Most of His contemporary biographers have mentioned certain anecdotes regarding Caitanya which are simple records of His early miracles. It is said that when He was an infant in His mother's arms He wept continually, and when the neighboring ladies cried "Haribol!" He used to stop. Thus there was continual utterance of "Haribol!" in the house, foreshowing the future mission of the hero. It has also been stated that when His mother once gave Him sweetmeats to eat, He ate clay instead of the food. His mother asking for the reason, He stated that as every sweetmeat was nothing but clay transformed, He could eat clay as well. His mother, who was the consort of a paṇḍita, explained that every article in a special state was adapted to a special use. Earth, while in the state of a jug, could be used as a waterpot, but in the state of a brick such a use was not possible. Therefore clay in the form of sweetmeats was usable as food, but clay in its other states was not. The lad was convinced and admitted His stupidity in eating clay and agreed to avoid the mistake in the future.
Infant
Srimad-Bhagavatam
SB Canto 1
He (Aśvatthāmā) had already lost his bodily luster due to infanticide, and now, moreover, having lost the jewel from his head, he lost even more strength. Thus he was unbound and driven out of the camp.
Thus being insulted, the humiliated Aśvatthāmā was simultaneously killed and not killed by the intelligence of Lord Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna.
Lord Kṛṣṇa, Bhīma and Arjuna asked Jarāsandha for the facility of fighting him, and it was settled that Jarāsandha would fight with Bhīma only. So all of them were both guests and combatants of Jarāsandha, and Bhīma and Jarāsandha fought every day for several days. Bhīma became disappointed, but Kṛṣṇa gave him hints about Jarāsandha's being joined together as an infant, and thus Bhīma dissected him again and so killed him. All the kings who were detained in the concentration camp to be killed before Mahābhairava were thus released by Bhīma. Feeling thus obliged to the Pāṇḍavas, they paid tribute to King Yudhiṣṭhira.
SB Canto 3
They relish the glorious superhuman activities of the Lord, such as His lifting Govardhana Hill and His killing the demon Pūtanā in infancy. His activities are enacted to attract all kinds of men—karmīs, jñānīs and bhaktas. Because He is transcendental to all laws of karma, there is no possibility of His accepting a form of māyā as is forced on the ordinary living entities who are bound by the actions and reactions of their own deeds.
SB Canto 4
The living entity wishes to enjoy the material world in different ways, and therefore by nature's law he is allowed to transmigrate from one body to another, exactly as a person transmigrates from the body of an infant to a child to a boy to a youth to a man. This process is constantly going on. At the last stage, when the gross body becomes old and invalid, the living entity is reluctant to give it up, despite the fact that it is no longer usable. Although material existence and the material body are not comfortable, why does the living entity not want to leave? As soon as one gets a material body, he has to work very hard to maintain it. He may engage in different fields of activity, but whatever the case, everyone has to work very hard to maintain the material body. Unfortunately, society has no information of the soul's transmigration. Because the living entity does not hope to enter the spiritual kingdom of eternal life, bliss and knowledge, he wants to stick to his present body, even though it may be useless. Consequently, the greatest welfare activity in this material world is the furthering of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.
SB Canto 5
The great King Bharata, while sitting on the bank of the river, saw the small deer, bereft of its mother, floating down the river. Seeing this, he felt great compassion. Like a sincere friend, he lifted the infant deer from the waves, and, knowing it to be motherless, brought it to his āśrama.
Spiritual salvation and liberation from material bondage must be worked out with great caution, otherwise a little discrepancy will cause one to fall down again into material existence. By studying the activities of Mahārāja Bharata, we can learn the art of becoming completely freed from all material attachment. As it will be revealed in later verses, Bharata Mahārāja had to accept the body of a deer due to being overly compassionate for this infant deer. We should be compassionate by raising one from the material platform to the spiritual platform; otherwise at any moment our spiritual advancement may be spoiled, and we may fall down onto the material platform. Mahārāja Bharata's compassion for the deer was the beginning of his falldown into the material world.
The personal weapon used by Lord Kṛṣṇa, the disc, is called hari-cakra, the disc of Hari. This cakra is the wheel of time. It expands from the beginning of the atoms up to the time of Brahmā's death, and it controls all activities. It is always revolving and spending the lives of the living entities, from Lord Brahmā down to an insignificant blade of grass. Thus one changes from infancy, to childhood, to youth and maturity, and thus one approaches the end of life. It is impossible to check this wheel of time. This wheel is very exacting because it is the personal weapon of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Sometimes the conditioned soul, fearing the approach of death, wants to worship someone who can save him from imminent danger. Yet he does not care for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, whose weapon is the indefatigable time factor. The conditioned soul instead takes shelter of a man-made god described in unauthorized scriptures. Such gods are like buzzards, vultures, herons and crows. Vedic scriptures do not refer to them. Imminent death is like the attack of a lion, and neither vultures, buzzards, crows nor herons can save one from such an attack. One who takes shelter of unauthorized man-made gods cannot be saved from the clutches of death.
SB Cantos 10.14 to 12 (Translations Only)
As a mere infant who had hardly yet opened His eyes, He drank the breast milk of the powerful demoness Pūtanā and then sucked out her very life air as well, just as the force of time sucks out the youth of one's body.
Some of them were getting dressed, feeding milk to their infants or rendering personal service to their husbands, but they all gave up these duties and went to meet Kṛṣṇa. Other gopīs were taking their evening meals, washing themselves, putting on cosmetics or applying kajjala to their eyes. But all the gopīs stopped these activities at once and, though their clothes and ornaments were in complete disarray, rushed off to Kṛṣṇa.
One gopī imitated Pūtanā, while another acted like infant Kṛṣṇa and pretended to suck her breast. Another gopī, crying in imitation of infant Kṛṣṇa, kicked a gopī who was taking the role of the cart demon, Śakaṭāsura.
One gopī took the role of Tṛṇāvarta and carried away another, who was acting like infant Kṛṣṇa, while yet another gopī crawled about, her ankle bells tinkling as she pulled her feet.
That cruel, self-serving Kaṁsa murdered the infants of his own sister in her presence, even as she cried in anguish. So why should we even ask about the well-being of you, his subjects?
Those who were taking their meals abandoned them, others went out without finishing their baths or massages, women who were sleeping at once rose when they heard the commotion, and mothers breast-feeding their infants simply put them aside.
The demon Śambara, who could assume any form he desired, kidnapped the infant before He was even ten days old. Understanding Pradyumna to be his enemy, Śambara threw Him into the sea and then returned home.
Seeing a male child in the belly of the fish, the cooks gave the infant to Māyāvatī, who was astonished. Nārada Muni then appeared and explained to her everything about the child's birth and His entering the fish's abdomen.
Māyāvatī was in fact Cupid's renowned wife, Rati. While waiting for her husband to obtain a new body—his previous one having been burnt up—she had been assigned by Śambara to prepare vegetables and rice. Māyāvatī understood that this infant was actually Kāmadeva, and thus she began to feel love for Him.
Śukadeva Gosvāmī said: Once, in Dvārakā, a brāhmaṇa's wife gave birth to a son, but the newborn infant died as soon as he touched the ground, O Bhārata.
The brāhmaṇa's wife then gave birth, but after the newborn infant had been crying for a short time, he suddenly vanished into the sky in his selfsame body.
Thus instructed by the Supreme Lord of the topmost planet, Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna assented by chanting oṁ, and then they bowed down to almighty Lord Mahā-viṣṇu. Taking the brāhmaṇa's sons with them, they returned with great delight to Dvārakā by the same path along which they had come. There they presented the brāhmaṇa with his sons, who were in the same infant bodies in which they had been lost.
"O my poor elderly parents, and my wife with a mere infant in her arms, and my other young children! Without me they have absolutely no one to protect them and will suffer unbearably. How can my poor relatives possibly live without me?"
Impregnation, gestation, birth, infancy, childhood, youth, middle age, old age and death are the nine ages of the body.
Authorities say that Mārkaṇḍeya Ṛṣi, the son of Mṛkaṇḍu, was an exceptionally long-lived sage who was the only survivor at the end of Brahmā's day, when the entire universe was merged in the flood of annihilation. But this same Mārkaṇḍeya Ṛṣi, the foremost descendant of Bhṛgu, took birth in my own family during the current day of Brahmā, and we have not yet seen any total annihilation in this day of Brahmā. Also, it is well known that Mārkaṇḍeya while wandering helplessly in the great ocean of annihilation, saw in those fearful waters a wonderful personality—an infant boy lying alone within the fold of a banyan leaf. O Sūta, I am most bewildered and curious about this great sage, Mārkaṇḍeya Ṛṣi. O great yogī, you are universally accepted as the authority on all the Purāṇas. Therefore kindly dispel my confusion.
Upon a branch of the northeast portion of that tree he saw an infant boy lying within a leaf. The child's effulgence was swallowing up the darkness.
The infant's dark-blue complexion was the color of a flawless emerald, His lotus face shone with a wealth of beauty, and His throat bore marks like the lines on a conchshell. He had a broad chest, a finely shaped nose, beautiful eyebrows, and lovely ears that resembled pomegranate flowers and that had inner folds like a conchshell's spirals. The corners of His eyes were reddish like the whorl of a lotus, and the effulgence of His coral-like lips slightly reddened the nectarean, enchanting smile on His face. As He breathed, His splendid hair trembled and His deep navel became distorted by the moving folds of skin on His abdomen, which resembled a banyan leaf. The exalted brāhmaṇa watched with amazement as the infant took hold of one of His lotus feet with His graceful fingers, placed a toe within His mouth and began to suck.
As Mārkaṇḍeya beheld the child, all his weariness vanished. Indeed, so great was his pleasure that the lotus of his heart, along with his lotus eyes, fully blossomed and the hairs on his body stood on end. Confused as to the identity of the wonderful infant, the sage approached Him.
He saw before him the Himālaya Mountains, the Puṣpabhadrā River, and his own hermitage, where he had had the audience of the sages Nara-Nārāyaṇa. Then, as Mārkaṇḍeya beheld the entire universe, the infant exhaled, expelling the sage from His body and casting him back into the ocean of dissolution.
In that vast sea he again saw the banyan tree growing on the tiny island and the infant boy lying within the leaf. The child glanced at him from the corner of His eyes with a smile imbued with the nectar of love, and Mārkaṇḍeya took Him into his heart through his eyes. Greatly agitated, the sage ran to embrace the transcendental Personality of Godhead.
Other Books by Srila Prabhupada
Teachings of Lord Caitanya
A person who is intelligent and able to understand the philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness naturally gives up everything and takes shelter only of Kṛṣṇa. In this regard, Lord Caitanya recited a verse spoken by Uddhava in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (3.2.23): “How can one take shelter of anyone but Kṛṣṇa? Who else is so kind? Even though Bakāsura's sister Pūtanātried to kill Kṛṣṇa when He was an infant by applying poison to her breast and offering it to Him to suck, still that heinous woman received salvation and was elevated to the same platform as His own mother.” Kṛṣṇa accepted the poisonous breast of that demonic woman Pūtanā, and when He sucked the milk from her breast, He sucked out her life also. Nonetheless, Pūtanā was elevated to the same position as Kṛṣṇa's own mother.
Krsna, The Supreme Personality of Godhead
Within the prison of His maternal uncle Kaṁsa, where His father and mother were confined, Kṛṣṇa appeared outside His mother's body as the four-handed Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa. Then He turned Himself into a baby and told His father to carry Him to the house of Nanda Mahārāja and his wife Yaśodā. When Kṛṣṇa was just a small baby the gigantic demoness Pūtanā attempted to kill Him, but when He sucked her breast He pulled out her life. That is the difference between the real Godhead and a God manufactured in the mystic factory. Kṛṣṇa had no chance to practice the mystic yoga process, yet He manifested Himself as the Supreme Personality of Godhead at every step, from infancy to childhood, from childhood to boyhood, and from boyhood to young manhood. In this book, Kṛṣṇa, all of His activities as a human being are described. Although Kṛṣṇa plays like a human being, He always maintains His identity as the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Lectures
Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures
"The principles of the Bhagavad-gītā were spoken to Arjuna, and for that matter, to other highly elevated persons, because they were highly advanced compared to ordinary men in other parts of the world. Two plus two equals four. This is a mathematical principle, and it is true both in the infant's arithmetic class and in the master's degree class as well. Still, there are higher and lower mathematics. In all incarnations of the Lord, therefore, the same principles are taught, but they appear to be higher and lower under various circumstances. The higher principles of religion begin with the acceptance of the four orders and the four ranks of social life, as will be explained later. The whole purpose of the mission of incarnations is to arouse Kṛṣṇa consciousness everywhere."
Eight: "In order to deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I advent Myself millennium after millennium."
Never a learned man will say that "In this process, there is no self-realization. In this process there is spiritual..." No. In every process, there is. It may be in a higher standard or in a lower standard. Just like I have many times that two plus two equal to four, that is fact. That is a mathematical truth. Now, this two plus two, in the infant class, the two plus two equal to four is the same, and higher mathematics and in the M.A. class, the student is studying higher mathematics, astronomy, astrology. There also, the two plus two equal to four is the truth. But the infant class, the study of mathematics in the infant class and the study of mathematics in the M.A. class, there is difference.
People may come in. One student, he was studying trigonometry. After passing his matriculation, in the college he was studying. So he was reading, "Let A and B, a straight line, and C, another straight line." So just like he was reading. So his mother thought, "Oh, my son has again begun A, B, C." You see? So he was asking, she was asking his son, "Oh, my dear son, you have passed your school ending examination? You have again begun A, B, C, D? What is that?" That means she, she's not so intelligent. She thought that "My son has begun again A, B, C, D from the infant class." No. It is higher mathematics. The same A, B, C, D is there, but that is higher mathematics. Similarly, the Truth, Absolute Truth, is always the same. But that Absolute Truth is expressed according to the different situations. The position of certain scriptures in certain countries in certain circumstances may be described in a certain particular way, but the aim is the same. Aim is the same. So those who are interested in higher mathematics, they take to higher mathematics. Or those who have developed themselves from infant class. But the truth, "two plus two is equal to four," that does not any circumsta...become false. That is the truth.
So ekam apy āsthitaḥ samyag. If one is intelligent enough, if he really learned, so he can be situated in any place and if he follows... Just this morning we were reading, yaḥ śāstra-vidhim utsṛjya. If he follows the rules and regulations and, uh, then it is sure that he will come to that stage. But you should not be rigid. Suppose I have come to certain stage. "Oh, therefore I'll take it as final." No. There is no improvement. You have to seek out, if there is more and more knowledge beyond this. Just like the higher mathematics and mathematics in the infant class.
Sri Isopanisad Lectures
It is for the human being. Better. Better animal. Not that... What you will do by drinking milk?" No animal... Of course, in infant stage every animal living (drinks) mother's milk. That is nature's... But so far the cow's milk is concerned, that is specifically meant for the human being. So tena tyaktena bhuñjīthā. What is ordained by Kṛṣṇa, or God, you take it. But we have got the agitation of the tongue. Why shall I be satisfied simply taking grains, milk, and vegetables, and fruits? Let me maintain hundreds of slaughterhouse and kill these animals. After taking their milk, although she becomes my mother, for my tongue agitation let them be killed. You see?
Philosophy Discussions
Śyāmasundara: But if you do not there is such thing as father-let's say you are so infantile you do not know that "I have father"—first of all you must discover...
Prabhupāda: Therefore I say it is childish. Only the foolish child knows that he doesn't require any father, "My mother is everything." Just like these foolish scientists, they are thinking the nature is everything. Nature is mother. Just like a small child on the lap of the mother, he knows simply, "My mother is everything." But when he is grown up, he understands that "I have a father."
Śyāmasundara: His idea is that many of our present unconscious wishes and conflicts have their origin in infantile or childhood experiences.
Prabhupāda: You are going to be again (indistinct). Why you forget Kṛṣṇa? After this life, you will be put in another womb of mother, so that the same thing will again happen. You are not finishing your business, so therefore it is the duty of guru and father and mother to save him from that situation again. Pitā na sa syāt, gurur na sa syāt, na mocayed yaḥ samupeta-mṛtyum. So that is the opportunity of this human life. They should know that I had such-and-such bad experience. (indistinct), I will also experience the same thing again at the time of death, horrible situation. Again after, again enter, bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). You have to again take birth in the womb. The same situation is repeating. You may forget. That is another thing. Just like you had some surgical operation in your body. That was very painful. So even if you have forgotten, that does not guarantee that there will be no more (indistinct) and no more surgical operation. That is not (indistinct). It will be put again. What is the use of forgetting? Even if you do forget, what is the benefit of thereof?
Śyāmasundara: He says there is no benefit of forgetting, but it is a natural tendency.
Hayagrīva: He felt that the father God is an infantile wish. He says, "The whole thing is so patently infantile, so incongruous with reality, that one whose attitudes..."
Prabhupāda: So what is his reality? Infantile conception of God, but what he is, except the child? Huh? He is also planning something. That is also childish. So how he becomes more than a child? He cannot give us any definite program by which everyone will be hopeful.
Prabhupāda: You are so foolish that you cannot avoid even accident. You are subjected to so many accidents. So what you will do by your philosophy? If accident is so prominent, (laughter) so how you will make adjustment with your philosophy? Stop talking philosophy, accept accidents and suffer, that's all.
Hayagrīva: Concerning sex, Freud explored the realm of infantile sexuality and found a definite sexual nature in the earlier stages of childhood. He concluded that these sexual activities in childhood were normal phenomena, and finally concluded with his famous dictum, "In a normal sex life, no neurosis is possible."
Prabhupāda: That is also his foolishness, because a child can be trained up to become a brahmacārī so that he will have no inclination for sex. It depends on the child's training. The unscrupulous father and mother, they enjoy sex life before the child, and they imitate. I have seen it. I have seen it in Agra. There are two small children. In life, what do they know? The female child laid down, and the man child, just like they have seen father and mother-sex. He does not know anything, but he is imitating.
Śyāmasundara: I mean chronologically. Freud's idea was that unconscious processes are invariably infantile, animal, or pathological. Jung said that some unconscious energies are sources of positive and creative activity. That the unconscious is important for the growth and development of the mature and well-adjusted personality. Freud investigated the unconscious and found that the negative side, that our unconscious life is always threatening us, that it is the cause of pathological...
Prabhupāda: What do you mean by unconscious life?
Śyāmasundara: Subconscious, that which we are not consciously aware of...
Prabhupāda: That means it is consciousness but it is covered.
Śyāmasundara: Yes. He says that unconscious part of our mind is dangerous, infantile, animalistic. But Jung says that the unconscious can also be positive and helpful to the growth of our personality, that it can be an asset to understand this unconscious life.
Prabhupāda: But I think that the subconscious status as it is covered by the present consciousness, similarly, it can be covered by Kṛṣṇa consciousness, so that those subconscious states will be no longer able to react.
Prabhupāda: Unconsciousness, of course there is, that is not (indistinct) the same thing. That is not manifest. Unconsciousness, but it will manifest.
Śyāmasundara: He says that there are two kinds of subconscious state. The first one is the personal unconscious, or those personal items which are highly individual from one's previous childhood, from his infantile history, certain things occurred, they were repressed, and so on. These are stored in our own unconscious state and they are aroused into consciousness in dreams and through psychoanalysis. But he also posits another type of unconscious, or subconscious, state called the collective unconscious. He says that evolution has predetermined the human brain to react in terms of basic principles derived from the experience of many generations. In other words, that my ancestors had left impressions in my brain from the time of my birth, how to react according to their experiences. Is this true, that there is a collective experience which is passed on?
Prabhupāda: Yes. That experience we say paramparā. Evaṁ paramparā-prāptam (BG 4.2). That is cultivated.
Śyāmasundara: He is talking about child. Infant.
Prabhupāda: Infant. Yes. That is possible. That is possible. Just like our children, from childhood they are dancing.
Śyāmasundara: Here is a picture of his child. He put his child in a box when it was born. Now this is her today, twenty-seven years later. He conditioned her in this box for a year.
Devotee: How long?
Śyāmasundara: For some time. And she came out better, healthier and happier than normal children, because they kept the temperature the same, because it was germ-free, there was no disease and always cleaned by rotating...
Prabhupāda: That means he protected the child from all calamities.
Conversations and Morning Walks
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Jāhnavī sampradāya? Oh, yes, yes.
Acyutānanda: So they don't want to put it in Back to Godhead because I used the word infantile, naive, undereducated and incompetent and that's considered most ungentlemanly.
Devotee (2): They do not like publishing (indistinct) articles.
Acyutānanda: But Prabhupāda says fools and rascals and...
Devotee (2): I have written so many articles in the past two years and one has been published in two years.
Prabhupāda: For Back to Godhead?
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: That means they have failed. After discussing when they could not find out actually what is God, they have given up the idea. Failure.
Prajāpati: They think of it as actually a maturity. "We needed to talk about God when we were infants, and now we are advanced."
Prabhupāda: So maturity, you must give what is that standard God, if it is mature. Mature means you must give the real standard. That is mature. But if nobody of you can give the what is the real standard, then how it is mature? Bali Mardana Prabhu, what do you think? Mature means the final conclusion. Just like in scientific theory. All the scientists come into conclusion, "Yes, this is the..."
Bali Mardana: It's just an excuse because they don't know.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes, they don't know. That's it.
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: (break) ...avatāra here, and she also came from Ireland to become avatāra here.
Acyutānanda: I heard how she became interested in the Gītā. She was Christian, and her infant died. So she asked priests, "Where will this soul go, to heaven or hell? And why? Because he hasn't done anything." So she was never satisfied with their answers. So then she heard that there is transmigration of the soul. Then she became interested in the Gītā, India.
Prabhupāda: So did she understand?
Acyutānanda: Well, only up to transmigration of the soul.
Prabhupāda: She admits.
Prabhupāda: But they say certain people can be done. That means it is nonsense. If it is a fact, if it is a process, then everyone can remember. Why certain? That is their jugglery of words. Cheating.
Mahendra: They also say, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that since little children, little infants...
Prabhupāda: Stop them, all rascals.
Correspondence
1973 Correspondence
So far your request for initiations for Patrick and Jane, that is approved by me. So far the infant is concerned, let him wait until he is older. You may receive the beads chanted upon by Kirtanananda Maharaja and hold the fire sacrifice. Concerning the second initiations for Ojasir das Brahmacari, Smaranananda das Adhikary and his wife Samsaramochan Devi Dasi, that is also approved, and you will find enclosed the Gayatri threads. So hold the fire yajna and for those who are initiated as brahmanas, teach them how to count on the finger divisions, and play the Gayatri mantra tape in their right ear and have them repeat it along with my vibration word for word, then hang sacred thread on his neck as usual. Girls don't require thread but can responsively chant the Gayatri mantra. In each individual case the instruction should be given and the mantra replayed. The giving of the Gayatri mantra can be held after the fire yajna and each devotee can come alone to you to receive the thread.
| Page Title: | Infant |
| Compiler: | Sahadeva, Mayapur |
| Created: | 24 of Mar, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=27, CC=0, OB=3, Lec=13, Con=4, Let=1 |
| No. of Quotes: | 48 |