Krishna means...

Divine attraction

Krishna means that which attracts the divine. We are born with a hidden divine nature that manifests as realisation through a rise in consciousness. This consciousness attracts freedom, peace, and true happiness. Krishna was born in jail, but that could not hold him and the cell opened automatically. Consciousness cannot be kept imprisoned. As we practice remaining conscious, we experience freedom from our passions and the inner animal nature. The young child was taken in a basket across the river Yamuna to the village Nandgaon. 'Nand' means joy and Yamuna symbolises love and bhakti. By crossing this river of bhakti, one dissolves the ego and on the other shore is Nandgaon, or joy. When his father Vasudeva was taking him across, the forces of nature were at the height of their fury; the young child was playfully sucking the thumb of his foot. This symbolises that there may be a terrible storm outside but one can still be happy in the worst of circumstances. A hooded snake covered his head to protect him from the rain. The snake symbolises time. We are all slaves of time, but here the young child will write his own destiny. In the village of Nandgaon live the Gopis. 'Go' means the five senses and 'pi' means to drink. The women of this village drink and extract the elixir of life through their five senses. Krishna is called the 'makhanchor' or the one who steals this elixir from every situation in life, joyous or painful. The dance of Gopis and Krishna is called raas. Within us lies an inner Radhe, and an inner Krishna. If they contradict each other, life is painful but if they complement each other, our life becomes a raas. Kamsa is the king of Mathura who sends many asuras to kill Krishna, but Krishna slays them all - asuras like Trinavatasura (whirlwind) symbolising the fury of our passions, Bakasura (crane) symbolising our inner cunningness, Adhasura (python) symbolic of that in us which wants to swallow everything. Krishna finally kills the wicked Kamsa. 'Kam' means to tremble and 'Kaama' means desire. In all of us, the ego trembles intensely with great desire and the only way to awaken the inner Krishna is by killing the Kamsa who controls our lives.