Five Cases Of Elasticity Exhibited By Krishna

“Lord Krishna saw 16,100 young princesses, who had been kidnapped and held captive there. When the princesses saw the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, enter the palace, they immediately became captivated by the beauty of the Lord and prayed for His causeless mercy. Within their minds, they decided to accept Lord Krishna as their husband without any hesitation.” (Krishna, The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Volume 2, Chapter 4)

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“Have you moved to the cloud yet? Oh my, you are still hosting everything yourself? Your servers are on premises? I mean, that is okay if you want to live in the stone ages. Everyone else is modernizing. I think in a few years, no one will own hardware anymore. Everything will be up in the cloud. It is just the way of the future. It offers greater flexibility, reliability, and scalability. You can get a brand new application up and running in no time.”

In their marketing pitch, the cloud-hosting provider highlights one feature in particular: elasticity. This refers to how a server in the cloud can dynamically scale up or down, depending on the needs of the application. Instead of building a physical machine to be squeezed into a storage rack in the basement of your corporate office, just sign up for an account with a cloud provider. They will figure out the best configuration for storage, CPU, and memory.

Of course, conveniently overlooked in the analysis is cost. The on-premises server has a fixed and known cost. It may be overprovisioned, with more memory than is actually needed, but at least the business can properly budget moving forward. As the server specs in the cloud will be dynamic, based on the needs of the application, the monthly charges will be the same way. The cost can unexpectedly spike, leaving a huge monthly bill; resembling past days when telephone companies charged for long-distance calls.

Nevertheless, we can take a positive from this feature of elasticity. We use it to highlight the glories of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Rather than relegate Him to mythical status, speculating that He is this old and angry white-bearded man watching disapprovingly from His perch in the heavens, we can identify actual features and attributes based on the movements of the avatara. This is the special case of the Supreme Lord descending to the mortal realm. He remains immortal, but through His interactions He is kind enough to give a peek into His features, gunas, which are transcendental.

1. Marrying sixteen-thousand princesses

If you are already married, why do you need more wives? If you already live in a palace, why would you need a second one? Why not live in a renounced way, since that is recommended for everyone else? Why not squash desire, instead of indulging everything that keeps rushing in, like tributaries depositing into an ocean?

आपूर्यमाणम् अचल-प्रतिष्ठं
समुद्रम् आपः प्रविशन्ति यद्वत्
तद्वत् कामा यं प्रविशन्ति सर्वे
स शान्तिम् आप्नोति न काम-कामी

āpūryamāṇam acala-pratiṣṭhaṁ
samudram āpaḥ praviśanti yadvat
tadvat kāmā yaṁ praviśanti sarve
sa śāntim āpnoti na kāma-kāmī

“A person who is not disturbed by the incessant flow of desires—that enter like rivers into the ocean which is ever being filled but is always still—can alone achieve peace, and not the man who strives to satisfy such desires.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 2.70)

Shri Krishna will never limit His compassion based on ordinary rules and regulations. He can accept an unlimited number of wives. This means that giving shelter to sixteen-thousand at once is no issue. He can expand His domain. His land entitlement is not fixed. He can create new palaces. Krishna can even expand Himself, such that each of the new wives has Krishna always with them. He once did this after defeating the demon known as Bhaumasura.

2. Expanding the sari of Draupadi

The shared wife of the five Pandava brothers, Draupadi once found herself in a terrible situation. She was set to be embarrassed in front of an assembly of respected individuals. The fiends that were the Kauravas had just cheated to win her as collateral in a wager. They were intent on stripping Draupadi naked.

Krishna happened to be witnessing the events. When Draupadi finally relinquished the fight, in surrendering fully to higher powers, Krishna took the form of the sari. That dress then became as infinite as Krishna Himself. No matter how much the fiends pulled, they could not fully remove the sari. Draupadi was saved.

विषान् महाग्नेः पुरुषाद-दर्शनाद्
असत्-सभाया वन-वास-कृच्छ्रतः
मृधे मृधे ऽनेक-महारथास्त्रतो
द्रौण्य्-अस्त्रतश् चास्म हरे ऽभिरक्षिताः

viṣān mahāgneḥ puruṣāda-darśanād
asat-sabhāyā vana-vāsa-kṛcchrataḥ
mṛdhe mṛdhe ‘neka-mahārathāstrato
drauṇy-astrataś cāsma hare ‘bhirakṣitāḥ

“My dear Krishna, Your Lordship has protected us from a poisoned cake, from a great fire, from cannibals, from the vicious assembly, from sufferings during our exile in the forest and from the battle where great generals fought. And now You have saved us from the weapon of Ashvatthama.” (Queen Kunti, Shrimad Bhagavatam, 1.8.24)

3. Showing the virat-rupa

Upon request, Krishna once showed the virat-rupa. This is the universal form. It is like taking the entire cosmic manifestation and compressing it into a single image, visual, or exhibition. Arjuna asked to see the virat-rupa, as devotees sometimes like God to show off a little. To make sure no one mistook Krishna for an ordinary being, the vision of the virat-rupa is one way to provide empirical evidence.

4. Saving Parikshit

We tend to think of God in terms of greatness. After all, the universe is like His body. A single source of power drops a spark of His splendor to then create the vast and seemingly infinite expanse. To think of the universe is to contemplate God, in a sense.

यद्यद्विभूतिमत्सत्त्वं श्रीमदूर्जितमेव वा
तत्तदेवावगच्छ त्वं मम तेजोऽशसम्भवम्

yad yad vibhūtimat sattvaṁ
śrīmad ūrjitam eva vā
tat tad evāvagaccha tvaṁ
mama tejo-’ṁśa-sambhavam

“Know that all beautiful, glorious, and mighty creations spring from but a spark of My splendor.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 10.41)

But the property of elasticity is not restricted towards a single direction. Shri Krishna once became incredibly small to protect an unborn child against a weapon of fire. It was the greatest concentration of fire, in fact. The child in the womb was Parikshit Maharaja, who was to later be a pious king and the direct recipient of Bhagavata Purana from Shukadeva Gosvami.

5. Rāsa-lila

This is one of the more famous depictions of Krishna’s time in the forests known as Vrindavana. He is seen dancing with a cowherd girl. There are many instances of Krishna, and each one has a corresponding partner in the dance. It is not an indication of lust, but rather a recognition that Krishna is listening, that He reciprocates devotion, and that He never leaves anyone to be alone. He is always with them, and so the true goal of spiritual life is to recognize His constant presence and take every comfort and assurance from that presence.

In Closing:

As dance partner conferring,
Like each one assuring.

That never to be left alone,
Similar in Dvaraka shown.

Where queens with palace each,
Their husband close within reach.

Deep in their hearts waiting,
Elasticity feature accommodating.