Kamsa personified cruelty caused by the fear of becoming irrelevant and therefore caused great havoc. Always a ruthless emperor, Kamsa caused violence to whomever he considered competition. After receiving the intervention that the son of Vasudeva and Devaki would be the cause of his death, he extended his cruelty to everyone; even newborn infants weren’t spared. Why? His only fear was that he would be rendered irrelevant by death.

Kamsa symbolizes incompleteness or deficiency. In Sanskrit, ‘Kamsa’ means bracket, which is not a complete circle, not fully integrated. Krishna is full, teaching us the art of assimilating everything.

This Kamsa-ness has to be fought, and Krishna-ness has to be sought. Only then will we be uncaught by the fear of becoming irrelevant. We will understand that we have a role to play elsewhere.

This works just as a student becomes irrelevant to the school as he passes out and goes on to play the role of a higher education student in college, which he again moves out of and becomes a part of the professional world, followed by old age. And one day he dies, only to move on to the next step. Moving is inevitable and permanent. But to try to hold on to one place is Kamsa-hood, which Krishna does not allow.

Krishna ensures that the wheel of life is in constant motion. As soon as He senses an obstacle, He clears it, just as He eliminated Kamsa and many others so that life continues to flow unhindered.

– Govinda Das (ISKCON Member)

Today is Kartik Dashami; the Tithi Lord Krishna performed the pastime of killing Kamsa