Damodarashtakam Verse 07 – Seek not to be liberated from misery but to be liberated into love

Hare Krishna.

Damodarashtakam, text 7. So here, is it that Satyavrat Muni is doing a flashback? He has described the past time in verses 1 and 2. And then he is going into devotional meditation and prayer. My dear Lord, please have mercy on me. It's not a flashback of the past time, but it is a continuation of the appeal for mercy.

And he's thinking that I made such a lofty request from the Lord. My dear Lord, please reveal yourself to me. We are so utterly unqualified to ask for such a lofty benediction.

Imagine if somebody comes along, if we are driving a car, and some beggar comes along and knocks on the window. And what do you want? We may expect 1 rupee, 2 rupee, 5 rupee, 10 rupees. If the beggar comes and says, can you give me this car? What? How dare you ask for such a thing? It's such a presumptuous thing to ask for such a big thing.

So that is nothing. A beggar asking owner for a car is nothing as compared to a seeker asking the Lord to reveal himself. Why? Because when the Lord reveals himself, that revelation and the benediction lasts for all of eternity.

And the Bhagavatam describes, that the Lord gives you mukti, but doesn't give bhakti so easily. Why? Because when the Lord gives bhakti, he gives himself and he becomes a servant of the devotee. And he wants the devotee to have love.

And only when there is love, then there can be this pure servitorship, where the Lord is ready to serve the devotee and do anything for the devotee and the devotee is ready to serve the Lord and do anything for the Lord. But in this process, neither wants to take anything from anyone. So to gain entry into that pure world of love, we need purity.

And unless we have that, it's very difficult to enter that level. So it's a presumptuous claim at one level, it's a presumptuous request. So he's remembering, my dear Lord, yes, you have given mercy in the past to the unqualified also.

Just as you have given mercy in the past, please give me the mercy also. So what is the past example he's citing? So in the past, they were the sons of Kuvera. So they had Nalakuvera and Maneguru and they had become infatuated by their wealth and they were behaving inappropriately because of which Narada Muni cursed them.

Actually, Narada Muni blessed them. So if they had lived as Nalakuvera and Maneguru, they might have lived in material opulence, but they would have never got the fortune of such intimate proximity to the Lord. They would not have been able to see the Lord's pastimes as they were able to when they became the trees, the M. L. Arjun trees in the Maharaja's courtyard.

And they would not have been liberated from those bodies and reinstated in their eternal spiritual positions. So he says that what happened is just as you blessed them, how did you bless them? He says, Kuvera Atmajau, the Atmajau, the sons of Kuvera. Now Kuvera is also a devotee, not necessarily pure devotee, but exalted devotee.

He is one of the Lokapalas, a very responsible authority in the universal administration. Kuvera Atmajau baddhau, murtyaiva yadvad, murtyaiva yadvad. So although you were baddhau, you were bound, you liberated those who were bound.

Normally, we may see in some investigative or crime fiction movies, you know, some criminal, some investigator is bound up. And when a person is bound, at best, what the person can do is somehow find some knife, find something to rub and at the best unwind oneself, unbind oneself. But when somebody is bound, it's almost impossible to unbind anyone else.

He says, my dear lord, you were bound to a mortar, but while being bound, you freed Nalakuvir and Manigriva, not just freed them from some small bondage, you freed them from the supreme, from the greatest and the worst of all bondages, that is the bondage of material existence. And most amazingly, you stayed bound on. So tvaya mochitau, and not only did you free them from bondage, bhakti bhajau krutau cha, you granted them bhakti.

Actually, Sanatana Goswami says, from the point when Narada Muni cast his merciful glance on Nalakuvir and Manigriva, from that point onwards, he through his glance and through his prayer and through his arrangement, gave them the seed of bhakti. And further, when they kept beholding the beautiful childhood pastimes of Krishna, that bhakti grew further and further. And when Krishna liberated them from their bodies as trees, then he gave them not just bhakti, he gave them prema.

And there are very beautiful prayers that Nalakuvir and Manigriva recite after they are liberated. And they say, whatever we have now, let us all use it in your service. Let our speech be used to speak about your glories.

Let our ears be used to hear about your pastimes. Let our hands be used to do seva to you. So they describe, this is just one of the many prayers.

But the point is, those prayers reveal that their hearts blossom with pure bhakti, with love. So it's tatha prema bhaktim svakame prayaccha. So just as in the past, you gave mercy even to the unqualified.

So you gave darshan to them. And not only did you give darshan to Nalakuvir and Manigriva, even when they were not qualified, but for so many years, they could display your pastimes. And then you liberated them also.

And the supreme liberation is liberation into love. Generally, people think of liberation as liberation from. But real liberation is not liberation from, but liberation to.

In liberation, what we are freed from is not as important as what we are free to. If a person is alcoholic, a person goes into jail because of having done drunk too much alcohol and done some violence or committed some crime or done some drunken driving, then the person is in jail. Even if the person becomes released from jail afterwards, if the alcoholism is still there, then the person is not free.

Again, the shackles of alcohol will bind the person and keep that person in suffering. So what we are liberated from is not as important as what we are liberated to. So yes, if somebody is in jail, it's good to come out of the jail.

But more important is that one has to come out of the shackles of material desires and material addictions that bind all of us. That's why when Haridas Thakur was taken to the jail by the Qazi and the other Muslim authorities, and he saw all the jail inmates over there, and what did he tell them? Stay as you are. All of them were hoping that by Haridas Thakur's mercy, we will be liberated from the jail.

He said, stay as you are. They were horrified. He said, are you telling us that we should stay forever in jail? He said, no, what I'm saying is right now, you are having a very devotional and prayerful and receptive and eager disposition towards Krishna and his devotees.

Lifelong may you have this disposition. So that is what the blessing is most desirable. If we have a prayerful, devotional disposition, whatever be our external situation, we'll be happy.

So in liberation, the Jnanis focus more on the material world is miserable, material world is miserable. I want to get out of it. I want to get out of it.

I want to get out of it. But the devotees focus is not so much on what I want to get out of, but what I want to get into. I want to get into Krishna's world of love.

And that is most important. If we can serve Krishna and enter into Krishna's world of love here itself, then even if the miseries of material existence continue, it doesn't matter. So that's why I say, what do I want? He says, you liberated them, but I'm not asking for liberation.

Similarly, what I ask you for is I want love, love for you, my dear Lord. And then when there is love, that love eventually will go back to the spiritual world. And in the spiritual world, we will see the Lord constantly, eternally, ecstatically.

And as to emphasize the point, yes, you give them liberation, but most importantly, you give them love. What I want is love. I don't want liberation.

That's why I sing, I don't want moksha, my dear Lord. I want only love. And to emphasize that, again, he's using, oh Lord Damodar, you are conquered by love.

Please grant me love. Now it is significant that Sathyavart Muni is speaking this to Narada Muni. And Narada Muni is the one who has blessed Nalakuvar and Manigaru also.

So he is actually praying that, my dear Lord, just as you blessed Nalakuvar and Manigaru, similarly, bless me also and grant me love for you, my dear Lord. Grant me love. Because when love is there, in the previous verse, he has said, grant me a darshan.

But now he's praying, grant me love. Because once love will be there, then we will be in a nirvana, a place where there will be regular darshan, if not constant darshan. So please grant me love, my dear Lord.

Thank you.