Story on Vishnumaya
Once Sri Narada Rishi, the great devotee of Narayana, went to Dvaraka to see Lord Krishna.
After talking for some time, they went out for a walk. During the course of the walk, they spoke about a lot of topics. At this juncture, Narada said to Vasudeva, "Narayana, Krishna, Govinda, Mahavishnoh, great sages speak of your shakthi called Vishnumaya, by which the whole universe is deluded into thinking of "I and mine" and by the operation of which there is forgetfulness of You. May I know, Vasudeva, what that Vishnumaya is, if you are pleased to reveal that to me, your servant's servant."
Recalling to His mind a similar request made by the sage Markandeya to Himself in the form of Nara-Narayana, Govinda said "Sure, you are my dear devotee. My devotees' desires will never be unfulfilled. I will fulfill your desire." Satisified with the reply of Madhusudhana, Narada continued the walk.
Having walked a long distance, they almost came to a suburb of Dvaraka. At this juncture, Lord Krishna felt thirsty. He told Narada, "Dear Narada, I feel quite thirsty. We have come a long way from our home. We cannot go back home to quench my thirst. Can you do Me a favour?". Narada replied, "Prabho, your wish is my order. Command me, your servant, what I should do". Narayana replied, "At a short distance from here, there is a village. Please go to that village and fetch water for Me. Till that time, I will be sitting beneath that tree. Don't miss Me."
Glad to be of service to Vishnu, which is the only business of the soul, Narada rushed to the said village. On reaching the first house, he knocked the door, anxious to quickly procure water for Govinda, whose feet-washings constitute the perennial Ganga. The door was opened by a young girl whose beauty stupefied the mind of Narada, stopping for a moment his incessant chant of "Narayana, Narayana". Forgetting both Krishna and His thirst - the very purpose of his coming there - he enquired the girl "Dear, who are you? Who is your father? I would consider myself most fortunate if I can marry you." The girl replied, "My father is inside. You can talk to him."
Narada went inside and spoke to the girl's father, "Respected Sir, you may know me to be Narada, Narayana's servant. Attracted by the beauty and modesty of your daughter, I propose to marry her. I would consider it Hari's grace if you consent to it." The father readily agreed to the proposal. A few days later, the wedding happened. Time, the power of Vishnu that crushes into oblivion those turned away from Hari's feet, rolled on. Narada begot several children in this period of 12 years and considered his life most happy. But how can anything other than the service of Padmanabha be permanent?
One day the clouds turned very grey foreboding terrible rains. Soon it started raining heavily with powerful thunderclaps accompanied by a furious wind. In a few hours, the whole village where Narada lived was flooded and many people started moving out of the village. To save himself and his family, Narada too made preparations for exiting the village. He took a small set of necessary household articles, clutched the hands of his wife and elder children, took his younger ones on his shoulders and slowly waded through the waters. With powerful rains and thunder from above, whirling water below and furious winds in all directions, Narada could not understand where he was going. The whirling pull of the waters was so high that the bag of household articles that Narada was clutching in his hands slipped away from him. Narada began to lament the loss of his cherished items, just like a householder attached to his wealth. While thus lamenting, a powerful whirlpool snatched away one of his sons. Weeping to the extreme and bemoaning the loss of his beloved son, Narada said "O Narayana, what is this that is happening to me. Please look at your sorrow- stricken servant. How can he live without his son?"
Soon the powerful waves of the waters snatched or drowned all his children one by one. Suffering to the extreme, unable to bear the heavy loss, Narada clung to his wife and pathetically cried, "Govinda, why should I live anymore. Why does not Death snatch me? Why don't you protect me? Do you lack either mercy or power? If you don't protect me any further, you will lose your good name as the `Protector of the Devotees' ". Narada now held his wife's hands very tightly as she was his only remaining meaning in life. But, as if to smear salt on a wound, a powerful whirlpool snatched away his dearest wife from his hands. Losing everything without exception, suffering to the extreme and losing all meaning in life, Narada cried out at the top of his voice, "O Narayana, is this what you do to your servants, you merciless rogue."
As if the heavens heard this cry, a very powerful flash of lightning lighted the sky blinding the eyes of Narada for a few seconds. When he opened his eyes, what he saw stupefied him. Neither the rains nor the thunder, neither the floods nor the storm, could Narada see. Instead Narada saw a four- handed beauty sitting beneath a tree, as if anxiously waiting for something. Distressed by the horrible events and surprised by the enigmatic vision of Vishnu, Narada found himself thoroughly confused and disoriented. Trying to get this clear, Narada approached the Presence which spoke in a sonorous voice. "Dear Narada, I was thirsty and asked you to get some water for Me. I have been waiting for almost half an hour. Have you brought Me the water?", said the `rogue' with a mischievous smile playing on His lips.
In a flash, Narada understood everything; and like a mad man, he rushed to the Lord, clasped the feet of the Lord extremely tight and cried bitterly like a child. Bathing the feet of the Lord with his tears, he could not come to normalcy for a long time. Then he regained himself and said, "Today, Narayana, You have revealed to me Your Vishnumaya shakti. I, your servant, have been thoroughly confounded by your Vishnumaya with the false notion of I, mine, my family, my wife, my child, my wealth etc. Taking this impermanent world as the source of happiness, I wandered about in the dense darkness of household life, totally forgetting your lotus feet. In the end, I underwent extreme sorrow as the fruit of my self-centred household life and the consequent forgetfulness of You. This much is clear to me, Lord, that those who serve Your lotus feet are immune to Vishnumaya, while those who are turned away from Your service are repeatedly going round and round in this Samsara chakra. Let me ask this one boon from you, Govinda: may I have unabating love for your lotus feet and let me never again be affected by Vishnumaya."
Granting his request gladly, Hari thought of the experiences that Narada endured in Vishnumaya. Pitying him for his pains, Krishna caressed Narada with supreme affection, while Narada found himself transported to the highest realms of Supreme Love.
dasan,
P.Srinivasan
By the way, does the incident remind us of and old video we saw uploaded in this very site, Prabhus and Matas? :)
Comments
An intense story, one not heard before by me. Is this a sastric story, or a popular legend of your area in India? There is a nice lesson here, but i am just wondering where the tale is from, please? P Srinivasan is who, please?
Rama Rama!
I don't know Prabhu. This was posted in a Sri-vaisnava site, and I have confidence in its authenticity, though I have not heard this story before either. But there was a video on our site about 3 months ago, which had the same incident, but characters not obviously indicated as Narada Muni, etc. I will find out if that video is still around. It had words like "The Mythology of Vishnu" etc. if you remember, Prabhu?
Sri Vaisnavas, we take their dust.
The conclusions are in line with sastra. However, the horrendous events were a bit over-dramatic and somehow un-Vishnu-like, to my mind. Does Lord Vishnu allow such things to happen to His devotees under his supervision? Well, thinking on that, yes, one can say that He allows it, but not directly under His supervision? Hmmm. Prahlada was harrassed, also so many devotees. Also, we can say everyone is actually a devotee. Wow. Allahu Akbar, ie He is Great ! Lord Vishnu is most transcendental. So my conclusion is that there is no limits to His pastimes.
Always the simple basic lessons are most important. We are nitya krsna dasa, and everything less is foolishness and childishness, an infant's play that has nothing to do with their eternal identity. What to us is shocking and startling, to Godhead is sometimes common sense and His pleasure!
This is why Arjuna preferred two armed Krsna to the Universal Form! lol. Krsna never leaves Vrndavana. Hi pastimes there are peaceful and sweet as a rule, not quite as majestic relatively speaking.
I was just thinking, if for some reason i developed an adversarial mentality towards Krsna, for which i came here to material existence, then I should have taken better shelter of Radharani and she could have purified me, i suspect? What a topic! I am wondering exactly what offenses i committed to be cast here, or in my case, was it merely foolish bravado as opposed to anger or false pride?
Alas, for none of us know why we came down :D as Prabhupad once famously pointed out, to us drowning men, it is of little relevance how we are drowning in the middle of the ocean. There'll always be time to catch up with the events once we're ashore.. what say, Prabhuji? :D
Committment
I had a dream shortly after Srila Prabhupada left the planet. He was here briefly, in passing, an he said, "Just try to be an acarya", which is, just try to be one who sets a good example for others. He often said that to us in his lectures, and it is good advice.
Time on earth is short, there are some things we may not know or even be able to understand while still embodied by matter. Best to finish the material existence, details may fall into place as we become individually advanced. The pure spiritual master tries to save the fallen soul, it is an emergency situation, death can come at any time, and usually it is unexpected.
If we can act as ideally as possibly meanwhile, and try to overall be a positive influence, then where is the fault?
While we are here, most of us will remain bewildered in large part, but if our intelligence is clear enough, by God's grace, we will try to chant and help others to also chant while we still have breaths to breathe here. ahaitaki apratihata , pardon my spelling, un-materially-motivated and uninterrupted is the goal, that is the platform of applied and real knowledge. Committment and application of that committment.
Application
We want to find a nice association and throw ourselves into the work. If nice association is hard to come by, then we become reserved, withhold ourself, so there is merit in taking care where and how to serve in the begginning, so that one's enthusiastic services do not become wasted efforts so far as results are concerned. For example, recently serving at Montreal Iskcon, so many deviations, and new men are channeled into serving mudhas, so how can one preach nicely there, merely because there is a large temple building? One can preach, but then , are the newcomers simply misdirected as a a result of our bringing them to the temple? Such questions inhibit full enthusiasm.
Some have spent years serving bogus camps whose so-called leaders in the end stole money and abused their positions etc. I am sorry to note, but it is true. Therefore, the smart money and service goes to simple sustainable plans that engage the heart and help the new devotees become strong as individual Vaisnavas, without dependency and entanglements and time wasting empire building for wannabe big big politicians etc. as some Iskcon leaders seem to like too much for themself.
Books distribution, education, prasadam distribution, nice temples, all these are wanted, but we must avoid politics and big big money steering and cornering us, of course, and engage in simple services without undue entanglements, if at all possible.
Thats not so hard, but humbleness and renunciation will help! Many are fooled by Gayiskcon, attracted by organization and opulence, and not knowing Vaisnavism well, they are easily bewildered by big big orange-clad conmen. A whole life can be spent serving a guru who in the end runs off to Thailand with ones' family's life savings etc.
Such questions naturally arise; where and how and with who to serve, what is God's desire for me while here?
Rasa Ji is keeping us to the article's point; Devotional service and how to keep from maya's clutches.
Three modes of material nature; the three prongs of the trident weapon of Mayadevi ,adidaivika, adiatmika and adibautika klesa, mean miseries caused by demigods, the self, and other beings, all manifesting in the form of enforced experiences of the results of previous actions, ie karma, in the form of the three modes and resultant feelings etc..We are thrown down and pinned there by the suffering consciousness and meditation as if by force, on that suffering, as if it were eternal.
One who truly understands that they are spirit soul, servant of Sri Krsna, can tolerate these things, the threefold miseries, in the name of spiritually-motivated loving service. Such service is powerful, as it is done despite of any effects of karma and the three modes of material nature, like a determined soldier wading ashore with heavy equipment in advance of enemy fire, still, he plows on through the water, runs up the beach , and establishes his position to fight. He has understood his identity.
Others pushing on through the enemie's poppy fields of maya succumb to her fumes and sleep in the narcotic flowers of material ego, to awaken at the end and realize their day is gone, and they have fallen by the wayside. Not knowing who they are, they become despondent. But if reminded of their goal and identity by other soldiers, they can be awakened and dragged on out of the narcotic danger and on with their vital mission.
Those born in that knowledge may have a duty and responsibility to a whole chain of lifetimes; their determination is much less likely to waver, despite the attacks of maya and her plunderers. Then, it is a question only of how to proceed, not of whether.