Study a Verse

• All conditioned souls, from Lord Brahmā down to the insignificant ant, are declared by Śrī Uddhava to be covered by material bodies produced by the illusory potency of the Lord.
• In the course of life in the heavenly planets, the demigods become conditioned to think in terms of material good and bad, and thus they accept the immediate welfare of their bodies to be the highest goal of life.
• Śrī Uddhava, however, being a pure devotee of the Lord, is determined to go back home, back to Godhead, for eternal life and is thus not at all interested in the sophisticated Vedic knowledge of the demigods.

The purport's own sentences, chosen from the purport as its central points. Read the full purport on Vedabase to see them in place.

Grief and dependence → Detachment. The temporary world becomes a source of spiritual instruction.

Chapters 7–9 of Canto 11: The avadhuta's twenty-four teachers. An editorial reading of the story's mood, not the text itself. See the emotional arc

Chapter 7: Lord Kṛṣṇa Instructs Uddhava

From the chapter summary, the lines nearest this verse:

Even great demigods like Brahmā are not completely surrendered to the Lord, but Uddhava declared that he himself had taken shelter of the only true instructor of the Absolute Truth — Lord Nārāyaṇa, the all-perfect, all-knowing master of Vaikuṇṭha and the only real friend of all living entities. Hearing this, the Supreme Lord replied that actually the jīva soul is his own guru.