Hari-bhakti-sudhodaya
bhagavad-bhakti-hinasya
jatih sastram japas tapah
apranasyaiva dehasya
mandanam loka-rañjanam
Without devotion to the Lord, good birth, knowledge of scripture, chanting mantras, and doing austerities are like decorating a dead body to please the common people.
Hari-bhakti-vilasa
prathaman tu gurum pujya
tatas caiva mamarcanam
kurvan siddhim avapnoti
hy anyatha nisphalam bhavet
Sri Krsna says: “A devoteee who worships the guru first and then worships Me attains perfection. It is fruitless to worship Me alone.”
SB 10.12.34
Everyone has some particular duty. The sastra has concluded (nirupitah) that everyone should glorify the Supreme Personality of Godhead by his own qualifications. If you are a singer, always glorify the Supreme Lord by singing very nicely. If you are a musician, glorify the Supreme Lord by playing musical instruments. Svanusthitasya dharmasya samsiddhir hari-tosanam (Bhag. 1.2.13). The perfection of life is to satisfy the Personality of Godhead. Therefore, beginning from this earth up to the celestial kingdom, everyone engaged in glorifying the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The decision of all great saintly persons is that whatever qualifications one has acquired should be utilized to glorify the Supreme Lord.
idam hi pumsas tapasah srutasya va
svistasya suktasya ca buddhi-dattayoh
avicyuto 'rthah kavibhir nirupito
yad uttamasloka-gunanuvarnanam
"Learned sages have definitely concluded that the infallible purpose of the advancement of knowledge, austerity, Vedic study, sacrifice, the chanting of hymns, and charity is found in the transcendental descriptions of the qualities of the Lord, who is defined in choice poetry." (Bhag. 1.5.22) This is the perfection of life. One should be trained how to glorify the Supreme Personality of Godhead by one's respective qualities. Education, austerity, penance or, in the modern world, business, industry, education and so on--all should be engaged in glorifying the Lord. Then everyone in the world will be happy.
samasrita ye pada-pallava-plavam
mahat-padam punya-yaso murareh
bhavambudhir vatsa-padam param padam
padam padam yad vipadam na tesam
"For one who has accepted the boat of the lotus feet of the Lord,
who is the shelter of the cosmic manifestation and is famous as Murari,
or the enemy of the Mura demon, the ocean of the material world is like
the water contained in a calf's hoofprint. His goal is param padam, or
Vaikuntha, the place where there are no material miseries, not the
place where there is danger at every step."
One who seeks shelter at the lotus feet of Lord Krsna is
immediately protected by the Lord. As the Lord promises in
Bhagavad-gita (18.66), aham tvam sarva-papebhyo moksayisyami ma sucah:
"I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear." By taking
shelter of Lord Krsna, one comes under the safest protection. Thus when
the Pandavas took shelter at the lotus feet of Krsna, all of them were
on the safe side of the Battlefield of Kuruksetra. Pariksit Maharaja,
therefore, felt obliged to think of Krsna in the last days of his life.
This is the ideal result of Krsna consciousness: ante narayana-smrtih.
If at the time of death one can remember Krsna, one's life is
successful. Pariksit Maharaja, therefore, because of his many
obligations to Krsna, intelligently decided to think of Krsna
constantly during the last days of his life. Krsna had saved the
Pandavas, Maharaja Pariksit's grandfathers, on the Battlefield of
Kuruksetra, and Krsna had saved Maharaja Pariksit himself when he was
attacked by the brahmastra of Asvatthama.
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