MM 6
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
TEXT 1
- divi vā bhuvi vā mamāstu vāso
- narake vā narakāntaka prakāmam
- avadhīrita-śāradāravindau
- caraṇau te maraṇe 'pi cintayāmi
SYNONYMS
divi — in the abode of the demigods; vā — or; bhuvi — on the earth, the home of human beings; vā — or; mama — my; astu — may be; vāsaḥ — residence; narake — in hell; vā — or; naraka-antaka — O killer of the demon Naraka; prakāmam — however You desire; avadhīrita — which have defied; śārada — of the fall season; aravindau — the lotus flowers; caraṇau — the two feet; te — Your; maraṇe — at the time of death; api — even; cintayāmi — may I remember.
TRANSLATION
O Lord, killer of the demon Naraka! Let me reside either in the realm of the demigods, in the world of human beings, or in hell, as You please. I pray only that at the point of death I may remember Your two lotus feet, whose beauty defies that of the lotus growing in the Śarat season.
PURPORT
As stated before, a pure devotee of the Lord has nothing to do with mundane religiosity, economic development, sense gratification, or salvation, nor is he concerned whether his standard of material existence is the highest or the lowest. To him, heaven and hell are of equal value. He is not afraid of going to hell for the service of the Lord, nor is he glad to live in heaven without the service of the Lord. In any circumstance his consciousness is fixed on the Lord's lotus feet, whose beauty defies the most beautiful lotus flower of the mundane world.
The defiance is due to the transcendental position of the Lord's form, name, qualities, pastimes, and so on. The śruti mantras declare that although the Lord has no hands He can accept anything we offer Him with devotion, although He has no feet He can travel anywhere, and although He has no mundane eyes He can see anywhere and everywhere without hindrance. The Brahma-saḿhitā describes each of His senses as omnipotent. The mundane eye can see but not hear, but His eyes can see, hear, eat, generate offspring, and so on. The śruti mantras say that He impregnates material nature with the seeds of living beings simply by casting His glance at her. He does not need any other kind of intercourse with mother nature to beget the living beings in her womb and become their father.
Therefore any relationship the Lord has with His many devotees — whether fatherhood, sonhood, or any other — is not at all material. The Lord is pure spirit, and only when the living being is in his pure spiritual state can he have all sorts of relationships with Him. Philosophers with a poor fund of knowledge cannot conceive of these positive spiritual relationships between the Lord and the all-spiritual living beings, and thus they simply think in terms of negating material relationships. In this way such philosophers naturally adopt the concept of impersonalism.
By contrast, a pure devotee like King Kulaśekhara has complete knowledge of both matter and spirit. He does not say that everything material is false, yet he has nothing to do with anything material, from heaven down to hell. He fully understands the statement in the Bhagavad-gītā that from the lowest planets up to Brahmaloka, the highest planet in the universe, there is no spiritual bliss, which the living beings hanker for. Therefore the pure devotee, being in full knowledge of spiritual life, simultaneously rejects material relationships and cultivates his spiritual relationship with the Lord. In other words, the spiritual knowledge a devotee possesses not only allows him to reject material existence, but it also provides him with an understanding of the reality of positive, eternal spiritual existence. This is the understanding King Kulaśekhara expresses in this prayer.