SB 7.9.44 A devotee is neither materially nor spiritually selfish but works to continue the tradition of compassion

Transcript

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Smt. Bhagavatam 7.9.44 prāyeṇa devamunaya sva-vimukti-kāma maunaṁ caranti vijñanena parārtha-niṣṭaḥ naitān vihāya kṛpaṇān vimokṣa eko nānyat todasya śaraṇaṁ brahmato nupasye So, here Prahlad Maharaj is praying and he is continuing his glorification of devotion by comparing devotees with impersonalists. The previous verse glorifies devotees by comparing them with materialists.
Devotees feel that materialists are carrying unnecessary burden due to their hopes of false material happiness and devotees want to relieve them of that burden. Now, he compares devotees with another class of spiritualists, that is impersonalists. So impersonalists are not carrying that false burden of material desires, but they are not compassionate, they are not concerned about others and that is their deficiency.
He is saying prāyeṇa devamunaya sva-vimukti-kāma. Most prāyeṇa, most munis, they just seek their own liberation, sva-vimukti-kāma and they understand this material world is a place of great entanglement and because of that they want to go away from this material world. maunam charanti vijane na parārtha nishtha.
They live in seclusion, in silence and they are not concerned about others. na parārtha nishtha. And he says I am not like that my dear lord.
naitān vihāya kṛpaṇā vimukṣa eko. That I will not give up all these kṛpaṇas, all these materialistic people, I will not give them up. Why? Because I understand na anyam to dasya sharanam brahmato nupasye.
I understand that they have no shelter apart from you. So a devotee is characterized not by material selfishness nor even by spiritual selfishness. A devotee is characterized by selflessness.
So material selfishness means wanting things for one’s own, material things for one’s own enjoyment and spiritual selfishness means wanting spiritual enjoyment for oneself alone without being concerned about others. So devotee doesn’t want to relish Krishna consciousness alone. Devotee wants to share Krishna consciousness with others.
Why? Because the devotee understands that no one has any true shelter other than Krishna. And if Krishna has arranged mercifully through his devotees to give me his shelter, then I have to continue the tradition of compassion and share Krishna’s shelter with others. So if my spiritual teachers had been concerned only about their liberation, then I would never have had a chance for practicing spiritual life, for relishing this nectar of devotional service.
Therefore the least that I can do for my spiritual teachers and for Krishna is to continue the tradition of compassion by trying to share Krishna consciousness with others. And actually to the extent we are motivated to share Krishna consciousness and share Krishna consciousness not for the sake of the praise and the glorification that it brings to us, but for the sake of benefiting others, to that extent we will have a lifelong service and to that extent we will never be shaken no matter what the difficulties are. Many times we practice devotional service because we feel it will provide us relief from misery.
Yes, it will definitely provide us relief, but if relief from misery alone is our motive, then when we face miseries, while practicing devotional service our faith can become shaken. But if our purpose of practicing devotional service is to glorify Krishna and share his glories with others, then miseries will not trouble us so much because our primary motive was not to live a misery free life. Our motive was to share Krishna consciousness with others.
So if we want steadiness in our Krishna consciousness, then sharing Krishna consciousness with others and sharing it with the right intention of wanting others to become relieved from their misery can bring us tremendous steadiness and swiftness in