Lord Krishna: significance and symbolism

Krishna is a major deity in Bhārat (India.) He is worshiped as the eighth avatar of god Vishnu and also as the supreme God in his own right. Lord Krishna is the finest example of how one can go through life like a lotus in mud: flowering by living at its fullest with total acceptance of everything and yet completely untouched by the wordly outcomes.

Having grown up in India, surrounded by the sounds of temple bells, music, chanting and Kirtans right out of my home, one sometimes misses that atmosphere when one lives in the West, as i currently live in Switzerland. So on the occasion of Janmāshtami, Lord Krishna's birthday, it was truly a pleasure to perform Kirtan with my band, at the Krishna Temple in Zürich. It almost felt like being in India, also because a high number of the public was from India and Sri Lanka, dressed in colorful clothes, present at the temple to express their devotion to Krishna, the Lord with the flute. It was amazing how people from these diverse backgrounds responded to the Kirtan.

Many people who approached me after the concert shared with me that they especially enjoyed the fact that after a long time, there was a Kirtan at the temple in its authentic form, with the flavor of true bhakti, as they feel when they are in India. For me it was just a natural process because that is how we grew up, that is what we learnt, that is how we spent many afternoons and evenings in our living-room floors just singing devotional songs with family, friends, neighbors, kids... sometimes with no space for one single more person in the room! So all of us who were present during this important celebration felt this energy. I truly enjoyed visiting the temple and everyone's participation who was present there, they sang along, danced along, dived into the essence of bhakti.

I personally have always had a very close connection to Lord Krishna and his qualities of simplicity and joyfulness; his "being in the world" but not "of the world," and of course, his eternal connection with music from India. Music and dances from India would never be the same without the symbolism and spirit of Shri Krishna.

This special feeling also inspired me to share some stories of Krishna which are always a duding light on the path of truth. Krishna is light, joy, bliss, compassion, an all-embracing being. It is important to always connect to the wisdom behind all the deities and mythology from India, instead of staying in the surface. A devotee (bhakta) should not be blind, otherwise growth cannot happen, so it is key to understand and not to remain eternally as an uncoscious or blind bhakta, but to also awaken to the highest wisdom, where a bhakta becomes a gyani and a gyani becomes a bhakta. All in all - a nourishing experience to dive into the true world of devotion.

Krishna teaches to see everything as play or leela, reminding us that everything simply happens, without a doer as such. That is why even after more than 5000 years, Bhagavad Gita remains one the finest sources of wisdom ever written. Jai Shri Krishna.