Should a devotee be eager to die, as Kulakshekhar Maharaj’s prayer says?

Transcript

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Question, should a devotee be eager to die as Kulashekhar Maharaj prays in his famous prayer Namakunda Mala Stotra? Answer, Kulashekhar Maharaj’s prayer is not expressing eagerness to die, it is essentially expressing eagerness to remember Krishna and by contemplating how death can be a distraction, an interruption in the remembrance of Krishna, then the request is let death come now.
So, it’s not a morbid fascination with death, it is not a suicidal urge and it’s definitely not meant to cultivate an eagerness, an unhealthy eagerness to die especially. The point of the verse is So, that is a very beautiful metaphor that just as a swan that wants nectar goes deep inside a lotus flower, its head goes deep inside and into the stem, goes so deep inside that sometimes it’s difficult for it to come out also, which is trying to get that nectar which is deep down at the bottom of the stalk of the lotus flower or whichever flower it is drinking from. So, similarly Krishna’s feet are compared to lotuses and let my mind, Kulashekhar Maharaj is saying, go so deep inside this, let my mind go so deep inside the lotus feet of yours, Krishna, between the tangled lotus of your feet that there’s no chance that it will come out.
So, and then So, So, throat will be filled with mucus and all such things and how will, when that extremely painful and frightful condition is there, how will I be able to remember you? So, therefore, The emphasis of the prayer is that let my mind become entangled in your remembrance right now. So, if one sticks to a very literal translation of the verse, then there is not even the mention that I want to die. There is only the die physically.
There is the whole idea that I want to die to the temptations of this world, to the distractions of this world. I want to become absorbed in you, so entangled in your lotus feet that I’ll never be able to come out. So, certainly it’s not a morbid fascination or obsession with dying.
So, devotees, we should not be eager to die. We should be eager to become absorbed and entangled in remembering Krishna. And how do we do that? By finding out which are the things that give us the greatest absorption in Krishna and doing them more and more, taking commitments to do them more and more.
And by such commitments, we’ll be able to move forward in our devotional life rapidly because those commitments will force us to absorb ourselves in Krishna. So, the prayer is a prayer for absorption in Krishna, not for death. Thank you.