Keshavāya namah

Yudhisthira enquired, “Sri Mahavishnu, the indestructible Supreme Lord, has incarnated as Krishna. Why is it that Śisupala and Dantavaktra, who continuously blasphemed the Supreme Lord, merged into Him instead of falling into the worst hells? Given their wicked nature isn’t it surprising that they were not afflicted by even the slightest skin disease? How could they be blessed with this rarest of the rare fortune? Unable to fathom this, my mind wavers rapidly like an oil lamp exposed to wind. O revered saint, please explain this to me.”

Maharishi Nārada replied, “O Emperor Yudhishthira! This body emerges due to the inability to distinguish the difference between Nature (Prakriti) and Self (Puruṣa). It becomes conducive for absorbing abuse, praise, honour and contempt. Due to illusion, the ignorant human beings in this world are filled with feelings of ‘I and mine’ towards this gross body. This illusion causes them to forget even the existence of God.”

When any person is filled with feelings such as, “I, mine, this belongs to me, I have completed this work, it is my achievement, I am important” i.e. who are filled with feelings of self-importance, suffer piteously due to their anger, hatred, violence etc. They erroneously believe their body to be their Self (atma). Due to this they believe that they die when this gross body perishes. They think, “I exist because this body exists. If body dies I die. This body is everything to me.” Eternally they associate with this gross body. In reality, death is nothing but growth.

“The non-dual Lord, who resides as the Self within all living entities and who punishes all living entities based on their destiny, is beyond egoism. This being the case, how can He be hurt or injure by others? For this reason, it is imperative for a devotee to fix his mind upon the Lord either through feelings of aversion, fear, pure devotion devoid of enmity, friendship or with some other desire”.

Here it is said that the devotee should fix his mind upon the Lord either due to feelings of absolute aversion, or due to pure devotion, or due to feelings of friendship, or out of fear or some other desire. Through any of these methods, the mind should be fixed totally upon Him.

Nevertheless, it is impossible for any person, who has even the slightest trace of goodness, to ever develop feelings of aversion towards the Lord. Hence, only those who do not have even that trace of goodness, fix their mind completely upon the Lord due to their hatred for him. In other words, the demons in whom even a trace of goodness did not exist, fixed their mind upon the Lord due to their dislike for Him. Here it means that their dislike for the Lord caused their mind, senses and intellect to be fixed totally upon Him.

Here, there is no devotion only intense hatred so much so that the mind is completely occupied only with the object of aversion i.e. the Lord. This is the path for the wicked. Due to their aversion, at every moment they utter the Lord’s name: “God does not exist. God is not to be seen”. Such statements indicate that the Lord actually exists. If they truly despised the Lord they should not even think or talk about Him. Even here they deceptively think about God. Due to this they obtain liberation.