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Steadfast devotion

CHENNAI: Meditation on God with true love and devotion is the means of Bhakti Yoga. In a discourse, Sri Goda Venkateswara Sastrigal pointed out that Kunti's exceptional devotion to Lord Krishna was strengthened because of the affliction and distress she experienced in her life. When Lord Krishna was ready to depart to Dwaraka after the Kurukshetra war, Kunti's poignant address to Him reveals her awareness of His Supreme Nature. She is grateful for His grace that had unfailingly helped her and her family at the most needed times.

The extraordinary circumstances of her life right from the time of birth had placed her in the most upsetting states of mind. She had to bear lifelong, the harrowing experience of the consequences of testing the efficacy of the Mantra that Sage Durvasa taught her when she was a mere child.

Realising that distress and trauma had helped to focus her meditation on Him, she sought from Lord Krishna nothing else except the unique privilege of always thinking about Him, and wished to be in the midst of difficulties as this would be a ploy for her to meditate on Him.

Devotion inheres in a variety of people and manifests as different types. Child Dhruva's devotion was initiated when the natural desire of the child to sit on the father's lap was denied. On the advice of his mother, Dhruva decided to seek none else but the Supreme Being. Meditating on the Lord and chanting the sacred Dwadasa mantra (Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya) instructed by Sage Narada, this little child performed a severe penance for six months when he was able to visualise the image of the Lord within his consciousness. It was then that the Lord appeared before the child, gently stroked him with the conch to impart the supreme wisdom, and granted him his wish besides offering him an everlasting supreme status.

Prahlada is the example of a Jnani, who, even as a child, understood the Supreme Truth as none other than Lord Narayana. He had imbibed the instruction of Sage Narada who had taught his mother the path of knowledge and devotion, when he was still in the womb. No threat or punishment could deter this child who preached the highest philosophy to one and all, including his father, preceptor and fellow students.

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