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KB 1970-1-47 / Krsna Pleases His Devotees
47 / Krsna Pleases His Devotees
For days together, Krsna heard from Uddhava all the details of
his visit to Vrndavana, of the condition of His father
and mother, and of the gopis and the cowherd boys. Lord Krsna
was fully satisfied that Uddhava was able to solace them by his
instruction and by the message delivered to them.
Lord Krsna then decided to go to the house of Kubja, the
hunchback woman who had pleased Him by offering Him sandalwood
when He was entering the city of Mathura. As stated in the
Bhagavad-gita, Krsna always tries to please His devotees, and
the devotees try to please Krsna. As the devotees
always think of Krsna within their hearts, so Krsna also thinks
of His devotees within Himself. When Kubja was converted into a
beautiful society girl, she wanted Krsna to come to her place
so that she could try to receive and worship Him in her own way.
Society girls generally try to satisfy their clients by
offering their bodies to the men to enjoy. But this society
girl, Kubja, was actually captivated by a lust to satisfy her
senses with Krsna. When Krsna desired to go to the house of
Kubja, He certainly had no desire for sense gratification. By
supplying the sandalwood pulp to Krsna, Kubja had already
satisfied His senses. On the plea of her sense gratification,
He decided to go to her house, not actually for sense
gratification, but to turn her into a pure devotee. Krsna is
always served by many thousands of goddesses of fortune;
therefore He has no need to satisfy His senses by going to a
society girl. But as He is kind to everyone, He decided to
go there. It is said that the moon does not withhold its
shining from the courtyard of a crooked person. Similarly,
Krsna's transcendental mercy is never denied to anyone, whether
one has rendered service unto Him through lust, anger,
fear or pure love. In the Caitanya-caritamrta it is stated that
if one wants to serve Krsna and at the same time wants to
satisfy his own lusty desires, Krsna will handle it
so that the devotee forgets his lusty desire and becomes fully
purified and constantly engaged in the service of the Lord.
In order to fulfill His past promise, Krsna, along with Uddhava,
went to the house of Kubja
. When Krsna reached
her house, He saw that it was completely decorated in a way to
excite the lusty desires of a man. This suggests that there
were many nude pictures, on top of which were canopies and
flags embroidered with pearl necklaces, along with comfortable
beds and cushioned chairs. The rooms were provided with flower
garlands and were nicely scented with incense and sprinkled
with scented water. And the rooms were illuminated by nice
lamps.
When Kubja saw that Lord Krsna had come to her house in order
to fulfill His promised visit, she immediately got up from the
chair to receive Him. Accompanied by her many
girl friends, she began to talk with Him with great
respect and honor. After offering Him a nice place to sit, she
worshiped Lord Krsna in a manner just suitable to her position.
Uddhava was similarly received by Kubja and her girl
friends, but he was not on an equal level with
Krsna, and he simply sat down on the floor.
Without wasting time, as one does in such situations,
Krsna entered the bedroom of Kubja. In the
meantime, Kubja took her bath and smeared her body with
sandalwood pulp. She dressed herself with nice garments,
valuable jewelry, ornaments and flower garlands. Chewing
betel nut and other intoxicating eatables and spraying
herself with scents, she appeared before Krsna. Her smiling
glance and moving eyes were full of feminine bashfulness as
she stood gracefully before Lord Krsna, who is known as Madhava,
the husband of the goddess of fortune. When Krsna saw that
Kubja was hesitating to come before Him, He immediately caught
hold of her hand, which was decorated with bangles. With great
affection, He dragged her beside Him and made her sit by His
side. Simply by having previously supplied pulp of sandalwood
to the Supreme Lord, Krsna, Kubja became free from all sinful
reactions and eligible to enjoy with Him. She then took Krsna's
lotus feet and placed them on her breasts, which were burning
with the blazing fire of lust. By smelling the fragrance of
Krsna's lotus feet, she immediately became relieved of all
lusty desires. She was thus allowed to embrace Krsna with her
two arms and thus mitigate her long-cherished desire to have
Krsna as a visitor in her house.
It is stated in the Bhagavad-gita that without being freed
of all material sinful reactions, one cannot be engaged in
the transcendental loving service of the Lord. Simply by
supplying sandalwood pulp to Krsna, Kubja was thus rewarded.
She was not trained to worship Krsna in any other way;
therefore she wanted to satisfy Him by her profession. It is
confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita that the Lord can be worshiped
even by one's profession, if it is sincerely offered for the
pleasure of the Lord. Kubja then told Krsna, "My dear friend,
kindly remain with me at least for a few days. Enjoy with
me, You and Your lotus-eyed friend. I cannot leave You
immediately. Please grant my request."
As stated in the Vedic versions, the Supreme Personality of
Godhead has multi-potencies. According to expert
opinion, Kubja represents the purusa-sakti potency of Krsna,
just as Srimati Radharani represents His cit-sakti potency.
Although she requested Krsna to remain with her for some days,
Krsna politely impressed upon her that it was not possible for
Him to stay. Krsna visits this material world occasionally,
whereas His connection with the spiritual world is eternal.
Krsna is always present either in the Vaikuntha planets or in
the Goloka Vrndavana planet. The technical term for His
presence in the spiritual world is prakata-lila.
After satisfying Kubja with sweet words, Krsna returned to
His place along with Uddhava. There is a warning in the Srimad-
Bhagavatam that Krsna is not very easily worshiped because He
is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the chief among the
Visnu-tattvas. To worship Krsna or have association with Him is
not a very easy job. Specifically, there is a warning for
devotees who are attracted to Krsna through conjugal love; it
is not good for them to desire to have sense gratification by
direct association with Krsna. Actually, the activities of
sense gratification are material. In the spiritual world there
are symptoms like kissing and embracing, but there is no sense-
gratificatory process as it exists in the material world. This
warning is specifically for those known as sahajiya, who take
it for granted that Krsna is an ordinary human being. They
desire to enjoy sex life with Him in a perverted way. In a
spiritual relationship, sense gratification is most
insignificant. Anyone who desires a relationship of perverted
sense gratification with Krsna must be considered to be less
intelligent. His mentality requires to be reformed.
After a while, Krsna fulfilled His promise to visit Akrura at
his house. Akrura was in relationship with Krsna as His
servitor, and Krsna wanted to get some service from him. He
went there accompanied by both Lord Balarama and Uddhava. When
Krsna, Balarama and Uddhava were approaching the house of
Akrura, Akrura came forward, embraced Uddhava and offered
respectful obeisances, bowing down before Lord Krsna and
Balarama. Krsna, Balarama and Uddhava offered him obeisances in
turn and were offered appropriate sitting places by Akrura.
When all were comfortably seated, Akrura washed their feet and
sprinkled the water on his head. Then he offered nice
flowers and sandalwood pulp in regular worship. All three of
them became very satisfied by the behavior of Akrura.
Akrura then bowed down before Krsna, putting his head on the
ground. Then, keeping Krsna's lotus feet on his lap, Akrura
began to gently massage them. When Akrura was fully
satisfied in the presence of Krsna and Balarama, his eyes
became filled with tears of love for Krsna, and he began to
offer his prayers as follows.
"My dear Lord Krsna, it is very kind of You to
have killed Kamsa and his associates. You have delivered the
whole family of the Yadu dynasty from the greatest calamity.
Your saving of the great Yadu dynasty will always be
remembered by them. My dear Lord Krsna and Balarama,
You are the original personality from whom everything has
emanated. You are the original cause of all causes. You have
inconceivable energy, and You are all-pervasive. But for
Yourself, there is no other cause and effect, gross or subtle
. You are the Supreme Brahman realized by the study
of the Vedas. By Your inconceivable energy, You are actually
visible before us. You create this cosmic manifestation by Your
own potencies, and You enter into it Yourself. As the five
material elements, earth, water, fire, air, and sky, are
distributed in everything manifested by different kinds of
bodies, so You alone enter into different varieties of
bodies, created by Your own energy. You enter the body as the
individual soul as well as independently as the Supersoul.
The material body is
created by Your inferior energy. The living entities,
individual souls, are part and parcel of You, and
the Supersoul is Your localized representation. This
material body, the living entity and the Supersoul
constitute an individual living being, but originally they are
all different energies of the one Supreme Lord.
"In the material world, You are creating,
maintaining and dissolving the whole manifestation by
interaction of three qualities,
namely goodness, passion and ignorance. You are not
implicated by the activities of those material qualities
because Your supreme knowledge is never overcome, as is the
case with the individual living entity."
As the Supreme Lord enters into this material creation and
thus the creation, maintenance and destruction are going on
in their due course, so the part and parcel living entity
enters the material elements and has his material body created
for him. The difference between the living entity and the Lord
is that the living entity is part and parcel of the Supreme
Lord and has the tendency to be overcome by the interactions of
material qualities. Krsna, the Parambrahman or the
Supreme Brahman, being always situated in full knowledge, is
never overcome by such activities. Therefore Krsna's name is
Acyuta, meaning He who never falls down. Krsna's
knowledge of spiritual identity is never overcome by
material action, whereas the identity of the minute part and
parcel living entities is prone to be overcome by
material action. The individual living entities
are eternally part and parcel of God. As minute sparks of the
original fire, Krsna, they have the tendeny to become
extinguished.
Akrura continued: "The less intelligent class of men
misunderstand Your transcendental form to be also made of
material energy. That concept is not at all applicable to
You. Actually, You are all spiritual, and there is no
difference between You and Your body. Because of this, there
is no question of Your being conditioned or liberated. You are
ever-liberated in any condition of life. As stated in the
Bhagavad-gita, 'Only the fools and rascals consider You to
be an ordinary man.' To consider Your Lordship to be one of us,
conditioned by the material nature, is a mistake due to our
imperfect knowledge. When people deviate from the original
knowledge of the Vedas, they try to identify the ordinary
living entities with Your Lordship. Your Lordship has appeared
on this earth in Your original form in order to reestablish the
real knowledge that the living entities are neither one with
nor equal to the Supreme God. My dear Lord, You are always
situated in uncontaminated goodness (suddha-sattva). Your
appearance is necessary to reestablish actual Vedic knowledge,
as opposed to the atheistic philosophy which tries to establish
that God and the living entities are one and the same. My dear
Lord Krsna, this time You have appeared in the home of Vasudeva
as His son, along with Your plenary expansion, Sri Balarama.
Your mission is to kill all the atheistic royal families, along
with their huge military strength. You have advented
Yourself to minimize the overburden of the world, and in order
to fulfill this mission, You have glorified the dynasty of Yadu,
appearing in the family as one of its members.
"My dear Lord, today my home has become purified by Your
presence. I have become the most fortunate person in the world.
The Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is worshipable by all
different kinds of demigods, Pitrs, living entities, kings
and emperors, and who is the Supersoul of
everything, has come into my home. The water of His lotus feet
is purifying the three worlds, and now He has kindly come
to my place. Who is there in the three worlds among factually
learned men who will not take shelter of Your lotus feet and
surrender unto You? Who, knowing well that no one can be as
affectionate as You are to Your devotees, is so foolish that he
will decline to become Your devotee? Throughout the Vedic
literature it is declared that You are the dearmost friend of
every living entity. This is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita:
suhrdam sarva-bhutanam. You are the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, completely capable of fulfilling the
desires of Your devotees. You are the real friend of everyone.
In spite of giving Yourself to Your devotees, You are never
depleted of Your original potency. Your potency neither
decreases nor increases in volume.
"My dear Lord, it is very difficult for even the great mystic
yogis and demigods to ascertain Your movement. You cannot be
approached by them, and yet out of Your causeless mercy You
have kindly consented to come to my home. This is the most
auspicious moment in the journey of my material existence. By
Your grace only, I can just understand that my home, my wife,
my children and my worldly possessions are all different bonds
to material existence. Please cut the knot and save me from
this entanglement of false society, friendship and love."
Lord Sri Krsna was very pleased by Akrura's offering of
prayers. His smile was captivating Akrura more and more.
The Lord replied to him
as follows: "My dear Akrura, in spite of your
submissiveness, I consider you to be My superior, on the level
with My father and teacher and most well-wishing friend. You
are, therefore, worshipable by Me, and since you
are My uncle, I am always to be protected by you. I desire to
be maintained by you because I am one of your own
children. Apart from this filial relationship,
you are always to be worshiped. Anyone
who desires good fortune must offer his respectful obeisances
unto personalities like you. You are more than the demigods.
People go to worship the demigods when they are in need of some
sense gratification; the demigods offer benediction to
their devotees after being worshiped by them. But a devotee
like Akrura is always ready to offer the greatest
benediction to the people. A saintly person or devotee is free
to offer benediction to everyone, whereas the demigods can
offer benediction only after being worshiped. One can take
advantage of the place of pilgrimage only after going there.
By worshiping the particular demigod, it takes a long
time for fulfillment of the desire; but saintly persons
like you, My dear Akrura, can immediately fulfill all the
desires of the devotees. My dear Akrura, you are always Our
friend and well-wisher. You are always ready to act for Our
welfare. Kindly, therefore, go to Hastinapura and see what
arrangement has been made for the Pandavas."
Krsna was very anxious to know about the sons of Pandu, because
at a very young age, they had lost their father. Being very
friendly to His devotees, Krsna was anxious to know about them,
and therefore He deputed Akrura to go to Hastinapura and get
information of the real situation. Krsna continued to say, "I
have heard that after the death of King Pandu his
young sons, Yudhisthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva,
along with their widowed mother, have come under the charge
of Dhrtarastra, who is to look after them as their guardian.
But I have also heard that Dhrtarastra is not only blind from
birth, but also blind in his affection for his cruel son,
Duryodhana. The five Pandavas are the sons of King Pandu, but
Dhrtarastra, due to his plans and designs, is not
favorably disposed towards the Pandavas. Kindly go there and
study how Dhrtarastra is dealing with the Pandavas. On receipt
of your report, I shall consider how to favor the Pandavas."
In this way the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna, ordered
Akrura to go to Hastinapura, and then He returned home,
accompanied by Balarama and Uddhava.
Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta purport of the Forty-seventh
Chapter of Krsna, "Krsna Pleases His Devotees."
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KB 48: Krsna Pleases His Devotees
CHAPTER FORTY–EIGHT
Krsna Pleases His Devotees
For days together, Krsna heard from Uddhava all the details of
his visit to Vrndavana, especially the condition of His father
and mother and of the gopis and the cowherd boys. Lord Krsna
was fully satisfied that Uddhava was able to solace them by his
instructions and by the message delivered to them.
Lord Krsna then decided to go to the house of Kubja, the
hunchback woman who had pleased Him by offering Him sandalwood
pulp when He was entering the city of Mathura. As stated in the
Bhagavad-gita, Krsna always tries to please His devotees as
much as the devotees try to please Krsna. As the devotees
always think of Krsna within their hearts, Krsna also thinks
of His devotees within Himself. When Kubja was converted into a
beautiful society girl, she wanted Krsna to come to her place
so that she could try to receive and worship Him in her own way.
Society girls generally try to satisfy their clients by
offering their bodies for the men to enjoy. But this society
girl, Kubja, was actually captivated by a lust to satisfy her
senses with Krsna. When Krsna desired to go to the house of
Kubja, He certainly had no desire for sense gratification. By
supplying the sandalwood pulp to Krsna, Kubja had already
satisfied His senses. On the plea of her sense gratification,
however, He decided to go to her house, not actually for sense
gratification but to turn her into a pure devotee. Krsna is
always served by many thousands of goddesses of fortune;
therefore He has no need to satisfy His senses by going to a
society girl. But because He is kind to everyone, He decided to
go there. It is said that the moon does not withhold its
shining from the courtyard of a crooked person. Similarly,
Krsna's transcendental mercy is never denied to anyone who
has rendered service unto Him, whether through lust, anger,
fear or pure love. In the Caitanya-caritamrta it is stated that
if one wants to serve Krsna and at the same time wants to
satisfy his own lusty desires, Krsna will handle the situation
so that the devotee forgets his lusty desires and becomes fully
purified and constantly engaged in the service of the Lord.
To fulfill His promise, Krsna, along with Uddhava,
went to the house of Kubja, who was very eager to get Krsna
for the satisfaction of her lusty desires. When Krsna reached
her house, He saw that it was completely decorated in a way to
excite the lusty desires of a man. This suggests that there
were many nude pictures, on top of which were canopies and
flags embroidered with pearl necklaces, along with comfortable
beds and cushioned chairs. The rooms were provided with flower
garlands and were nicely scented with incense and sprinkled
with scented water. And the rooms were illuminated by nice
lamps.
When Kubja saw that Lord Krsna had come to her house
to fulfill His promised visit, she immediately got up from her
chair to receive Him cordially. Accompanied by her many
girlfriends, she began to talk with Him with great
respect and honor. After offering Him a nice place to sit, she
worshiped Lord Krsna in a manner just suitable to her position.
Uddhava was similarly received by Kubja and her girlfriends
, but he did not want to sit on an equal level with
Krsna, and thus he simply sat down on the floor.
As one usually does in such situations,
Krsna entered the bedroom of Kubja without wasting time. In the
meantime, Kubja took her bath and smeared her body with
sandalwood pulp. She dressed herself with nice garments,
valuable jewelry, ornaments and flower garlands. After
chewing betel nut and other intoxicating eatables and spraying
herself with scents, she appeared before Krsna. Her smiling
glance and moving eyebrows were full of feminine bashfulness as
she stood gracefully before Lord Krsna, who is known as Madhava,
the husband of the goddess of fortune. When Krsna saw
Kubja hesitating to come before Him, He immediately caught
hold of her hand, which was decorated with bangles. With great
affection, He dragged her near Him and made her sit by His
side. Simply by having previously supplied pulp of sandalwood
to the Supreme Lord, Krsna, Kubja became free from all sinful
reactions and eligible to enjoy with Him. She then took Krsna's
lotus feet and placed them on her breasts, which were burning
with the blazing fire of lust. By smelling the fragrance of
Krsna's lotus feet, she was immediately relieved of all
lusty desires. She was thus allowed to embrace Krsna with her
arms and mitigate her long-cherished desire to have
Him as a visitor in her house.
It is stated in the Bhagavad-gita that one must be freed
of all material sinful reactions before one can engage in
the transcendental loving service of the Lord. Simply by
supplying sandalwood pulp to Krsna, Kubja was thus rewarded.
She was not trained to worship Krsna in any other way;
therefore she wanted to satisfy Him by her profession. It is
confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita that the Lord can be worshiped
even by one's profession, if it is sincerely offered for the
pleasure of the Lord. Kubja told Krsna, "My dear friend,
kindly remain with me at least for a few days and enjoy with
me. My dear lotus-eyed friend, I cannot leave You
immediately. Please grant my request."
As stated in the Vedic versions, the Supreme Personality of
Godhead has multipotencies. According to expert
opinion, Kubja represents the bhu-sakti potency of Krsna,
just as Srimati Radharani represents His cit-sakti potency.
Although Kubja requested Krsna to remain with her for some days,
Krsna politely impressed upon her that it was not possible for
Him to stay. Krsna visits this material world occasionally,
whereas His connection with the spiritual world is eternal.
Krsna is always present either in the Vaikuntha planets or in
the Goloka Vrndavana planet. The technical term of His
presence in the spiritual world is aprakata-lila.
After satisfying Kubja with sweet words, Krsna returned home
with Uddhava. There is a warning in Srimad-
Bhagavatam that Krsna is not very easily worshiped, for He
is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the chief among the
visnu-tattvas. To worship Krsna or have association with Him is
not very easy. Specifically, there is a warning for
devotees attracted to Krsna through conjugal love: it
is not good for them to desire sense gratification by
direct association with Krsna. Actually, the activities of
sense gratification are material. In the spiritual world there
are symptoms like kissing and embracing, but there is no sense-
gratificatory process as it exists in the material world. This
warning is specifically for those known as sahajiyas, who take
it for granted that Krsna is an ordinary human being. They
desire to enjoy sex life with Him in a perverted way. In a
spiritual relationship, sense gratification is most
insignificant. Anyone who desires a relationship of perverted
sense gratification with Krsna must be considered less
intelligent. His mentality requires to be reformed.
After a while, Krsna fulfilled His promise to visit Akrura at
his house. Akrura was in relationship with Krsna as His
servitor, and Krsna wanted to get some service from him. He
went there accompanied by Lord Balarama and Uddhava. When
Krsna, Balarama and Uddhava approached the house of
Akrura, Akrura came forward, embraced Uddhava and offered
respectful obeisances, bowing down before Lord Krsna and
Balarama. Krsna, Balarama and Uddhava offered him obeisances in
turn and were offered appropriate sitting places.
When all were comfortably seated, Akrura washed their feet and
sprinkled the water on his head. Then he offered nice clothing,
flowers and sandalwood pulp in regular worship. All three of
them were very satisfied by Akrura's behavior.
Akrura then bowed down before Krsna, putting his head on the
ground. Then, placing Krsna's lotus feet on his lap, Akrura
gently began to massage them. When Akrura was fully
satisfied in the presence of Krsna and Balarama, his eyes
filled with tears of love for Krsna, and he began to
offer his prayers as follows.
"My dear Lord Krsna and Balarama, it is very kind of You to
have killed Kamsa and his associates. You have delivered the
whole family of the Yadu dynasty from the greatest calamity.
The Yadus will always remember Your saving of
their great dynasty. My dear Lord Krsna and Balarama, both
of You are the original personality from whom everything has
emanated, the original cause of all causes. You have
inconceivable energy, and You are all-pervasive. There
is no cause and effect, gross or subtle,
but You. You are the Supreme Brahman realized through the study
of the Vedas. By Your inconceivable energy, You are actually
visible before us. You create this cosmic manifestation by Your
own potencies, and You enter into it Yourself. As the five
material elements -- earth, water, fire, air and sky -- are
distributed in everything manifested by different kinds of
bodies, so You alone enter the various
bodies created by Your own energy. You enter the body as the
individual soul and, independently, as the Supersoul."
It is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita that the material body is
created by Krsna's inferior energy, that the living entities --
the individual souls -- are His parts and parcels, and
that the Supersoul is His localized representation. Thus while
the material body, the living entity and the Supersoul
constitute an individual living being, originally they are
all different energies of the one Supreme Lord.
Akrura continued: "In the material world, You create,
maintain and dissolve the whole manifestation by
the interactions of the three material qualities,
namely goodness, passion and ignorance. But You are not
implicated in the activities of those material qualities,
for Your supreme knowledge is never overcome like the
knowledge of the individual living entity."
The Supreme Lord enters the material cosmos and
causes creation, maintenance and destruction
in their due course, whereas the part-and-parcel living entity
enters the material elements and has his material body created
for him. The difference between the living entity and the Lord
is that the living entity is part and parcel of the Supreme
Lord and has the tendency to be overcome by the interactions of
the material qualities. Krsna, the Para-brahman, or the
Supreme Brahman, being always situated in full knowledge, is
never overcome by such activities. Therefore Krsna is
called Acyuta, meaning "He who never falls down." Krsna's
knowledge of His spiritual identity is never overcome by
material action, whereas the minute part-and-
parcel living entities are prone to forget their spiritual
identity due to material action. The individual living entities
are eternally part and parcel of God, minute sparks of the
original fire, Krsna. As sparks are prone to be
extinguished, but not the blazing fire, so the living entities
can be overcome by material activities, whereas Krsna never can.
Akrura continued: "Less intelligent men
misunderstand Your transcendental form to be made of
material energy. But that concept is not at all applicable to
You. Actually, You are all-spiritual, and there is no
difference between You and Your body. Therefore, there
is no question of Your being conditioned or liberated. You are
ever liberated in any condition of life. As stated in the
Bhagavad-gita, only fools and rascals consider You
an ordinary man. To consider Your Lordship one of us,
conditioned by the material nature, is a mistake due to our
imperfect knowledge. When people deviate from the original
knowledge of the Vedas, they try to identify the ordinary
living entities with Your Lordship, who have appeared
on this earth in Your original form to reestablish the
real knowledge that the living entities are neither one with
nor equal to the Supreme God. My dear Lord, You are always
situated in uncontaminated goodness (suddha-sattva). Your
appearance is necessary to reestablish actual Vedic knowledge,
as opposed to the atheistic philosophy which tries to establish
that God and the living entities are one and the same. My dear
Lord Krsna, this time You have appeared in the home of Vasudeva
as His son, with Your plenary expansion, Sri Balarama.
Your mission is to kill all the atheistic royal families and
destroy their huge military strength. You have advented
Yourself to minimize the burden of the world, and
to fulfill this mission You have glorified the dynasty of
Yadu by appearing as one of its members.
"My dear Lord, today my home has been purified by Your
presence. I have become the most fortunate person in the world.
The Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is worshipable by all
different kinds of demigods, Pitas, kings, emperors
and other living entities and who is the Supersoul of
everything, has come into my home. The water of His lotus feet
purifies the three worlds, and now He has kindly come
to my place. Who in the three worlds among factually
learned men will not take shelter of Your lotus feet and
surrender unto You? Who, knowing well that no one can be as
affectionate as You are to Your devotees, is so foolish that he
will decline to become Your devotee? Throughout the Vedic
literature it is declared that You are the dearmost friend of
every living entity. This is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita:
suhrdam sarva-bhutanam [Bg. 5.29]. You are the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, completely capable of fulfilling the
desires of Your devotees. You are the real friend of everyone.
In spite of giving Yourself to Your devotees, You are never
depleted of Your original potency. Your potency neither
decreases nor increases in volume.
"My dear Lord, it is very difficult for even great mystic
yogis and demigods to ascertain Your movements or
approach You, yet out of Your causeless mercy You
have kindly consented to come to my home. This is the most
auspicious moment in the journey of my material existence. By
Your grace only, I can now understand that my home, my wife,
my children and my worldly possessions are all bonds
to material existence. Please cut the knot and save me from
this entanglement of false society, friendship and love."
Lord Sri Krsna was very much pleased by Akrura's offering of
prayers. With His smile captivating Akrura more and more,
the Lord replied to his submissive devotional statements with
the following sweet words: "My dear Akrura, in spite of your
submissiveness, I consider you My superior, on the level
with My father and teacher and most well-wishing friend. You
are therefore to be worshiped by Me, and since you
are My uncle I am always to be protected by you. I desire you
to maintain Me, for I am one of your own
children. Apart from this filial relationship, an exalted
devotee like you is always to be worshiped by everyone. Anyone
who desires good fortune must offer his respectful obeisances
unto personalities like you, who are greater than the demigods.
People worship the demigods when in need of some
sense gratification, and the demigods offer benedictions to
their devotees after being worshiped. But a devotee
like you, Akrura, is always ready to offer people the greatest
benediction. A saintly person or devotee is free
to offer benedictions to everyone, whereas the demigods can
offer benedictions only after being worshiped. One can take
advantage of a place of pilgrimage only after going there,
and worshiping a particular demigod involves waiting a long
time for the fulfillment of one's desire, but saintly persons
like you, My dear Akrura, can immediately fulfill all the
desires of a devotee. My dear Akrura, you are always Our
friend and well-wisher. You are always ready to act for Our
welfare. Kindly, therefore, go to Hastinapura and see what
arrangement has been made for the Pandavas."
Krsna was anxious to know about the sons of Pandu because
at a very young age they had lost their father. Being very
friendly to His devotees, Krsna was anxious to know about them,
and therefore He deputed Akrura to go to Hastinapura and get
information of the real situation. Krsna continued: "I
have heard that after King Pandu's death, his
young sons -- Yudhisthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva -
- along with their widowed mother, have come under the charge
of Dhrtarastra, who is to look after them as their guardian.
But I have also heard that Dhrtarastra is not only blind from
birth but also blind in his affection for his cruel son
Duryodhana. The five Pandavas are the sons of King Pandu, but
Dhrtarastra, due to Duryodhana's plans and designs, is not
favorably disposed toward them. Kindly go there and
study how Dhrtarastra is dealing with the Pandavas. On receipt
of your report, I shall consider how to favor them."
In this way the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna, ordered
Akrura to go to Hastinapura, and then He returned home,
accompanied by Balarama and Uddhava.
Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta purport of the Forty-eighth
Chapter of Krsna, "Krsna Pleases His Devotees."
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