that Dadaji was Lakulish, the 28th incarnation of
Lord SHIVA.
The vision transformed his life and, after eight
months, he took initiation into sannyas, renuncia-
tion, from Dadaji and was guided by Dadaji for
the rest of his life. Dadaji then disappeared until
1952, when Kripalvanandji saw him as a young
man. In his later appearances he encouraged Kri-
palvananda to develop and continue intense 10-
hour-a-day practice of KUNDALINI meditation that
he continued for the rest of his life.
At Kayavarohan, Gujarat, Kripalvananda was
inspired to build a temple to Lord Lakulish and to
reestablish the town of Kayavarohan as a center of
spiritual culture and learning.
As his own practice matured, Kripalvananda
became the guru of two brothers, SHANTI and
AMRIT DESAI (b. 1932), both of whom would later
go to America and begin organizations teaching
the type of kundalini and hatha yoga that inspired
Kripalvananda. In 1977, Amrit Desai invited Kri-
palvananda to go to America, where he would stay
for more than three years. In those years he was a
significant influence on the emerging community
of KRIYA YOGA in the United States. He returned to
India shortly before his death at the end of 1981.
Further reading: Yogi Amrit Desai and Shri Kripalvana-
nda, The Passion of Christ: A Discourse (Lenox, Mass.:
Kripalu, 1983); Shri Kripalvanandiji, Krpalupanisad
(St. Helena, Calif.: Sanatana Publication Society, 1979);
———, Pilgrimage of Love, Books 1–3 (Lenox, Mass.:
Kripalu, 1992); ———, The Stages of Kundalini Yoga
(Lenox, Mass.: Kripalu, 1976); Swami Rajarshi Muni,
Infinite Grace: The Story of My Spiritual Lineage (Vado-
dara: Life Mission Publications, 2002).
Krishna
The god Krishna is understood to be an incarna-
tion of VISHNU. None of the other incarnations of
Vishnu has attracted as passionate and widespread
a devotion in India as Krishna. There is some evi-
dence that Krishna was originally a historical fig-
ure. Krishna is technically the black god, since the
Sanskrit word krishna means “black.” However,
he is generally depicted with blue skin.
Krishna appears in the MAHABHARATA epic
as a friend to the PANDAVA brothers. In that epic
Krishna is rarely referred to with divine epithet,
or as a divinity. It is only in the BHAGAVAD GITA,
the famous text that recounts the teaching of
Krishna to ARJUNA just before the battle, that the
divinity of Krishna is clearly detailed. Some have
suggested that the worship of Krishna in this con-
text may constitute a form of euhemerism, or the
deification of a famous warrior.
A second role of Krishna is as the divine lover,
dancing at midnight with the cowherd maidens
(GOPIS), who are drawn to his beauty, his beauti-
ful music, and the magic of his divine presence.
According to tradition he eventually favors Radha
among the gopis; the passionate love of Radha
for her furtive, often unavailable lover becomes
the paradigm for Krishna devotionalism. Finally,
Krishna appears as a child and youth, mischie-
vous, naughty, and beloved of every mother who
lays eyes upon him.
The god was born in Mathura, where his father,
VASUDEVA, was minister to the evil king Kamsa.
Kamsa discovered that Vasudeva’s wife, DEVAKI,
was to give birth to a son who would eventually
kill him. Therefore, he kept Vasudeva and Devaki
under guard and killed their first six children.
The seventh child, BALARAMA, was miraculously
transferred to the womb of Vasudeva’s other wife,
Rohini. When the eighth child, Krishna, was
born, a profound slumber fell upon Vasudeva’s
guards and the father was able secretly to take the
child across the YAMUNA River to BRINDAVAN and
consign him to the cowherd Nanda and his wife,
YASHODA, who became Krishna’s foster mother.
As a child, Krishna was extremely mischie-
vous, stealing milk and butter (one of his epithets
is “butter thief”), overturning wagons, and felling
trees with strength far beyond that of an ordinary
child. Once Yashoda tied him to a huge mortar
used for grinding things. Krishna, even thoughK 238 Krishna