Why was Pururava not purified by worship of Lord Vishnu, as was Dhruva Maharaj?
From: Chethan
In SB we see pururava praying to Lord Vishnu for getting Urvashi and Dhruva approached Vishnu to get a great kingdom. Dhruva got purified, but pururava got Urvashi and later got frustrated.. He didnt get purified while following worship.
Guru is not there in case of Pururava whereas in Dhruva`s case, Narada muni had given instructions to follow.
Even then, we tell that whoever approaches Krishna/Vishnu for any material desire, get purified of their desire..(akama sarva kamova…) why is it that Pururava though saw Vishnu in person , still had lust in his heart for a mundane woman? please explain
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
eternal destination that is forever glorious and comforting that Duryodhana gets. Thank you.
Question by Chetan in the Srimad Bhagavatam. We see that when Pururava prayed to Lord Vishnu, he asked for Urvashi. And when Dhruva approached Vishnu, his intention was to ask for a big kingdom.
But after the darshan of Lord Vishnu, Dhruva became purified. Whereas Pururava asked for Urvashi and later got frustrated. So, why did Pururava not get purified immediately after taking darshan of the Lord? Whereas we say that normally, as the Bhagavatam says, whatever desires we have, we should approach Krishna for those desires.
Answer? Purification is not a unilateral process. It is a bilateral process. That means that purification happens not only by Krishna’s mercy and potency, but also by our desire and choice.
So, certainly the darshan of Lord Vishnu has the potency to purify us. But it is up to us to choose whether we want to become purified or not. Now, we have to understand what purification actually means.
Essentially, there is always a constant battle going on in our hearts between our lower desires and our higher desires. Between our material desires and our spiritual aspirations. So, what does purification do? Purification essentially means that it makes the material desires weaker and it makes the spiritual aspirations stronger.
Now, when there is total purification, the material desires get eliminated. But ultimately, how do some desires become stronger and some desires become weaker? Because Krishna gives us the experience that how the higher desires lead to a greater satisfaction, a greater happiness and a greater value in our life. And the lower desires, on the other hand, lead to misery and frustration and valuelessness.
And similarly, Krishna not only gives us the experience, but he also gives us the intelligence to learn from that experience and make proper choices. So, all of us get experience at some time or the other that material desires lead to frustration, lead to disappointment at best and devastation at worst. So, this is something which even materialistic people experience.
When people have a desire to say watch a cricket match. You know, so many times when their favorite team loses, then they get frustrated. So, material desires, it is not very difficult for a person to realize that they have the potential to bring the suffering.
The contact with Krishna offers us an alternative. Yes, this material enjoyment sometimes leads to happiness, most of the time leads to suffering, but is there an alternative? Yes, Krishna Consciousness, which inculcates spiritual desires and offers an alternative. There is a better happiness available for us.
However, even after the better happiness is available to us, still, if our past conditionings are very strong and if we are not cautious, we are casual, then when the temptations come, we may choose the lower desires, the lower material desires instead of the higher spiritual aspirations. So, then Krishna’s first mercy is that he uses the experience of the higher happiness. His second mercy is that he uses the intelligence to recognize this happiness is better and this happiness is deceptive.
Spiritual happiness is actually lasting and fulfilling. Material happiness is treacherous and dangerous. It will lead me to suffering.
So, when Krishna uses the intelligence, then we can make the right choice. But ultimately, it is for us to make the right choice. And if we don’t make the right choice, then we may still continue in having material desires and following material desires in spite of having profound spiritual experiences.
So, in the case of Pururava, he had a similar profound experience to what Dhruva Maharaj had, the experience of direct darshan of the Lord. But after experiencing that extraordinary happiness that comes from darshan of the Lord, Narada Muni in the first canto describes that every single one of his senses was separately enlivened and fulfilled by the darshan of the Lord. Still, because he had that experience of higher happiness, still his material desire and his hope that fulfilling that material desire will make him happy was so strong that he put the spiritual experience aside.
And he still asked the Lord for Pururava, for Urvashi. Now, does that mean all his worship was in vain? No, it was not in vain, it just took more time for him. Eventually, when he got the association of Pururava and of Urvashi and enjoyed with her, eventually he realized that this doesn’t really satisfy me, this doesn’t make me happy.
And then it is described in the Bhagavatam that he became a devotee of the Lord. So, the pastime of Pururava is described first in the ninth canto, where it basically describes the frustration of Pururava. But in the eleventh canto, in the chapter called Aila Gita, which is basically a song of King Pururava, who is also known as Aila, Aila Gita, the song of Pururava, there he describes his realization from the frustration.
And then how he becomes wise and he becomes devoted to the Lord. So, that devotion and dedication to the Lord came because he practiced devotional service and got the spiritual experience of darshan of Krishna. Otherwise, we have so many people in the material world who become frustrated in their love affairs, but that doesn’t necessarily make them turn to Krishna and take shelter of Krishna.
So, the bhakti to Krishna never goes in vain. It always bears fruit, the fruit of making us realize the futility of material enjoyment and the glory of devotional service and the spiritual happiness that comes thereof. However, how long this realization will take will depend on us.
Krishna will give us the higher experience. Krishna will give us the higher intelligence to see, okay, this is better and to analyze also, yes, this is actually better. But then, after getting the experience and the intelligence, it’s up to us to make the choice.
If we don’t make the right choice, then we can persist in the wrong choices for as long as we want and we’ll keep getting frustrated and frustrated again and again and finally we’ll turn towards Krishna. So, the essential import of the verse, So, the essential import is, this verse doesn’t say necessarily that all the people will get their material desires fulfilled or all the people will immediately become purified. Essentially, it is a recommendation, whatever be one’s state of consciousness, whether one has no material desires, whether one has all material desires or one has the desire for liberation, which is a third desire, because it is not exactly a material desire in the sense that one doesn’t want material enjoyment, but it is not exactly a spiritual desire, which can be called as desirelessness, which is akamaha, because still desirelessness means a desire to serve Krishna, which is the natural state of the soul.
It is not that also. So, it is a transitional stage, a desire. It is neither material nor spiritual.
It is a transitional desire. That’s why it is categorized thirdly as mokshakamudarati. But the essential import of this verse is that whatever be the nature of our desires, material, transitional or devotional, spiritual, still the auspiciousness will come in our life if we worship the Lord.
So, what will be the auspiciousness? The auspiciousness is that we will get the realization of what is actually beneficial for us. So, to summarize, Krishna gives us, when we practice devotional service, He gives us the experience of higher happiness, He gives us the intelligence to realize that actually the higher happiness is in our better interest than the lower happiness, but then it is up to us to choose. If we make the wrong choices, we can go on for a long time in chasing after our material desires, but we will get frustrated and gradually we will come to Krishna and pursue devotional service.
So, whatever kind of desires we have, if we focus on serving Krishna, we will get an auspicious destination either immediately or gradually or ultimately depending on how long we hold on to our material desires. If we give the material desires up quickly, then we get an auspicious result quickly. That happened with Dhromaraj, whereas it took longer time with Pururava.