Transcendental Teachings of Narada Muni

Lord Sri Krsna, the all-attractive Supreme Personality of Godhead, has the most attractive personal features and transcendental activities. Not only the Absolute Truth's personal form and pastimes, but His entourage, abode, and name are all-attractive. Out of causeless mercy, He descends to the world to display variegated pastimes in a humanlike way, so that humanity feels attracted to Him and thus becomes eligible to enter His eternal realm. People are naturally apt to hear stories and histories of persons who perform mundane acts, not knowing that one can use one's valuable time to hear about the Lord and thus become free from the clutches of material nature.

Transcendental loving service for the Supreme Lord is the natural inclination of everyone, but due to the living entity's association with material nature, this tendency is covered. By the grace of the Lord and His devotees, a living being becomes fortunate. In association with the Lord's pure devotees one gets to hear the Lord's pure glories. Certainly then a flow of devotional service takes place like the flow of a river. As a river flows to the sea, similarly, devotional service flows until it reaches the ultimate goal, namely, love of God.

The great Rsi Narada is an empowered incarnation of the Personality of Godhead who propagates devotional service all over the universe. Great devotees of the Lord are his disciples. Srila Vyasadeva, the compiler of the Srimad-Bhagavatam, is one disciple. Narada is the author of Narada-paticaratra, an exposition of the Vedas particularly meant for teaching the devotional service of the Lord. This trains fruitive workers how to achieve liberation from the bondage of work.

By the law of nature, every action has a resultant reaction, and the performers are bound up by such reactions, good or bad. The reaction of good work is prosperity, whereas the reaction of bad work is distress. Foolish materialists have no information how to obtain eternal happiness in the unconditional state. Sri Narada informs fruitive workers how to realize immortal happiness. He gives directions how our present engagements can lead to the path of spiritual emancipation. The Bhagavadgita also recommends using the fruits of our labor to serve the Lord and thus achieve eternal bliss and knowledge. That is called the path of naiskarmya, or liberation.

Everyone identifies with the body or the mind as the self. This is the root cause of all despondencies. It is not often detected, even though someone may be a great scholar. It is important, therefore, to learn this from the great personality Narada. A person who is engaged in the devotional service is the emblem of all knowledge. Devotees like Narada act wonderfully by virtue of their spiritual perfection. Narada Muni has eternal life, unlimited knowledge and bliss, and he travels anywhere in the material and spiritual worlds without restriction. One can attain to the highest perfection of life and become one of the associates of the Lord just by attentively hearing the Lord's transcendental pastimes from the right source, as Sri Narada himself heard them from pure devotees (bhakti-vedantas) in his previous life.

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