The life of Krishna is an ideal which gives the picture of the life of a perfect man. The real meaning of the word Krishna is God, and the man who was identified with that name was the God-conscious one who fulfilled his message in the period he was destined to give his message. The story of Krishna, apart from its historical value and interest, is of great importance to the seeker after truth. No one knows the father and mother of Krishna. Some say he was of royal birth, of kingly origin, from King who is the King of all. Then he was given into the care of Yeshoda, who brought him up as his guardian-mother. This is symbolic of the earthly parents, who are the guardians, the real father and mother being God.

In the childhood of Krishna, it is said, he was fond of butter, and he learned as a child to steal butter everywhere. The meaning is that wisdom is the butter of the whole of life. When life is churned, then out of that comes butter -- wisdom. That he was stealing it means wherever he found wisdom he learned it. He benefitted from everybody's experience -- that is stealing.

Plainly speaking, there are two ways of learning wisdom. One way is that a person drinks to excess, then falls down in the mud, and then the police take him to the police station. When he recovers from his drunkenness, he cannot find his clothes, and he is horrified at his own appearance. This makes him realize what he has done. This is one way of learning, and it is possible that he still does not learn. The other way of learning is that a young man in the street sees a drunken man and sees how terrible it is to be in this position; he learns from that. That is stealing the butter.

The latter part of Krishna's life has two very important aspects. One aspect teaches us that life is a continual battle, the earth is the battlefield where every soul has to struggle, and the one who will own the kingdom of the earth must know the law of warfare very well. The secret of the offensive, the mystery of defense, how to hold our position, how to retreat, how to advance, how to change position, how to protect and control all that has been won, how to let go what must be given up, the manner of sending the ultimatum, the way of making an armistice, and the method by which peace is made all must be learned in this life's battle. Man's position is most difficult, for he has to fight on two fronts at the same time; one is himself, and the other is another. If he is successful on one front, and on the other front he proves to have failed, then his success is not complete.

The battle of each individual has a different character, depending upon his particular grade of evolution. Therefore every person's battle in life is of a different and peculiar character. No person in the world is free from that battle; only one is more prepared for it; the other, perhaps, is ignorant of the law of warfare. In the success of this battle is the fulfillment of life. The Bhagavad Gita, the Song Celestial, from beginning to end is a teaching on the law of life's warfare.

The other outlook of Krishna on life is that every soul is striving to attain God, but not God as a judge or a king, God as a beloved. Every soul seeks God, the God of love, in the form it is capable of imagining. In this way the story of Krishna and the gopis signifies God and the various souls seeking perfection.

The life and teaching of Krishna has helped the people of India very much in broadening the thought of the pious. The religious man, full of dogmas, is often apt to make dogmas too rigid and expects the godly or the God-conscious to fit in with this standard of goodness. If they do not fit in with his particular idea of piety, he is ready to criticize them. But the thought and life of Krishna was used by the artist, the poet, and the musician to make a new religion recognizing the divine in natural human life. That idea of considering a spiritual person exclusive, remote, stone-like, and lifeless ceased to exist. The people of India became much more tolerant toward all different aspects of life, looking at the whole life at the same time as an immanence of God.