Prologue

Attracted by the sublime beauty around a Himalayan cave, Nārada enters into a deep and long meditation. Sent by Indra to obstruct Nārada’s tapas, Kāmadeva fails in his attempts. Nārada forgives him and everywhere the event is celebrated as the protective act of the Lord to save his devotee. But Nārada sees the event as his own victory over lust and anger.

Puffed up with pride and hungering for recognition, he reports the event to Śiva, who advises him not to tell this to anyone else, especially not to Śrī Hari. Annoyed, Nārada decides to go to Hari right away.

Nārada meets Śrī Hari

Nārada took leave of Śiva and headed straight towards Vaikuṇṭha. Had that miserably jealous Śiva told him not to divulge to the Lord the news of his victory? Well, Nārada said he would do just that. There’s an adage:

विनाशकाले विपरीतबुद्धि: ।

Vināśakāle viparīta-buddhiḥ.

“When the time of destruction nears, the mind functions weirdly.”

Such a time seemed to have come in Nārada’s life. He was now fast slipping down from the rare heights of devotion he was accustomed to living in. The irony was that the more he slipped down, the more he felt himself elevated, until at last he saw that he was second to none—not even to Hari.

That was what he at once concluded when he presented himself before the Lord of Vaikuṇṭha—for, there he saw Hari attired in all his finery, reclining leisurely on the serpent-bed, Lakshmi massaging his feet.

When egoism holds sway, complexes grow like mushrooms. Nārada was now on top of the world. Everyone and everything appeared to him to be far inferior to him, Hari not excepted. Nārada looked at the ornaments and the fine raiments the Lord was wearing and saw in them nothing but indulgence in luxury and also signs of pride and vanity. The Lord’s lying posture on the serpent-bed, Nārada concluded, was due to his dullness and inactivity. To top it all, Nārada suspected that Hari was not totally free from even lust, seeing that his beautiful consort Lakshmi was always nearby to serve him.

Egoism can be terribly blinding. Nārada completely lost sight of the fact that before him was the very same Lord on whom he used to meditate, whose sweet name he used to chant unceasingly, and whose infinite grace always protected him everywhere and in every way. Even the thought of a snake in the bedroom can drive us crazy—and here was the Lord, sleeping on a thousand-hooded mighty serpant, calmly and peacefully! The snake, Ananta, is described in our books as the symbol of Time. The Lord’s sleeping on him is a reminder of the Lord’s transcendent nature, beyond the compulsions of time.

When Lakshmi emerged from the milk-ocean, there was a virtual scramble to grab her. She saw that the gods and the demons, who were churning the ocean, had both virtues and vices. Hari was the one with only virtues and no vices. Moreover, she saw the fire of desire in the hearts of everyone there. Again the solitary exception was Hari, who was totally free from desires. No wonder, Lakshmi chose to offer herself to him. Nārada knew all this. But egoism has a blinding nature. It completely distorts the thinking process. Hence Nārada came to very unfortunate conclusions when he saw Hari.

The Lord got up to receive Nārada, and said politely, “The revered sage is paying us a visit after a long time.” Under normal circumstances Nārada would have been bewildered to hear Hari speak to him in such a formal manner. For, the relation between the two was very informal and the Lord loved Nārada as his own child. But his “child” today was too heady to notice the change. Nārada tacitly assumed that it was only natural that Hari should speak so respectfully to him. Besides, Nārada must have felt that so important and great a person as himself ought not to lower his dignity by paying too frequent visits. So while he earlier never missed a day in visiting Vaikuṇṭha regularly, he was now going there after a long time indeed.

In any case, Nārada used this opportunity to tell Hari why he was visiting him after so long an interval and what had kept him away. After describing the story of his conquest of lust and anger, he looked expectantly at Hari, no doubt imagining that he too would be as jealous as Śiva was.

Hari’s face became stern as he said, “O Nārada, by just having your darśan people are freed from lust and other weaknesses of the heart. Is it then to be wondered at that you yourself are free from those vices?”

Nārada felt elated and replied, “It’s all due to your grace, my Lord.” Hari was paying him so rich a compliment and Nārada felt he too must say something appropriate to the occasion. He attributed his success to the Lord’s grace merely as a form of etiquette, while inwardly he was more than convinced that his victory was his own personal achievement.

This phenomenon is familiar to most of us. We see people using phrases like “by the grace of God,” “by the Divine Mother’s grace,” “due to the Guru’s grace,” so casually that one wonders whether grace has become so cheap and abundant a commodity in modern times. The truth is that the word has lost much of its sanctity and true meaning by overuse and wrong use. It is easy to speak glibly about God’s grace when all is sunshine and the boat of our life is sailing smoothly. But how many care to think that even the rough periods, when the sea is turbulent and a storm is raging, are another mode through which the divine grace operates? Nārada’s statement, “It’s all due to your grace, my Lord,” should be taken with a pinch of salt, for it came only from the lips and not from his heart.

If Nārada had only cared to look at Hari’s face and seen his stern composure, he might have understood in what light he should accept the Lord’s compliment. But egoism has this quality: it becomes blind to reality and accepts only what is convenient to it. The Lord’s stern face escaped Nārada’s attention while he hungrily devoured the Lord’s words of praise.

The hunger for praise, for appreciation, is a peculiar kind of hunger. Physical hunger is quenched by food. As we eat, the hunger goes on decreasing. But the hunger for recognition, for appreciation, goes on increasing more and more as people get praised for their achievements. Nārada was smitten by such an unending hunger and so he greedily swallowed the compliment paid by Hari.

There was a subtle humor contained in the Lord’s words which unfortunately escaped Nārada’s attention. When Nārada had appeared before the Lord and had seen him reclining on the serpent-bed and being served by Lakshmi, Nārada had imagined no end of things about him. The Lord by his compliment to Nārada seemed to tell him, “O Nārada, by your darśan even I have become free now from the weaknesses you saw in me when you arrived.”

Fully satisfied that his uniqueness had been recognized at last, Nārada left Vaikuṇṭha. The Lord was sad to see the condition of his beloved child. Lust and anger, says the Gita (3.37), are the arch-enemies of a spiritual seeker. The Lord saw that Nārada was held captive by these enemies. To be bound is bad enough, but not to know that one is bound is worse. Such was Nārada’s condition. Egoism, lust and anger had all bound him hand and foot, but he was wholly unaware of it.

That is what happens in the case of many spiritual seekers too. Apparently they seem to be doing well in their own eyes as well as in the eyes of others around them. But many are good only until the opportunity to do something bad comes along. It is only then that our inner strength is tested. Our truthfulness does not become a virtue unless we are able to remain truthful even when an opportunity to tell untruth and gain thereby comes to us and we reject it in spite of there being no danger of ever being found out. Our purity becomes a virtue only when we remain pure even in the face of occasions that drag others into impurity. Our control of anger can be said to be perfect only when we refuse to be angry (even inwardly) when provoked into situations when anger may be considered even justifiable.

Nārada had not passed the above tests. He had mistaken momentary success for a permanent conquest. The Lord knew the problem. He decided to do something to bring Nārada on the right path. One may want to ask, “Why didn’t the Lord tell Nārada that he was straying from the true path and correct him then and there? Why did he pay tribute to Nārada and aggravate the illness of his soul by increasing his egoism?”

The answer is that the Lord doesn’t interfere in the lives of devotees until it is necessary to do so. If Hari had wanted, he could have easily prevented the rise of egoism in Nārada’s heart after his encounter with Kāmadeva. If God wills it, a seed sown today can grow into a huge, gigantic tree tomorrow. But God doesn’t do it. God allows the tree to come up according to its own law of growth.

Similarly, God allows everyone to evolve through their own efforts and face the consequences of their own karma. Only when divine help becomes necessary does the Lord step in. Such a time had now come in Nārada’s life. It is not as if others had not warned Nārada. As we have seen, Śiva had given him sufficiently clear hints about the malady of his heart and had tried to help him. But egoism had prevented Śiva’s gentle advice from penetrating Nārada’s swollen head. Now Śrī Hari took the matter in his own hands.

How did Hari save Nārada from the dismal depths of spiritual degradation in which he had unwittingly fallen? The Lord’s method of rescuing Nārada forms an interesting sequel to this charming story and brings before us some more truths about spiritual life.