"Conversation between Narada Maharishi and Vyasa Maharishi": -----

 

 

 

 

Chapter- 6.

Slokam- 1 to 38.

 

 

Conversation Between Nârada and Vyâsadeva

 

 

 (1) Sûta said: "Thus hearing from the great sage among the gods about his boyhood, the sage Vyâsadeva, the son of Satyavatî, asked him:

 

2)'After the great devotees who instructed you in transcendental wisdom departed, what did you do before the beginning of your present life?

 

(3) How were the conditions of the life you spent after this initiation and how did you, in due course of time, attain to this body?

 

(4) How could you, O great sage, remember this from a previous epoch in any detail, as time in due course annihilates all.'

 

 

 (5) S'rî Nârada said: 'The great sages gave me the transcendental knowledge I have at present and in my previous life I had to live by it after they had departed.

 

(6) Having only one son, my mother, who was as a maidservant a simple woman, was tied to me, her offspring, by her affection, having no other alternative for protection.

 

(7) Although she wanted to care properly for me, she, being dependent like a puppet on a string, could not do so.

 

(8) While attending the school of the learned, I, being only five years old, lived depending on her, having no experience with the direction of time and the country.

 

(9) When once she went out at night for milking a cow, she was bitten in the leg by a snake on the path and thus she fell victim of the supreme time.

 

10) I took it as a benediction of the Lord who always desires the best for His devotees, and thinking that way, I headed for the north.

 

(11) There I found many flourishing big and small towns and villages with farms, mineral and agricultural fields in valleys with flowery and nursery gardens and forests.

 

(12) I saw hills and mountains full of gold, silver and copper and elephants pulling branches from the trees nearby delightful lakes and ponds full of the lotus flowers aspired by the denizens of heaven - and my heart was pleased by the birds and a wealth of bees hovering about.

 

(13) I passed through thickets of bamboo, sharp grass and weeds and through caves which were difficult to pass alone, and I came to deep and dangerous forests which were the playground for snakes, owls and jackals.

 

(14) Being bodily and mentally tired, I, hungry and thirsty, took a bath and drank water in the lake of a river finding relief from my fatigue with it.

 

(15) In that uninhabited forest I sat down under a banyan tree to meditate intelligently taking shelter of the Super soul situated within, as I had learned from the liberated souls.

 

(16) Thus meditating on the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality, all thinking, feeling and willing transformed in transcendental love, and being eager, tears rolled from my eyes as I saw the Lord appear in my heart without delay.

 

(17) Fully overwhelmed by an excess of love and transfixed in feelings of happiness all over my body, could I, o sage, being absorbed in an ocean of ecstasy, not distinguish Him from myself any longer.

 

(18) Without thereafter seeing any longer the form of the Lord that takes all disparity out of the mind, I all of a sudden got up being perturbed as one is having lost something desirable.

 

(19) Desiring to experience that again saw I, having the mind concentrated on the heart, despite of my waiting, Him not, and got I very depressed being frustrated that way.

 

(20) Thus trying in that lonely place heard I from the beyond pleasing words of gravity being spoken to me that mitigated my grief:

 

(21) 'Listen, for the duration of your life you will not acquire the vision of Me here, because it is difficult to acquire the vision when one, immature with impurities, is guilty in one's being united.

 

(22) That form was only shown once to raise your desire, o virtuous one, as by the increase of the desire of the devotee all the being caught in sleepiness will give way.

 

(23) By even for a few days being of service to the Absolute having attained a steady intelligence unto Me will one, having given up on the deplorable of this world, go to and be of My associates.

 

(24) Intelligence engaged this way in devotion can at no time been separated from Me as whether beings are becoming or even waning, their remembrance will, by My mercy continue.'

 

(25)'Having thus spoken, that great and wonderful sound of the Supreme authority stopped and I, being favored, bowed my head in obeisance to the great and glorified.

 

(26) Free from formalities, exercising the holy name of the unlimited, mysterious and benedictory activities in constant remembrance, I traveled the earth liberated and contented in all modesty awaiting my time without any envy.

 

27) Thus being absorbed in Krishna and free from attachment to the material world, o Vyâsadeva, in due course of time death came to me as natural as the coincidence of illumination with lightening.

 

(28) Having been awarded with that transcendental body worthy of the Lord, I quit the body composed of the five material elements seeing my acquired material activities ended.

 

(29) At the end of the epoch the Lord, having laid Himself down in the waters of devastation took me of the creator in within in His breath.

 

(30) A thousand ages later, when the creator was again being expired I, together with all the rishis like Marici, appeared again.

 

(31) Traveling as well in the transcendental as in the places of the three material worlds I have, by vow unbroken in my service through the mercy of Mahâ-Vishnu, unrestricted entrance at any time. (

 

32) This way I move constantly singing the message of the Lord, vibrating the transcendentally charged Vina with which the Godhead has decorated Me.

 

(33) Thus singing, the sight of the Lord of the Lotus feet, of whom the recitations of His activities are pleasant to hear, appears soon, as if called for in the seat of my heart. (

 

34) I experienced that for the ones so anxious in their desire for the objects of their senses, there is a boat to overcome the ocean of material nascence: the repeated recitation of the glories of the Lord.

 

 (35) Desire and lust being curbed every time by the discipline of yoga evidently will not the same way be as satisfying to the soul as the service to the Personality of Godhead.

 

 (36) I described all this about my birth and activities to you - who is without sin - as you asked for, for the satisfaction of as well your as my own soul'."

 

(37) Sûta said: "After thus addressing the powerful sage, took Nârada Muni leave of the son of Satyavatî for wherever, meanwhile vibrating his enchanting Vina.

 

 (38) All success to the sage of the Gods who takes pleasure in singing the glories of the Personality of Godhead, and thus, by his instrument, enlivens the distressed universe." 

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