Srimad Bhagavatam – day 710
The Brahmins lament at their foolishness
Krishna Narayana Govinda
Maharishi Śuka continued, “Krishna thus pacified the wives of the Brahmins and then sent them to their homes”.
Krishna preached the rules of righteousness (dharma) to the ladies, who initially were reluctant to return. Wiser, after this preaching, the ladies returned to their homes.
“Not only did their husbands not find any faults with them but more importantly with their help the men satisfactorily concluded the Satra-yaga which they had commenced. Among the wives of the Brahmins was one lady whose husband had forcibly barred her from going to see Krishna. This lady meditated, with absolute single-focussed devotion, upon the form of Srikrishna as she had heard and while in this state she cast off this body which had been obtained as a result of her past karmic actions”.
Aha! What to say of her devotion! When her husband forcibly retained her back, she fixed her mind exclusively upon Krishna and meditated upon the form as heard by her and in a Yogic way discarded her body.
“Krishna fed the boys with the four types of food brought by the Brahmin ladies and then He too partook the food. Krishna, who had assumed a human body solely for the purpose of exhibiting His transcendental sports, thus perfectly imitated the human way of life.
With His speech, form and charming deeds, He brought joy to all the cowherds, the cows, the calves and to the Gopikas. In the process, He too obtained great delight. He filled every living entity around Him in the ocean of bliss.
A little later after this incident, the Brahmin men were engulfed with great remorse for having rejected the appeal of food from Balarama and Krishna, the rulers of the universe. The realization that, in their foolishness, they had missed the opportunity to see and serve the Lord who had arrived in their vicinity now dawned upon them”.
Their first remorse was that they missed seeing the Lord when He had visited the nearby forests. The other guilt was their sinful deed of trying to prevent their wives from going to see Him. This traumatized them.
“Regretting their deeds the men now began to weep in shame. ‘Dim-witted that we were, we presumed Balarama and Krishna to be ordinary humans and treated them as such’. They recognized the unflinching devotion of their wives and realized that they lacked such devotion”.
‘These ladies surpassed us in devotion. How fortunate they are! Sadly we are not up to their standards. Fickle-minded that we are, we doubted the Lord who arrived before us in human form- they thought’.
“Having understood their mistake, the Brahmin men now began to condemn themselves, ‘Shame on us. When the ever-compassionate Lord arrived in our neighbouring forests and made Himself visible, we had the audacity to reject His pleas for food. More shameful is the fact that we tried to prevent our wives who were rushing to offer food to Him. What to say of the devotion of that lady who, when forbidden by her husband from proceeding to the forests, exclusively meditated upon Srikrishna and merged into Him? What to say of the fortune of these women who have cultivated such deep devotion towards Krishna? We were negligent towards the Supreme Lord Srihari when He incarnated in a form visible to the senses’- again and again the men condemned themselves”.
The Lord, who inherently is invisible, had incarnated in a human form and made himself visible to the senses. They were now filled with remorse that they had failed to meet Him.
“The men continued, ‘Our human birth which is composed of three portions known as a) birth from a mother’s womb, b) investiture into the sacred thread (upanayana) and c) abidance to these sacred vows of Yagna (Yagna deeksha); this human birth which is filled with the Vedas, the vow of celibacy, versatility in the knowledge, birth in a higher caste and dedication towards Vedic rituals is a sheer waste if devotion towards Krishna is lacking”.
The men thought- We have great dedication towards Vedic rituals and take great pride in our learning. What could our abidance to vow of celibacy give us when devotion is lacking? In what way did we benefit from birth in Brahmin caste when devotion towards Krishna is lacking? What is the use of this great birth wherein we mastered Vedic knowledge when devotion towards Krishna is lacking? We engage in many Yagnas and Yagas. We engage in many Vedantic discussions. What will these activities yield when devotion towards Krishna is absent?
“The men continued to lament, ‘O learned scholars! Surely Lord Srihari’s illusion deludes even the most-supreme Yogis. This is because we, who are the Gurus for mankind, failed to understand the true goal of life and got deluded’.”
We preach Vedic knowledge to the society and also diligently abide by these disciplines. We cause enlightenment in others. But in what way did we benefit from it when we failed to cultivate devotion towards Krishna? Krishna is the Lord who has granted us everything. He is the Lord of everything. Such Lord has manifested before us in human form visible to the senses. The cowherd boys are lucky to see such Lord everyday and to have Him as their relative. How deluded we were that even upon knowing His presence in an adjacent forest, we did not even seek to see Him.
Recollecting the day’s events and regretting their mistake the Brahmins were grieving piteously.
Krishna Krishna