What do Radha and Krishna represent? || Acharya Prashant, at LIT-Nagpur (2022)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...  ~~~~~  Video Information: 22.11.2022, LIT - Nagpur, Maharashtra   Context: ~ Relationship between Radha-Krishna?  ~ What the real Love story of Radha and Krishna? ~ Why is our love so shallow?  ~ Have we distorted the character of Devi-Radha? ~ Radha is Shakti?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Pranam Acharyaji, I am from final year chemical engineering.

00:09My question is that what is the bond between Goddess Radha and God Krishna?

00:17Like from holy books we have seen that they are the symbol of devotion but nowadays whatever

00:25we see, watch on television and on wedding invitation cards that they are the symbol

00:30of love.

00:31You know behind existence of every divine existence there is certain message which needs

00:37to deliver to the humanity.

00:39So I am not getting what kind of bond does it represent?

00:47See very ideally, very truly the relationship between Shri Krishna and Radha has to be much

01:01the same as between Shiva and Shakti.

01:06That has to be the ideal relationship.

01:10Unfortunately in popular culture that relationship has been totally distorted.

01:20The way they are depicted these days is something that should not be acceptable at all.

01:31They have been presented as symbols of the usual carnal love between a man and a woman.

01:42All road Romeo's love to call their sweethearts as Radha which is quite unfortunate.

01:50When I talk about the shallowness of the usual kind of love, the man-woman kind, even

02:02teenagers come up and say, but if Shri Krishna could love Radha, why can't I?

02:10All that is quite, you see we could not take a lot of liberty with Shakti because Shakti

02:22has been very properly documented in the scriptures.

02:30There is an entire stream, the Shakt Marg that has its own scriptures adherents, even

02:40its own Upanishads.

02:43So because that scriptural base is present, the scriptural rigidity and the discipline

02:52is there.

02:54So common imagination could not take much liberty with Shakti.

03:00So Shakti therefore fortunately retains her dignity.

03:05But when it comes to Radha, you must know that there is not much scriptural base there.

03:13The character of Radha is not present in any of the Upanishads, obviously not in the Vedas.

03:21It is not sufficiently present even in the Puranas.

03:26With respect to the character of Shri Krishna, there are two Puranas mainly.

03:36You know of Puranic literature, Puran you know, there is the Srimad Bhagavad Puran and

03:41there is the Harivansh Puran.

03:43In these two you have, these two are in fact dedicated to Shri Krishna.

03:49Even in these two, Radha is scarcely mentioned.

03:55So what happens?

03:56The scriptures are not talking of Radha at all.

03:59Even if they talk of Radha, it is somewhere in passing.

04:03What has that meant?

04:04That has meant that later on all kinds of people could simply expand their imagination

04:12and say whatever they wanted about Radha.

04:16Now they cannot do this kind of a vile thing with Shakti or Parvati or Devi, right?

04:24Because you have Upanishads present there, you have the Durga Saptashati there, you have

04:28other Agamas of the Shakt Marg.

04:31So you cannot do this thing with Devi.

04:33But with Radha, all these people have simply imagined, built up, inflated and distorted

04:43her character.

04:45All kinds of just imaginative stories have come up and because people don't read the

04:51scriptures, they believe in those stories.

04:56So Radha deserves a lot of dignity, the character of Radha Devi deserves a lot of respect.

05:05Unfortunately, you see what happens when people are, and from religious podiums and religious

05:13gatherings, when they are talking of Krishna and Radha, the way the two of them are depicted

05:22and narrated and the way their relationship is painted is not dignified.

05:32It is also spiritually not edifying, the way those dances and depictions happen.

05:40There is hardly any spiritual lesson in that, which is not right.

05:48As I said right in the beginning of my response, ideally the Krishna-Radha relationship should

05:56be depicted in the same way as the Shiva-Shakti relationship.

06:00Nothing short of that, nothing lower than that.

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