Prathama skandha, sastha adhyaaya

Conversation between Narada and Byaasa Deba continues.......

Byasha Deba then asked....Oh adorable sage, then you were just a kid when the sages blessed you Haribani. How did you practice austerity? When they left, how was your life? How did you cast away your mortal being? Please explain me in detail.....

Narada those spoke, oh saint....then I was only a boy of five years old when my mother passed away due to snake biting. Then I left home and walked towards the northern direction in search of the Brahmins who left me. In that journey I passed through prosperous lands, cities, villages, temporary habitats of cowherds, mines, hamlets, stray habitations by the side of mountains and rivers, mountains charming with minerals of various colors, trees with boughs broken by elephants, lotus-ponds frequented by gods and rendered vocal by birds of diverse notes and adored by bees hovering about. Having journeyed across these all alone, I came in sight of an extensive and formidable forest dense with rushes, bamboos, reeds and which presented a dreadful appearance, infested as it is with serpents, owls and jackals. Wearied in mind and body and overcome with thirst and hunger, I bathed in the pool of a river and felt refreshed. In that forest, uninhabited by man, I sat down at the foot of a Aswastha tree and contemplated with a serene mind on the Lord residing in my heart, as I had heard from them. Even as I meditated on his Lotus-feet with a mind overpowered by love, tears rushed to my eyes as a result of eagerness to behold Sri Hari, who gradually appeared on the screen of my heart.

takhyana parama aanande hari bijaye mora hrude
atyanta prema bhare dehe udgama hele tanu ruhe
aananda shaagare budili ubhaya loka na jaanili
rupe ki debaa pataantara mana bachana aagochara
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I began to dwell in the abode of tranquility and never ending joy. I lost consciousness of both myself and the object of my perception. But suddenly when I was unable to see his inexpressible view, I felt disturbed and sprung up on my feet like one troubled at heart. Longing to behold him once more, I fixed the mind on my heart and looked for it, but could not see it. Now I felt miserable like one whose desire had not been satiated. To me thus struggling in that forest, the Lord, who is beyond words, spoke in sublime voice, “My child, in this birth you are unfit to behold me; for I’m difficult of perception for those who are not completely merged in my thought and enlightened. It was only to arouse in you a burning desire to see Me that I have once revealed My form to you. Through services rendered by you to the saints even for a short period your thoughts are irrevocably fixed on Me. Therefore casting of this reprehensible body you will attain to my own attendant. The thought you have thus fixed on me shall never cease. By my grace you will continue to remember me even when the whole creation has perished.”

Since then, I continued to chant his holy names and fixed my thoughts on Him and roamed about on the earth awaiting end of my material body. In my wandering my mind became pure and serene. At last the very moment of my departure came when the divine light as a lightening in blue clouds was seen to me again. Immediately I renounced my material body. Due to blessings of the supreme my eternal body went to the void. Visnu was sleeping in his bed of Ananta in the midst of river of milk (khira saagara). My divine body merged in him.

At the end of one thousand revolutions of the four yugas when Brahma rose and wished to bring forth this creation again, Marichi and the other sages as well as myself were evolved out of his senses. With my vow of constant chanting of the name of the Supreme , I wandered inside as well as outside the three worlds; and by the grace of Maha Vishnu, my passage is nowhere obstructed. Playing upon this Beena, bestowed upon me by the Lord himself, I go about singing the stories of Sri Hari.

As I sing of his exploits, of Shrihari, whose feet represents all sacred places, soon reveals in my heart as if summoned by me. Narration of the Lord’s doings has been found to be a vessel to cross the infinite ocean of mundane existence for those whose mind is incessantly tormented by the craving for sense enjoyments. A heart afflicted with lust and greed every moment does not attain tranquility so surely not even by the various practices of Yoga, such as self-control and so on. But only through the worship of Lord Mukundha this is achieved.

Sinless Vyasa, I have thus told you all that you have asked me, the secret of my birth and its doings and the means of satisfying your soul.

End of sastha adhyaaya.................