Live the Bhāgavatam · SB 5.18.23
Poṣaṇa· The Lord's protectionPure Love Receives Kṛṣṇa’s Special Mercy
“O infallible one, Your lotus palm is the source of all benediction. Therefore Your pure devotees worship it, and You very mercifully place Your hand on their heads. I wish that You may also place Your hand on My head, for although You already bear my insignia of golden streaks on Your chest, I regard this honor as merely a kind of false prestige for me. You show Your real mercy to Your devotees, not to me. Of course, You are the supreme absolute controller, and no one can understand Your motives.”
What the purport teaches
- Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, declares that His devotees are dearer to Him than even the goddess of fortune or His own Self.
- The gopīs received causeless mercy that even Lakṣmīdevī could not attain through severe austerities. In Goloka Vṛndāvana, no one has any desire other than to love Kṛṣṇa.
- To attain Kṛṣṇa’s shelter, one must follow in the footsteps of the residents of Vṛndāvana. The purport concludes that one must take to the service of these unalloyed devotees.
Try this today
Read the purport’s description of the residents of Vṛndāvana again, and pray for the desire to follow their pure devotion.
Ask yourself
How can I place loving devotion above the desire for spiritual honor?
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.