I had a rather strange and unforgettable experience one morning while performing aarti.
As part of my daily routine, I closed my eyes and began to imagine Baby Krishna sitting in my lap. In my inner vision, He was holding a panch-aarti diya with five wicks in His right hand, moving it gently in a circular motion. The five wicks reminded me of the Panchabhutas—earth, water, fire, air, and space, the five elements that constitute the material universe.
Gradually, the vision transformed. Baby Krishna began holding the lamp with both hands, moving it gracefully in a clockwise direction. I remembered Lord Krishna's four-armed form, a divine manifestation associated with Vishnu, which devotees often find deeply reassuring. But what unfolded next was beyond anything I could have imagined.
Baby Krishna seemed to grow four arms, each holding an aarti lamp and moving in perfect rhythm with the devotional song. Then, before my inner eyes, more and more arms emerged—hundreds, thousands, countless arms, each holding a lamp and moving in unison with the music. It was as though the little child in my lap was revealing a cosmic form, an infinitude of divine hands participating in the same sacred offering.
And then came the most astonishing part. Krishna placed a lamp upon His head and began rotating it along with the movements of His hands. His head moved swiftly, yet the lamp remained perfectly balanced. Everywhere I looked within that inner vision, there were lamps—thousands upon thousands of them, shimmering and revolving in divine rhythm.
I felt a little frightened by the sheer magnitude of what I was experiencing and opened my eyes. Before me was the aarti playing on YouTube, its devotional music continuing as usual.
I sat there wondering what had just happened. I had never heard or read of Baby Krishna appearing in precisely this way. The experience felt so unusual, so vivid, and so different from anything I had previously imagined. I could only reflect on the infinite forms in which the Divine is contemplated by devotees.
As the Bhagavad Gita declares in Chapter 11, Arjuna beholds the extraordinary Vishvarupa of Lord Krishna, a form encompassing countless manifestations of the universe. My experience was not something I could equate with Arjuna's vision, but it brought the idea of the Lord's immeasurable nature vividly to my mind.
There was another reason this morning felt particularly meaningful.
During the month of Bhadrapada, corresponding roughly to August–September, I had performed sadhana dedicated to Lord Krishna. Usually, towards the final days of a sadhana, I experience something spiritually significant. This time, however, nothing unusual happened. When the sadhana ended, I consoled myself, wondering whether I had made a mistake in the procedure or had failed to concentrate sufficiently to receive a blessing.
Yet I continued with my devotion.
After completing the sadhana, I distributed burfi as prasadam. I shared it with everyone I could think of—the security guards, electricians, gardeners, plumbers, labourers, and local shopkeepers—not only in my own residential society but also in the neighbouring societies.
And then something happened that made me smile in amazement. Despite distributing the sweets to so many people, the prasadam simply did not seem to finish! Every time I thought there could hardly be any left, there was more to distribute. It reminded me of Draupadi's Akshaya Patra, the inexhaustible vessel from the Mahabharata.
Finally, tired from all the distributing, I prayed to the Lord, “Krishna, I am tired now. Please, let us finish this!”
With that prayer, I placed the last piece of burfi in a labourer's hand. The distribution was finally complete.
I am still unsure how to interpret the vision I experienced during aarti that morning. I can only describe what I saw in my mind and how deeply it moved me. It brought to life, for me, the idea that the Divine cannot be confined to a single form or limited by the boundaries of our imagination.
Perhaps the greatest blessing is not always the experience we wait for, but the grace to continue praying, serving, and loving even when nothing extraordinary seems to happen.
The Lord is kind and benevolent. Sometimes, He gives us what we ask for; at other times, He surprises us with something we could never have imagined.
Pic : AI Generated
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