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

Acharya Prashant

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00:00Pranam Acharji, I am from Final Year Chemical Engineering.

00:06My question is that what is the bond between Goddess Radha and God Krishna?

00:13Like from holy books we have seen that they are the symbol of devotion but nowadays whatever

00:21we see, watch on television and on wedding invitation cards that they are the symbol

00:26of love.

00:27You know, behind every divine existence there is certain message which needs to deliver

00:34to the humanity.

00:35So I am not getting what kind of bond does it represent?

00:41See, very ideally, very truly, the relationship between Shri Krishna and Radha has to be much

00:57the same as between Shiva and Shakti.

01:02That has to be the ideal relationship.

01:07Unfortunately, in popular culture that relationship has been totally distorted.

01:13totally distorted.

01:15The way they are depicted these days is something that should not be acceptable at all.

01:27They have been presented as symbols of the usual carnal love between a man and a woman.

01:35All road Romeos love to call their sweethearts as Radha, which is quite unfortunate.

01:46When I talk about the shallowness of the usual kind of love, the man-woman kind, even teenagers

01:59come up and say, but if Shri Krishna could love Radha, why can't I?

02:03So all that is quite…

02:10You see, we could not take a lot of liberty with Shakti because Shakti has been very properly

02:20documented in the scriptures.

02:25There is an entire stream, the Shakti Marg, that has its own scriptures, adherents, even its

02:37own Upanishads.

02:39So because that scriptural base is present, the scriptural rigidity and the discipline is

02:49there.

02:50So common imagination could not take much liberty with Shakti.

02:57So Shakti therefore, fortunately, retains her dignity.

03:02But when it comes to Radha, you must know that there is not much scriptural base there.

03:10The character of Radha is not present in any of the Upanishads, obviously not in the Vedas.

03:18It is not sufficiently present even in the Puranas.

03:24With respect to the character of Shri Krishna, there are two Puranas mainly.

03:33You know of Puranic literature, Puran you know.

03:36There is the Srimad Bhagwat Puran and there is the Hariwansha Puran.

03:40In these two, you have… these two are in fact dedicated to Shri Krishna.

03:45Even in these two, Radha is scarcely mentioned.

03:51So what happens?

03:52The scriptures are not talking of Radha at all.

03:55Even if they talk of Radha, it is somewhere in passing.

04:00What has that meant?

04:01That has meant that later on all kinds of people could simply expand their imagination and say

04:09whatever they wanted about Radha.

04:13Now they cannot do this kind of a wild thing with Shakti or Parvati or Devi.

04:20Right?

04:21Because you have Upanishads present there.

04:22You have the Suddurga Sapshati there.

04:24You have other Agamas of the Shakti Marg.

04:27So you cannot do this thing with Devi.

04:30But with Radha, all these people have simply imagined, built up, inflated and distorted

04:40her character.

04:42All kinds of just imaginative stories have come up and because people don't read the scriptures,

04:48they believe in those stories.

04:52So Radha deserves a lot of dignity.

04:57The character of Radha Devi deserves a lot of respect.

05:01Unfortunately, you see what happens when people are, and from religious podiums and religious

05:10gatherings, when they are talking of Krishna and Radha.

05:13The way the two of them are depicted and narrated, and the way their relationship is painted,

05:27is not dignified.

05:29It is also spiritually not edifying.

05:33The way those dances and depictions happen.

05:37There is hardly any spiritual lesson in that, which is not right.

05:44As I said right in the beginning of my response, ideally, the Krishna-Radha relationship should

05:52be depicted in the same way as the Shiva-Shakti relationship.

05:56Nothing short of that, nothing lower than that.

06:00Nothing short of that.

06:11Nothing short of that.

06:14No, nothing short of that.

06:15Uh-huh.

06:17Yes.

06:17No, nothing short of that.

06:18When you leave the room, you don't understand.

06:20Yes.

06:22You have a cat.

06:23No, nothing short of that.

06:25I don't want to do that.

06:27When you take one right, what you love is 라고 and what you do?

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