“Little Krishna looked at his mother feigning fright. Seeing him trembling, Yashoda threw the stick she held and instead decided to tie him in order to punish him.

Na cāntar na bahir yasya na pūrvaṁ nāpi cāparam

Pūrvāparaṁ bahiś cāntar jagato yo jagac ca yaḥ”

This is a very important shloka which should be remembered time and again. A very profound teaching is being passed to us through Bhagavatam. The essence of the Supreme Lord has been explicitly explained through this hymn such that it takes us very close to Self-knowledge.

“Distinctions such as within and outside do not exist in the Supreme Lord. He is without beginning and ending. He existed prior creation and is beyond name and form. He is beyond the grasp of the senses.”

To the Lord who pervades everything, differences such as within and without cannot exist. He cannot have a starting point nor ending point for His existence. He existed even prior the creation of the star constellations, planets and universes. He is everything. He exists as planets and He exists before planets. He exists after all the planets are finally destroyed. He exists before annihilation, He exists during annihilation and He exists after annihilation. He exists within creation and He exists outside of it too. To be frank, the Lord himself manifests as this creation! We should believe that this visible world is nothing but His form. He cannot be perceived through the senses. He is beyond any name and any form. He exists in all forms. He is the embodiment of all principles.

Such Supreme Lord, who is beyond name and form, incarnated in a human form and took on the name Krishna.

“Yashoda considered the Supreme Lord, who is the controller of all universes and who is the protector of one and all, to be her own son”.

Yashoda treating the Lord as her son proves that the Lord can be worshipped through any of the forms of devotion. The Lord had enveloped her in his illusion.

“Seeing him, who was feigning to be frightened, she threw the stick. She decided to tie him to a stone mortar as a punishment”.

In order to protect the child from walking into the streets and risking himself, parents usually tie him with a belt and seat him near an enclosed window so that he can watch the vehicles pass by. Likewise Yashoda, who considered her son to be an ordinary mortal bound him with a rope to stone mortar. At a much later stage, Kauravas bound Srikrishna with a rope when he visited them as a messenger.

Is it possible for any living entity to bind the Supreme Lord? He is the rope, He is the person who is tying the rope, He is the person being bound, He is the person narrating the incident. This being the case, can anyone bind Him?

“As Yashoda began to tie him with the rope, she realized that the rope was short by a length of two fingers”.

Many decades back, a devotee of Lord Vitthala was desirous of offering a golden waistband to the Lord at Pandharpur temple. He approached a renowned goldsmith asking him to prepare a waistband. However the goldsmith, being an ardent devotee of Lord Shiva, refused to enter the temple pertaining to Lord Vitthala (Vishnu) and take measurements of the Lord. He instead prepared the waistband in accordance to the measurements given by the devotee. The devotee happily took the band and offered it to the Lord. When they placed the band around Lord Vitthala’s waist, it fell short by a distance of two fingers. The devotee returned to the goldsmith and blamed him for making a waistband smaller than the given specifications. The goldsmith was perplexed as he had precisely followed the measurements given. He now readjusted the length as per the newly given requirements.

The devotee returned to the temple with the waistband but this time the waistband was longer by a length of four fingers. The goldsmith now adjusted the waistband by cutting the extra length however the band fell short by 1 finger length. The devotee then requested the goldsmith to come to the temple and to personally take the measurements of the Lord’s waist. The goldsmith bluntly refused, “I am a devotee of Shiva. I will not enter Vishnu temples nor see his idols”. After great persuasion, the goldsmith agreed to visit the temple however blindfolded.

When the blindfolded goldsmith touched the idol of Lord Vitthala in order to take the measurements, he felt that he was touching the Shiva-linga. As he moved his hands over the idol, it felt exactly like the linga. Astonished beyond limits, in great excitement he removed the cloth covering his eyes. Lo! Before him was Lord Vittala!

Narayana