Lord Krishna’s Vrindavana Pastimes (Part 4) (A)

Actually when Krishna was going to Vrindavana riding on a cart on His mother’s lap, Krishna asked “What is there in Vrindavana? Why are you going to Vrindavana? Mother Rohini told Krishna that there are many beautiful places to play and then Krishna asked “Why are those places so beautiful?. She then explained to Krishna that because there are beautiful articles. You will find many beautiful articles to play with. So Krishna became very happy and they settled down in Vrindavana and yesterday I described how at night when they all were asleep. Visvakarma, the engineer, the architect, the demigod arrived
there with thousands and thousands of helpers and throughout the night and built many
beautiful palaces for the residents of Vrindavana. And in the morning when they woke up
they found beautiful palaces with the names of different individuals, head of the family
inscribed in golden letters on the gateway. So, Vrindavana, although in our mundane
vision appears to be just an ordinary place, some sort of forests and now even the forests
are drying out. But actually in Vrindavan, in real Vrindavana there are many, many
beautiful places where Krishna and His associates reside .So, every morning Krishna
used to go to the pasturing ground with Balarama and their other friends and they used to
take the calves. Actually when a boy was 6 to 10 years old, he was allowed to take care of the calves and then after that, he used to take care of the cows. So, this is how they
used to get trained up. Little boys take care of the calves and older cowherd people take
care of the cows. So, Krishna and Balarama along with their friends used to take care of
the calves. So, one day when they were taking care of the calves, then all of a sudden
Krishna noticed that there is a strange looking calf. So, actually Kamsa sent one of his
associates to kill Krishna and the name of that associate was Vatsasura who came
disguised as a calf. He thought that actually they used to all plan like as you remember I
mentioned yesterday
When Trnavrta came Trnavrta thought that because Putana came in some form that’s why
Krishna could kill her but if he comes without a form, without a visible form then
Krishna wouldn’t be able to kill him. Therefore he came in the guise of a whirlwind,
because that kind of the thing doesn’t really have a tangible or visible form but still
Krishna killed him. But then Vatsasura thought that he will be, he won’t make the same
mistake as Putana and Trnavrta so he thought that he would come as a calf and Krishna is
very fond of calves. Krishna won’t be able to detect him as an enemy and then in a
moment he would kill Krishna. But Krishna saw that this personality in the disguise of a
calf was looking at him and also looking at other calves in a very angry way. Krishna
could detect anger from his glances. So Krishna told Balarama “Balarama, look at this
strange character. [All laughs] Something is wrong there. I suspect that this is a demon
and look at the way he is looking at us and the way he is looking at the calves. Generally
calves do not look at us like that. Krishna said “Anyway I will take care of him. But then
Balarama said “Krishna, if you kill a calf then people will say bad things about you. They
will say that you have killed a calf because cow killing is considered a very, very heinous
crime according to the Vedic understanding. So, Krishna told Balarama “Don’t worry
when I will kill him. His demon form will become exposed, so then people won’t say that
I killed a calf. They will say I killed a demon. So Balarama said “That’s a good idea. So,
then Krishna just started to call the calf. He used to make the sound with His mouth, from
His mouth and hearing that sound, all the calves used to come close to Him. So Krishna
started making that sound and all the calves started to come towards Him and then this
Vatsasura also thought that now is the opportune moment. Now I will go close to Krishna
and then I will kill Him. So, he came with his head faced upwards like he wanted Krishna
to catch him on his neck. So, Krishna started to scratch him on his neck and then before
Vatsasura could do anything all of a sudden Krishna just grabbed him by his hind legs
and started to swing him above His head and He swung him until he left his body. So,
this way the Vatsasura demon was killed. At a great distance the calf, the dead body of
the demon fell down and then everybody could see that he was in fact a demon so they all
became very surprised how Krishna could recognize that this demon actually came to
cause harm to them. So, in this way everybody went back home, practically every
evening they had some wonderful story to tell to all the people about Krishna. They
would in great detail describe to their parents and all the members of the family how
Krishna killed such and such demon in a very wonderful way. So, after Vatsasura’s
death, actually Kamsa used to send the demons and he also used to send his men, his
spies to see what was happening. So, a spy went back and told Kamsa that Vatsasura had
also been finished. So, Kamsa became very, very upset. One day when Kamsa was in
such a bad mood, in extreme anxiety, of what was going to happen to him and how he
was going to get rid of this Krishna, the son of Nanda Maharaja, who is actually the son of Vasudev and Devaki, who was actually meant to kill him.