Vali’s strength, he simply showed it and put all Sugreeva’s questions to rest at once)

Nammalwar, being the most intense devotee of God, travelled back in time in his manas and meditated on these incidents. He said, ‘God, I know you are simply trying to impress me with all these acts’.

Would anyone of us feel this way about a past incident when we didn’t even exist!? Most likely not.

Nammalwar’s love for God reached beyond normal human mode and went divine. He got mentally involved in every thought till it tied him closely to God. 

For example: We see a flower. We stop at its beauty or something at its surface. We don’t go deeper to the cause of its existence, God. Nammalwar would go beyond this and connect himself, God and the flower together. This kind of involvement is the base for bliss, complete and perfect happiness… It binds us with God; thereby linking everything we see to be a beautiful opportunity to experience His swarupa (His nature), rupa (His form), guna (His qualities) and vibhuthi (His manifestation).

– From the discourse of Sri Chinna Jeeyar Swamiji
– 04 th September 2019, Bhagavad Vishayam, JIVA