Krishna Reveals the Universe in His Mouth to Yashoda

Yashoda: "KRISHNA!"

Yashoda's voice rang across the courtyard. The other children scattered like leaves before a storm. Only Krishna remained, his face a picture of wounded innocence, mud smeared around his small mouth.

Krishna: "Maiya, I didn't eat anything,"

he protested, his large eyes brimming with the threat of tears.

Yashoda: "Your friends say you ate mud. Again."

Krishna: "They're lying! They're jealous because I beat them at marbles."

Yashoda knelt before her son, her heart already softening. How could she stay angry at this face? But a mother's duty remained.

Yashoda: "Open your mouth. Let me see."

Krishna: "But Maiya—"

Yashoda: "Now, Krishna."

Krishna opened his mouth, and Yashoda leaned in to look.

Time stopped.

Inside that small mouth, Yashoda saw... everything. The sun and moon spinning in their courses. Stars being born and dying in distant corners of space. The entire earth with its mountains and oceans, its cities and forests. She saw Vrindavan itself, tiny as a grain of sand. She saw herself looking into the mouth of a child, and in that child's mouth, another universe, and another.

She saw the fourteen realms stacked upon each other. She saw time flowing like a river with no beginning or end. She saw creation and destruction dancing together, and at the center of it all, a consciousness so vast, so loving, that her mind couldn't hold it.

Yashoda gasped and stumbled backward. Her son—who was her son?—looked at her with concern.

Krishna: "Maiya? Are you alright?"

She blinked. The cosmic vision faded. Standing before her was just her little boy, still with mud on his face, still with those innocent eyes.

Yashoda: "Who... what..."

she stammered.

Krishna smiled—and in that smile, for just a fraction of a second, she saw that infinite consciousness again. Then it was gone, and he was just her naughty child.

Krishna: "Can I go play now?"

Yashoda pulled him into her arms, hugging him so tight he squeaked in protest. Tears she didn't understand rolled down her face.

Yashoda: "Maiya, you're squishing me!"

She released him, wiping her eyes.

Yashoda: "Yes, go play. But no more mud!"

As Krishna ran off to rejoin his friends, Yashoda sat in the courtyard, her mind spinning. What had she seen? Was it a dream? A trick of the light?

She decided it didn't matter. Whatever Krishna was—God, king, cosmic being—right now, he was her son. He needed her love, her discipline, her butter, her arms to run to when he was scared. The universe could wait. Her child needed his mother.

But sometimes, late at night, when she watched him sleep, she saw galaxies in his closed eyes, and she wondered what karma she had done to deserve the honor of being mother to the infinite.