Live the Bhāgavatam · SB 1.13.33
Īśānukathā· The Lord and His devoteesA Devotee Examines His Own Faults
“Where is my well-wisher, uncle Vidura, and mother Gāndhārī, who is very afflicted due to all her sons’ demise? My uncle Dhṛtarāṣṭra was also very mortified due to the death of all his sons and grandsons. Undoubtedly I am very ungrateful. Did he, therefore, take my offenses very seriously and, along with his wife, drown himself in the Ganges?”
What the purport teaches
- Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira remained conscious of Dhṛtarāṣṭra and Gāndhārī’s grief. He took all possible care of them in their old age.
- He remembered the protection Dhṛtarāṣṭra had given the fatherless Pāṇḍavas and feared that he had been ungrateful. His fear about their fate was a conjecture, not knowledge of what had happened.
- Rather than dwelling on his uncle’s misdeeds, Yudhiṣṭhira considered his own unavoidable faults. A devotee of the Lord seeks to recognize and rectify personal faults rather than find fault with others.
Try this today
Identify one mistake you can remedy today, and take a small step to put it right.
Ask yourself
What fault of my own could I work to correct instead of dwelling on someone else’s?
Carry the question through the day, then answer it in your own words before sleep.
The study points, practice and question are short summaries drawn from Śrīla Prabhupāda's translation and purport. Read the full purport to go deeper.