Moonchild

 

When I was a child my friends often called me by the affectionate nickname, “Moonchild.” It meant they thought I was somewhat “different.” When I grew up, I found they were right, but not quite in the way they imagined.

 

The moon is closely related to Lord Krishna, and Krishna appeared in the Moon’s dynasty. He is also known as Krishnachandra – the mind-enchanting Krishna-moon who attracts His Devotees.

On hot summer nights, when the full moon is bathing the landscape in silver rays, we like to walk outside and let the moonbeams wash over us, giving us relief from the heat. It seems as if when we gaze at the moon our small day-to-day anxieties disappear and our minds become free to contemplate the mysteries of the universe and our little place in it.

 

Yes, the Krishna-moon attracts us and widens our vision so that we focus less on mundane matters and more on God. Try looking at the moon as it floats in the night sky. The Ayurveda recommends such a meditation. Moon-gazing may tempt you to prayer, as it may have done for the devotee who penned these lines:

 

O Govinda, Lord of my life, You are the moon of Gokula, the abode of transcendental bliss, and the beloved of the gopis. Please cast Your glance my way.

O my Lord, splendid as the moon, since You are an ocean of mercy I pray for a drop of that mercy – the treasure of serving Your lotus feet. Even hearing Your glories is supremely auspicious. Such hearing bestows transcendental bliss on the hearer and fulfills all desires.

(Prarthana, Song 5, verses 1-2)

 

The waxing and waning moon hints at yet another spiritual dimension, at the soul. Although the moon seems to become thin and then grow fat again, this is only a superficial appearance. In reality it remains unchanged. In much the same way, we as eternal souls always remain the same.

Our bodies may change over time, but we, the owners of those bodies, remain the same no matter what. Even death cannot touch the soul. Rather, we remain in our spiritual essence, untouched and unchanged.

 

I once had a beautiful experience of this. When a close friend suddenly died, the news was sent to me while I was touring Sarajevo. To honor him and to support his onward journey, I organized in his memory an evening of sacred chants. We began by honoring his picture with a garland. At the end of this tear-filled evening, I removed the garland from the picture, and according to time-honored tradition, I threw it from a bridge into an icy stream. It was a clear, cold winter night – my tears froze immediately on my cheeks as I watched the garland carried away by the current. In my grief I remembered the lines of a song:

 

Due to forgetfulness of You I wander in this terrible material life attached to sense gratification, my body and mind shattered and spiritually unconscious. Am I not like a dying man, feeling only pain and misery?

(Prarthana, Song 5, verse 3)

 

As this song echoed in my mind, suddenly the darkness lifted and the moon lifted above the city’s skyscrapers and illuminated the scene. As my friend’s garland drifted toward the moon, he seemed to say, “Don’t grieve. Everyone is eternal in essence.” And then I remembered Krishna’s comforting words in the Gita, “Never was there a time when I did not exist nor you nor all these others, so don’t grieve for the temporary body.”

 

Astonished, I looked toward the moon. Had he opened his silent lips to speak to me in the voice of my Lord? But that was not all. Full of mystery, the moon seemed to continue: “Tonight I will bring someone special to you. Don’t be afraid.”

 

The moon did not speak in words. Rather, it spoke in the special language of intuition. My tears stopped. I wondered what would come next.

 

That night, my friend appeared in my dream, sitting on the chair by my bed. He had come, he said, to dispel my grief. He was surrounded by a golden-green effulgence. Overwhelmed by emotion, I asked him how he felt now that he was free from his body – and where he was.

 

So many more questions rushed from my mouth that I can’t remember them all now. My friend

answered several of them, then stopped. “Don’t worry about me. I am like the moon –  always there. Birth and death don’t affect me. We are all parts of Lord Krishnachandra – the Lord who always is and is never not. You can’t understand yet where I am or how I can be present with you, but it’s wonderful. Even I needed to learn how it works -- it is so different from what I thought it would be like.

 

Then he disappeared slowly but inevitably. I was left thoughtful but comforted.

 

There is much more to existence than we are often aware of. In one sense all of us are moon children –  children who come from a different world. Most of us have forgotten that world, and forgotten that we came with a two-way ticket. The ticket that brought us here is the ticket of sad tears, and the one that will bring us back is the ticket of happy tears –  the tears of eagerness and longing for Lord Krishnachandra, whose face surpasses the beauty of the full moon and all  the lotuses that open under its soothing rays.

The rays coming from Krishnachandra’s most beautiful abode pass through the moon and attract our cakora[1]-like minds to Him. Listen carefully to Him next time you see Him moving through the night.