Intermittent Rant

Growing up Hindu, I was surrounded by the folklore of Krishna. For those of you who are not familiar with Krishna, he was an incarnation of God, an Indian prince, that blue-skinned dude in old Indian paintings. You could say is the equivalent of Jesus although that does neither him nor Jesus any justice.

I won’t get into details about Krishna since it goes beyond a mere blog post, so I’ll leave it to Wikipedia to get your started. Growing up learning about the life of Krishna, one thing had always struck me as peculiar. You see, unlike Jesus, there are many stories of Krishna’s childhood. Through old stories in the Mahabharata, we see Krishna grow up. And unlike Jesus, we see this child, this god-incarnate, as a mischievous little bastard.

Yes, folks, little Krishna gots himself into a mess o’ trouble. He’d steal butter. He’d tie people up. He’d steal the clothes of young women. And with godlike acuity and magic, he just as easily got himself out of trouble. Which of course always struck me as odd. Because this flies in the face of everything we know about God. God, the creator, the all-powerful, the all-knowing, etc., etc. So why would God manifest Himself as a mischievous child? What does that say about Hinduism?

I simply ignored these tales as rubbish for many years until I had an epiphany, and the epiphany was this: It does say something about Hinduism. In many pagan religions, gods are looked up to as one would look up to a mother or a father. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, God is the father. Even Freud said that our feelings about our parents are transferred to that being we call God. And we want to be like children again with an ever-loving God to protect us.

And yet in Hinduism, we have this God-child, this Krishna, who with all of his wiles, all of his mischief, Hindus accept and worship. Because while in other religions, people are taught to love God as one would love a mother or a father, Hindus — through Krishna — are taught to love God as one would love a child. Unconditionally. Without fear or remorse. With acceptance and care. Like a mother or a father would. Like a grownup.