Krsna Book Audio Dictation - Chapter 40
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Chapter Forty: "Prayers by Akrūra."
He offered his prayers as follows: "My dear Lord, I offer my respectful obeisances unto You, because You are the supreme cause of all causes and You are the original, inexhaustible Personality, Nārāyaṇa. From Your navel there was a lotus flower grown, and from that lotus flower Brahmā, the creator of this universe, was also born. So accepting Brahmā as the cause of this universe, You are the cause of all causes. The material cause of this cosmic manifestation like earth, water, fire, air, sky, egotism and the total material energy and nature, the marginal energy, living entities, mind, senses, the sense objects and the demigods who control the affairs of this cosmic manifestation—all of them combined together are produced from Your body.
"You are the Supersoul of everything, but nobody knows Your transcendental form. Everyone within this material world are influenced by the modes of material nature. Even demigods like Lord Brahmā, being covered by the influence of material nature, do not know exactly Your transcendental existence beyond the cosmic manifestation of three modes of material nature. Great sages and mystics do worship You as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the original cause of all living entities, all cosmic manifestation and all demigods. As such, they worship You all-inclusive.
"Some of the learned brāhmaṇas also worship You under the form of Vedic ritualistic ceremony. They offer different kinds of sacrifices in the name of different gods, and there are others also who are fond of worshiping transcendental knowledge. They are very peaceful, and after giving up all kinds of material activities do engage themselves in the matter of philosophical research about You, known as jṣāna-yajṣa.
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"There are devotees also known as bhāgavatas, who also worship You as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, after being properly initiated in the method of Pāṣcarātra, decorating themselves with tilaka all over the body and engage in Your different forms of viṣṇu-mūrtis. And there are others also, known as Śaivites, followers of different ācāryas; they also worship You in the form of Lord Śiva."
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It may be noted in this connection that as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā that the worship of any other demigods also indirectly worship of the Supreme Lord. But such worships are not in the regular order because the worshipable Lord is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Nārāyaṇa, and other demigods like Brahmā, Śiva, they are incarnation of the material qualities, which are also emanation from the body of Nārāyaṇa. Practically there is nobody existing save and except Nārāyaṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but it does not mean that the worship of demigods are equal to the worship of Nārāyaṇa.
Akrūra said, "Those who are devotees of the demigods, and although their mind is fixed up in that particular demigod, still, because You are the Supersoul of all living entities including the demigods, therefore worship of such demigods indirectly goes to You. The worshipers of demigods may sometimes reach You, exactly like some of the small rivers, after coming out of mountains during the rainy season, runs towards the sea, but some of them may not reach up to that point and some of them may reach. Similarly, the worshiper of demigods may reach You or may not reach You. There is no such guarantee. It depends on the strength of the worshiper of the demigods."
According to Vedic principle, whenever there is some ritualistic ceremony for worshiping a particular type of demigod, there is worship of Nārāyaṇa, Yajṣeśvara, also. Because as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, the demigods as they are cannot fulfill the desire of the demigod worshiper without the sanction of Nārāyaṇa, or Kṛṣṇa. The exact word used in this connection in the Bhagavad-gītā is mayaiva vihitān hi tān (BG 7.22).
Which means that the demigod can award some benediction after being authorized by the Supreme Lord. So if the demigod worshiper comes to the senses that the demigod can offer benediction after being empowered by the Supreme Lord, then why not worship the Supreme Lord directly? Such worshiper of demigods may come to the point of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but others who take the demigod as all in all, they cannot reach to the…, reach to the ultimate goal.
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"My dear Lord, the whole world is filled up with the three material modes of nature, namely goodness, passion and ignorance, and everyone within this material world is covered by these modes of material nature, including Lord Brahmā down to the immovable plants and trees. My dear Lord, I offer my respectful obeisances unto You, because You are beyond the influence of these three modes of material nature. Otherwise, everyone is being carried away by the waves of these three modes of material nature.
"My dear Lord, the fire is Your mouth, the earth is Your feet, the sun is Your eyes, the sky is Your navel and the direction are Your ears. The space is Your head, the demigods are Your arms, and the oceans and seas are Your abdomen, and the winds and air are Your strength and vitality. All these plants and herbs are hair on Your body. The clouds are Your hairs, the mountains are Your bones and nails, the days and nights are twinkling of Your eyelids. Prajāpati is Your genital, and the rains are Your semina.
"My dear Lord, all living entities, including different grades of demigods, different grades of overlords, kings and other different grades of living entities, they are supposed to be resting in You as part and parcel of a big unit. There is no possibility of knowing You by experimental knowledge, but one can simply understand Your transcendental existence as the great ocean in which different grades of living entities are included, or as small mosquitoes come out from within the fruit uḍumbara.
"My dear Lord, whatever eternal forms and incarnations You accept and appear in this world, They are all meant for relieving the living entities from their ignorance and illusion and lamentation thereof. All people, therefore, appreciate such incarnation and pastimes of Your Lordship, and eternally they glorify Your activities. Nobody therefore can estimate how many You have got, such forms and incarnation. Neither anybody can estimate how many universes are existing within You.
"Let me offer therefore my respectful obeisances unto the incarnation of fish, appeared in devastation, although Your Lordship is the cause of all causes. Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto the Hayagrīva incarnation, who killed the two demons Madhu and Kaiṭabha. Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto the…, You who appeared as the gigantic tortoise to hold up the great mountain Mandara, and who appeared as the boar to exhume the earth planet fallen into the water of Garbhodaka. Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto Your Lordship who appeared as the Nṛsiṁhadeva to deliver all kinds of devotees from fearful condition of atheistic atrocities. Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto You who appeared as Vāmanadeva and covered the three worlds simply by expanding Your lotus feet.
"Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto You who appeared as the Lord of the Bhṛgus in order to kill all the infidel administrators of the world. And let me offer my respectful obeisances unto You who appeared as Lord Rāma to kill demons like Rāvaṇa, and as such You are worshiped by all devotees as the chief of the dynasty of Raghu, Lord Rāmacandra. Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto You who appears as the Lord Vāsudeva, Lord Saṅkarṣaṇa, Lord Pradyumna and Lord Aniruddha. Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto You who appears as Lord Buddha in order to bewilder the atheistic and demonic persons. And let me offer my respectful obeisances unto You who appears as Kalki in order to chastise the so-called royal orders degraded to the abominable condition of the mleccha, or beyond the jurisdiction of Vedic regulative principles.
"My dear Lord, everyone within this material world are conditioned by Your illusory energy, and thus, under the impression of false identification and false possession, for this reason only they are transmigrating from one body to another in the path of fruitive activities and their reaction. My dear Lord, I am also not exception from those conditioned soul. Therefore I am falsely thinking myself happy and possessing my home, wife, children, state, property and friends as if one is in the dreamland, because none of them are permanent, and I am so fool I am absorbed always in such thoughts, accepting them as permanent and truth.
"My dear Lord, on account of my false identification I have accepted everything which is nonpermanent as my this material body, which is not spiritual and is the source of all kinds of miserable condition. And being bewildered by such concept of life, I am always absorbed in thoughts of duality and have forgotten You, who are the reservoir of all transcendental pleasure. I am bereft of Your transcendent association just like a foolish creature is in search of water in the desert, leaving the water spot which may be covered by vegetables grown out of the water. Conditioned souls, in order to quench his thirst, does not know where to find out water. He gives up the spot where actually there is reservoir of water and runs after the desert, where there is no water.
"My dear Lord, I am completely incapable of controlling my mind, which is now driven by the unbridled senses attracted towards fruitive activities and their result. As such, my intelligence is very much miserly. My dear Lord, Your lotus feet cannot be appreciated by any person in the conditional stage of material existence, but somehow or other I have come to be nearest of Your lotus feet, and I consider it as Your causeless mercy upon me, because You can act in any way because You are the supreme controller. I can thus understand that when a person becomes eligible to be delivered from the path of repetition of birth and death, by Your causeless mercy only he comes nearer to your lotus feet and becomes attached to Your devotional service."
Akrūra, while praying like this, he fell down before the Lord and continued to say, "My dear Lord, Your transcendental eternal form is full of knowledge. As it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā that simply by concentrating one's mind upon the form of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, one can understand in full knowledge everything that be, because You are the original source of all knowledge. You are the supreme powerful, possessing all kinds of energies. You are the Supreme Brahma and Supreme Person, supreme controller and master of the material energy. I offer my respectful obeisances unto You because You are Vāsudeva, the resting place of all creation, the all-pervading Supreme Personality of Godhead, and because You are also the Supreme Soul residing in everyone's heart and giving direction to act, now, my Lord, I completely surrender unto You. Please give me Your protection."
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Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta purport of the Fortieth Chapter Kṛṣṇa in the matter of "Prayers by Akrūra."