And so the gopas, the milkmen of Vrndavan, followed Krishna’s advice — some reluctantly and some willingly — and they began the sacrifice for Govardhan Hill. This news reached Indra, who thought to himself: «A boy of special capacity lives there. Now He has taken the leadership of Vrndavan and stopped this ancient sacrifice to me. For a long time it was the tradition of the gopas to perform sacrifice to satisfy me, and now one boy is the cause of stopping my sacrifice!» He was very much enraged. Indra ordered the clouds and the wind and the lightning to attack the residents of Vrndavan.
According to Vedic understanding, all the elements are personified. In ancient days, the Aryans and rajarsis, elevated human beings and great sages, used to see everything as persons. They saw everything in a personal way. They thought of the creepers, the trees, and everything else in the environment as persons. They understood that they were all persons who, according to karma, are wandering through the different species of life.
Once, I was asked by a professor of biology about alternatives to Darwinian evolution. I advised him that evolution from consciousness to matter may be understood on the basis of Berkeley’s theory. Whatever we think of is really part of our consciousness. And consciousness means person. Everything that we may be conscious of is a person. We may think of the wind as an inanimate object, but it was thought of in the Vedic line as a person. Lightning, wind, clouds, and rain are all persons. Whatever we consider to be elementary matter, gross and subtle, was all considered by the ancient seers of the truth to be persons.
Indra commanded the wind, the clouds, and the rain to go and devastate the whole area of Gokul Vrndavan. «The residents of Vrndavan have insulted me!» He said. «They have rejected me, have stopped worshipping me, and are instead worshipping that mountain, that hill of Govardhan. I can’t tolerate this insult! Go and devastate them.» By the order and wrath of Indra, the master of all the higher subtle elements, heavy rain began to fall. And so thunder, hail, and rain simultaneously attacked the whole of Vraja Mandal.
Consequently, all the residents of Vrndavan were thrown into a great disaster. Misery, pain, and sorrow afflicted the animals and the protectors of the animals, the gopalas. So, the helpless — the women, children, and animals of Vrndavan — had no alternative but to take refuge of Krishna. They all came to Krishna for relief. They cried, «O Krishna! Now what are we to do? You influenced us to stop the sacrifice meant for Indra, and now Indra, being vindictive, has begun to afflict us in this very heavy way. How can we live? Please save us!» They all came to Krishna for protection. Seeing this, Krishna had much pity for them. Being merciful upon them, He smiled a little, thinking, «They have all come to Me for relief.»
At that time, with only one hand Krishna lifted up the Govardhan mountain. For Him, it was a very easy thing; with only one hand, He uprooted the hill and lifted it up as a child lifts a toy ball. And holding up that great mountain, Krishna gave protection to all those who were living in Gokul. The men, women, and children of Vrndavan brought the cows and all their worldly goods and took shelter beneath Govardhan Hill.
The whole cowherd society was given shelter under that hill. In this way, by lifting Govardhan Hill, Krishna gave protection to the residents of Vrndavan, and crushed the pride of the lord of heaven, Indra himself.
And so Nanda Maharaj prays in this verse, «May that Lord of the cows be satisfied by us. Who is Indra when compared to Krishna? Krishna is the master of Indra. And yet He has appeared as the master of cows; the Supreme Absolute Truth has accepted a simple position as the keeper of cows. Superficially, He is a mere cowherd boy. But let that cowherd boy, who holds within Him the power of controlling the whole universe, be satisfied with us. We want to worship that Lord who has taken the humble position of the king of the cows.»
From this verse of Srimad Bhagavatam, we can understand the position of the Lord’s Pastime at Govardhan. It is also described here that when the Vraja-vasis worshipped Him and engaged in sacrifice for His satisfaction, they saw Govardhan Hill as the Supreme Person, extending His hands, accepting the things offered to Him, and feeding Himself.
At that time, Krishna pointed out, «You see! You thought that Govardhan Hill was only a heap of stone. No — it is living, it is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.» At that time, Krishna revealed Himself as Govardhan Hill and showed how it is also His extended self. According to authorities in our line, Radha Kunda is the extended self of Srimati Radharani, and Govardhan is the extended self of Krishna. And so we worship a stone from Govardhan Hill, a part of Giridhari, as Krishna Himself. We may understand from this that a part of the infinite is infinite. And yet so feeble is our ordinary vision that although Govardhan-sila is a part of the infinite, and therefore also infinite, to our material vision it is only a piece of stone.
This Pastime shows that a thing may appear to be ordinary stone, but its possibility is infinite. In the general sense, Einstein’s theory of relativity has announced that anything we see is that thing plus something more. In his own scientific way, he explains that the reality of a thing includes its possibilities, its prospect — reality is not at a standstill.
Reality is not limited to what is seen or conceived by our senses. Our vision or estimation of anything may be limited, but unknown to us, its prospect may be unlimited. Everything has infinite possibility. We do not even know what infinite possibility a particle of sand may have. We do not know what sort of possibility may exist within a leaf of a plant. It may appear ordinary, but it may contain invaluable medicinal properties.