Kunti says to Lord Krishna that He is the One who need never be born, and yet He chooses to be born, because of His love for His devotees. Kunti recalls an episode from Krishna’s childhood days, and it is an incident that shows us what bhakti should be, explained Kidambi Narayanan, in a discourse. Kunti narrates the incident when Krishna was punished by Yasoda, for stealing butter.
Krishna stood fearfully, as Yasoda tied Him up with a rope. He who has no need to fear anyone, pretended to be afraid of Yasoda. He cried and the tears caused the kohl in His eyes to dissolve in his tears, and black streams of tears flowed from His eyes.
It is said that when Yasoda looked for a rope to tie Him up, all she could find were bits of useless, frayed ropes. She knotted the pieces of useless rope together and then tied Him up. The word ‘useless’ is significant here. Our bhakti is often the kind, where we have a huge list of demands which we put before the Lord, and expect Him to fulfil all of them. Our bhakti, therefore, is for a purpose. It has a motive behind it. But that is not what bhakti should be. Bhakti should have no such motive. It should be like the useless rope. It should not be bhakti with a purpose. He cannot be won over by anything except unconditional bhakti.
When Krishna tried to escape Yasoda, she gave chase, but Krishna, after running some distance, stopped. Yasoda wrongly assumed that He had stopped because He was tired, but the truth was that He had stopped out of concern for her. He didn’t want her to become tired! Thus once we have genuine bhakti for Him, our welfare becomes His concern.
