681225 - Lecture Purport to Prayers by King Kulasekhara - Los Angeles

Lectures by Date, 1968

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

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681225PU-LOS ANGELES - December 25, 1968 - 06:15 Minutes

Prabhupāda:

tvadīya-pada-paṅkaja-pañjarāntam

adyaiva me viśatu mānasa-rāja-haṁsaḥ

prāṇa-prayāṇa-samaye kapha-vāta-pittaiḥ

kaṇṭhāvarodhana-vidhau smaraṇaṁ kutas te

. . . verse was sung by King Kulaśekhara, a great king and, at the same time, a great devotee of the Lord. His songs are recorded in the book known as Mukunda-mālā-stotra. That is very famous book. It is sung by many devotees. So it does not matter whether a man is king or a poor mendicant, everyone has the facility to become the greatest devotee of the Lord.

So he's praying, "My dear Kṛṣṇa, Your feet is lotus." Generally we say: "Lotus feet." But where the lotus flower is there, the white swans, they come to the lotus flower and try to play with the stem. They sport, going down the water, and be entangled with the stem of that lotus flower. That is their sporting. So King Kulaśekhara is praying that "Let the swan of my mind be immediately entered into the network of the stem of Your lotus feet."

So that means he wants to engage his mind on the lotus feet of the Lord immediately. There is no question of delaying. He says that "Now I am in sound mind. If I think that I shall think of Your lotus feet at the time of death, there is no certainty. Because at the time of death, the whole body becomes dislocated. The whole function becomes dismantled."

The body's supposed to be conducted by three elements, kapha-pitta-vāyu, cold and bile and air. So when these three elements work simultaneously, there is no disease in the body, but as soon as there is overlapping disruption of these three elements, the body becomes diseased. And when it is not possible to bring them again in their regulative principle, a man dies. That is the verdict of Āyurveda śāstra.

So death takes place when these three elements become overlapped with one another. And the symptom is that there is a sound on the throat which is called "garhh, garhh." That means the patient cannot speak. The throat is choked up, and he becomes suffocated and dies. So this is the last stage, symptom of this body.

So King Kulaśekhara says that, "I cannot wait up to that time when everything will be topsy-turvied. Now my mind is sound. Let me enter immediately in the stem of your lotus feet." That means he's praying, "Let me die in the sound condition of my life, so that I can think of your lotus feet." In other words, he's giving us lessons that if we do not practice to engage our mind on the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa when our mind is sound, how it is possible to think of Him at the time of death? (end)