Bhagavatam, day 27
Srimad Bhagavatam - day 27
Kunti devi continued to praise Srikrishna, “O Krishna! To those who have had your darshan, the question of re-birth does not arise. You bless even a poor unfortunate person with your darshan. The person, who becomes conceited due to his opulence, education, power, position or due to his birth in a good lineage, loses even the eligibility to call out Your name.
To the poor, You are their wealth, O Lord! This illusory world does not touch You. Untouched by these feelings of likes-dislikes, You, remaining eternally in the Parabrahma state, enjoy supreme bliss. I offer obeisance to You, who bestows liberation! I consider You to be the eternal time and the all-pervading Lord who is without beginning and end. You are the Supreme Paramatma!
Even though the living beings fight amongst themselves, O Lord, You forever remain equally within everyone. O Supreme Lord, like an ordinary human being, You engage in action (karma) and in your plays. How can anyone understand your divine transcendental nature and plays? How can anyone understand your intentions?
There is none who is extremely dear to you (whom You favour). At the same time, there is none whom You despise. But these beings, imagine that You are partial towards some and that you maintain differences.
You are the one whom everyone seeks. You reside in every heart. There is nothing that touches You. ‘These people I should favour, those people I despise’ such feelings do not touch You. It is due to the individual devotion or arrogance that either they could attract you or distance from You.
O Vishwatma (universal being)! You are beyond birth and action! We, the living beings, have this birth and action! You have descended to incarnate amongst animals, humans, saints and taking on the forms of Varaha, Srirama, Vāmana and Matsya (fish), have sportily completed all your actions therein.
In the waters, You incarnated as a fish. There too You enacted your play. Thereafter You took the form of a boar (Varaha). Then You incarnated as a tortoise. Incarnating in those forms, you enacted all the actions associated with them. All this is nothing but your play. None of these actions touch You.
In Your childhood You broke the *** of milk. In order to punish You, Mother Devaki, who was angered with this deed of yours, went to fetch a rope to tie you with. You shed such profuse tears that the kohl (kajal) from your eyes was washed away. Either to test your mother’s feelings or to soften her heart you enacted this play. How can anyone tie You, O Lord? Is it possible? You are the rope, how then can you be tied with a rope? When those profuse tears flowing down your cheeks washed away the kohl (kajal) from your eyes, you bent your head in fear. What more can be said about your plays, O Lord!
I am deeply drawn towards these childhood activities of Yours. The truth is that fear is afraid of you. You are fear to fear itself! It runs away from you as it is terrified of you. How then can you shed tears as if you are scared? How can you bend your head and stand as if you are petrified? What divine plays you enact, O Lord!
You inherently are birthless! But people say that in order to enhance the glory of the King Yadu, who is very dear to You, just as the sandalwood tree emerges in the Malaya Mountain, you took birth in his family.
It is said that nothing, not even a thorny bush, grows in the Malaya Mountain. In such a mountain like a sweet smelling sandalwood tree, you emerged in the lineage of Yadu. How could you have birth?
Devaki and Vasudeva, in their previous birth, had prayed that you should be born as their son. Although You are birthless, for the well being of the world and for the destruction of the demons, you have taken birth as their son. This is what people say.
Some others say that when Lord Brahma prayed to reduce the load of Mother Earth, You decided to take birth.
By taking this divine birth, you caused different feelings in different people.
Some others are of the opinion that, to give a chance to people, who having been born on this earth are trapped in the vicious cycle of frutitive actions and are suffering due to it, you decided to take birth. This birth thus is to enact divine plays so that these suffering people get a chance to listen to your divine stories and recollect them.
All those innocent devotees who ought to be helped, all those people whose sins should be cleansed, all those who have obtained your grace have all been uplifted. Through this incarnation, You have demonstrated innumerable divine sports.
Through this birth, the spiritual ignorance (ajnana) has been washed away in many. So many persons have transformed into divine beings, during this birth of yours. They have attained oneness with you.
O Lord, only those devotees who, daily, without fail, read, listen, study, recollect and praise your divine glories and derive the resultant bliss, are able to obtain the vision of your lotus feet! Unknowingly many study your glories. Many unknowingly think about you. There are many who help others considering them to be You. This is such a strange play, O Lord.
How many of your divine plays can I narrate, O Lord? They are endless.