Narayana Narayana

Yogamaya manifested in the form of the Divine Mother. Rebuking Kamsa She said, “O wretched fool! What benefit will you get by killing me? The person who is destined to kill you has already taken birth elsewhere. Hence refrain from unnecessarily torturing helpless children.” Saying so, Yogamaya, turned invisible. The Divine Mother then began to reside in different parts of earth wherein She was worshipped with different names.

Hearing these words uttered by Yogamaya, Kamsa was astonished and bewildered. He immediately released Devaki and Vasudeva from the prison and in all humbleness said to them,

“Alas! Oho! What a wretched sinner I am! Believing that celestial prophecy, I tortured you both. Like a cannibal demon, I mercilessly killed all your sons. I am that wicked person who, without any feelings of love, has forsaken all relatives and friends. For these atrocities, I do not know which hell I am destined to fall.

Love for my life evaporated all feelings of compassion in me. The intensity of my sins has reduced me into a living corpse. In normal course, only humans utter lies. Sadly, in my case even God lied. What could have been the reason for this misfortune? The earlier celestial prophecy has led me to commit heinous sins.

O virtuous lady! Please do not grieve for your sons. They have experienced their destiny. All living entities, who are nothing but creations of the Lord, cannot reside together at all times. At times they meet and at other times, they separate. Just as pot and other objects made of mud disintegrate and merge back into mud, the bodies of living beings also meet death. Only the Self remains changeless.

Yathānevaṁ-vido bhedo yata ātma-viparyayaḥ

Deha-yoga-viyogau ca saṁsṛtir na nivartate

The ignorant person who fails to understand the truth that the Self is devoid of transformations will mistakenly believe gross body and other non-Self objects to be the Self. He therefore perceives duality throughout the world, due to which, he experiences repeated births and deaths and can never exit from this cycle.

O auspicious lady! It is true that I have killed your sons. Nevertheless, please do not lament for them.”

It appears as if realization suddenly dawned in this hard-hearted Kamsa. Suddenly relieved from the fear of death, he experienced some mental calmness and was therefore preaching Spiritual Knowledge to his sister. Sadly, this realization in him was not permanent. The thoughts and behaviour of wicked are unpredictable. Once again, if some evil information is received, they will revert back to their wicked ways . After all, they are demons not humans.

Kamsa continued, “This is because no living entity enjoys independence in matters pertaining to joys and sorrows. Every living entity only experiences the resultant fruits of its past fruitive actions. The person who fails to recognize his original Self mistakenly believes that others are torturing him”.

Sadly, Kamsa was unable to apply the same principles towards his life, although he was preaching the same.

“As long as such an ignorant person mistakenly considers himself to be the gross body and has feelings of ‘I-ness’ towards it, he continues to suffer in the hands of others. He will inflict wounds on others.

I possess a deluded wicked intellect. Please forgive me for my sins. Noble persons are always compassionate towards the downtrodden”- saying so Kamsa wept and fell at the feet of sister Devaki and brother-in-law Vasudeva.”

Believing the words of Yogamaya, Kamsa considered Devaki and Vasudeva as faultless. He thought, “The boy destined to kill me is born elsewhere. I wrongly believed that he would be born to them.” He was unsure whether he had heard the earlier celestial prophecy correctly. Did the celestial voice declare that it would be Devaki’s eighth son who would kill him? Or did she mention that eighth son of some other family? His eyes had confirmed that Devaki did not give birth to a son but only to a daughter. Was the celestial prophecy misguiding him? Was he slack in understanding its message? He was now in a turmoil. As the first step, he showered love upon Devaki and Vasudeva and released them from the prison.

It appears his love was pretentious. Kamsa was speaking as if he had undergone significant transformation when it was far from true. Deep within he suspected something fishy. He wanted to dig deeper to get the truth of the happenings. None apart from Devaki and Vasudeva knew the real truth of the eighth child. Hence he wanted to win their favour so that he could extract the truth from them. People who read this chapter mistakenly presume that Kamsa was filled with noble qualities. They believe he had reformed and that he regretted his actions. But it is not so.