The Flute Of Krishna

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How should we evaluate the flute, that little piece of wood, which, when put to the lips of Krishna and surcharged with the breath of divinity, gives out notes so sweet and powerful that they charm the entire creation? Consumed with jealousy, the gopis are full of complaint and treat the flute as if she were a co-wife. Lucky and fortunate is the flute, for it is forever in the hands of their lord, and is pressed to his adorable and precious lips, the nectar whereof it could eternally taste. And as we have seen, they wonder how the flute came to be so favored. The question is relevant, for how does it happen that some people are so favored by god that they share his grace and become instruments of fulfilling his design, that through them he does his work, makes them his messengers and prophets? The flute provides the answers. It tells us how it came to receive this favor. It was a piece of bamboo and it was only because of good fortune that it received the lord's grace. Yet what was the price of this grace? This piece of wood had to, in the first instance, accept separation from the parent-tree, allow itself to be hollowed and her bosom to be riddled with holes. Willing to suffer all this, the physical pain of being emptied, of being hollowed out, in the faith that one would be united with God, to bear the cross joyously, is the first condition of the Lord's service. Obviously, hollowness indicates complete lack of I-ness, the total surrender of one's ego. Not until have we wholly taken this I-ness out of ourselves can we be regarded as fit instruments for the Lord and his music. The same is true of every devotee, for the simple definition of bhakti, of adoration - a definition that cuts through all literary and religious pedantry - is complete unalloyed surrender to Him.

The insignificant little piece of wood, the flute, therefore becomes not merely the bearer of the magic notes of heavenly music but also, allegorically, the teacher of a great lesson-the first lesson in the Religion of Love : unconditional surrender and complete willingness to suffer.

Reference:

Lal, Kanwar. The Religion of Love: Delhi, Arts and Letters, 1971.