Born in prison to royal parents held captive by an evil king who feared a prophecy of his fall, the eighth child, Krishna, was saved by his father and taken across the Yamuna to a humble cowherd family. Unaware of the divine substitution, his foster mother raised him as her own. The tyrant, learning of the child’s escape, ordered the slaughter of all infants. A demoness sent to poison him perished instead, as did later assassins. In time, Krishna grew, returned, and slew the king—fulfilling destiny.
Please explain this briefly with the symbolic–psychic interpretation according to Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga?
The baby Balakrishna, is the psychic being or the Divine Child born in the prison of the ego, Kansa. The ego knows it will be annihilated but puts up a strong resistance. It refuses to surrender to the inevitable and yet keeps thinking of the Divine Child even though to deny him.
The first stage is when the Divine Child grows through the three levels of resistances, from the physical (trnavrat etc), vital (Keshi etc), mental (Akroor). The former two are removed while the last (the mind) gets converted and has a glimpse of the Divine within. There is also Pootna feeding poison milk under the garb of affection just as many well meaning caregivers poison our thoughts in various ways and turn us away from our own truth towards the life of desires and ambitions. There is also Aghasur, the force of tamas. Anyways the Divine Child cannot be slain. He grows in fields of bhakti and karma until he is ready for the higher knowledge. He also masters the subconscient serpent kaliya, faces the opposition of the gods and the prevalent ideas and customs. But then different energies and forces of his nature begin to turn towards the Divine Truth he carries within.
Finally the ego is slain and the Divine Child reclaims its full Divine Status and is ready for its cosmic work, the Mahabharata and the Gita.
This is the gist. This does not mean that the story did not happen. It is very much real but the seers of the Bhagawat had profound occult and spiritual knowledge and conveyed it beautifully interwoven with the story.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
