O Keśava! Your World is Very Wonderful! – With Illumination by Śrīla Śrīdhara Mahārāja

(1)
keśava! tuyā jagata vicitra
karama-vipāke, bhava-vana-bhrama-i,
pekhaluṅ raṅga bahu citra

O Keśava! Your world is so variegated. According to my karma, I am roaming the forest of birth and death seeing so many curious things.

(2)
tuyā pada-vismṛti, ā-mara yantraṇā
kleśa-dahane dahi’ yāi
kapila patañjali, gautama kaṇabhojī
jaimini, bauddha āoye dhāi

Due to neglecting Your feet, I am being tortured to death, burning in the fire of distress. Kapila, Patañjali, Gautama, Kaṇabhojī, Jaiminī, and the Buddhists come running to my aid.

(3)
tava ka-i’ nija mate, bhukti mukti yācata
pāta-i nānā-vidha phāṅda
so sabu vañcaka, tuyā bhakti-bahir-mukha
ghaṭāoye viṣama paramāda

Talking about You, according to their beliefs, they request me to accept enjoyment and renunciation. Yet they are setting different traps! They are all deceivers. Being averse to Your bhakti, they create dangerous kinds of bewilderment.

(4)
vaimukha-vañcane, bhaṭa so-sabu
niramila vividha pasāra
daṇḍavat dūrata, bhakati-vinoda bhela
bhakata-caraṇa kari’ sāra

All these antagonists set up different shops for those who are inimical to You. Bhaktivinoda has offered daṇḍavats to them all from afar, considering the feet of the devotees to be the most essential thing.

Illumination
by Śrīla B.R. Śrīdhara Deva Gosvāmī

There are different stages of this mundane conception from gross to subtle, seven stages where we live – Bhūr, Bhuvar, Svar, Maha, Jana, Tapa, Satya, Virajā, Brahmaloka, then Paravyoma. The creeper of our devotion gradually grows and pierces through all these stages and then touches the land of Vaikuṇṭha, the first real infinite conception. Passing through that, it again will go to Vṛndāvana – from calculative devotion to spontaneous devotion based on love, which is causeless and irresistible. There we can find Kṛṣṇa engaged in His līlā, with His paraphernalia, and gradually we may be accepted there. That is reality. There is no question of any imagination or concoction. The instruction that comes to us must have its origin in reality, not some bogus party. We must not become prey to any bogus party. There are many that wander the world, and in the name of Kṛṣṇa, they canvass their own adulterated thing in the market.

Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura has sung, keśava! tuyā jagata vicitra – O Lord Keśava, Your world is of a very wonderful, variegated nature. Everything is available in Your world. Keśava – ka-īśa. Ka means Brahmā, īśa means Śiva, and the master of them is Keśava. Once the Earth Goddess approached Brahmā, “Everyone is so sinful, I cannot tolerate their heavy weight. Give some relief to me.”

Then Brahmā took two hairs (keśa) – one white and one black, and cast them on the Earth, “Yes, I am sending two persons that will do away with the sinful and you will get relief.” It is told that the keśāvatāra came as Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa and Baladeva. That is one interpretation, but here, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura means Kṛṣṇa.

karama-vipāke, bhava-vana-bhrama-i,
pekhaluṅ raṅga bahu citra

As a result of my karma, I am now floating in a particular stage wherefrom I can see strange exhibitions of different types. We experience many curious things here. I see diverse characters of different types and different sectarian views.

tuyā pada-vismṛti, ā-mara yantraṇā
kleśa-dahane dahi’ yāi

If we are to diagnose properly, then it is separation from Your holy feet which is the real cause of all these sufferings. Separate consciousness is at the root of all this pain. Ā-mara yantraṇā – a continuous flow of pain has swallowed us from birth till death. Kleśa-dahane dahi’ yāi – we cannot tolerate such misery.

kapila patañjali, gautama kaṇabhojī
jaimini, bauddha āoye dhāi

So many ‘doctors’ are approaching me with their own commodities. “Oh, you are suffering? Take this pill and swallow it! Everything will be cured. You will be happy.” So many treacherous agents are there. Kapila comes with sāṅkhya-yoga – “You do this and you can be free from all these things.”
Patañjali comes with yoga – “Hey jīvātma! Come to meet Paramātmā! Then all the problems of the world will go away from you.” This is his recommendation.
Gautama comes with logic and the nyāya-śāstra. He also quotes from the Veda to prove that his logic is the ultimate truth. “There is one karta, one Maker, one Creator, but He is indifferent. He has created the world, finished it, and left it. You must try to live with the help of your reason. Develop your reasoning faculty and be reasonable in all your conduct. Then only can you help yourself in this world. There is no other remedy. Be a good logician, then you will be able to control the environment with the power of your reason and you will be happy.”
Then there is Kaṇabhojī, or Kaṇada, who says that atomic energy is the cause of this world. “By chance atoms have been combined, and with the dissolution of atoms, nothing remains. Why do you bother? Don’t care. What is fate? It is nothing! Ignore it! When the body is dissolved, nothing will remain.”
Jaimini comes with his karma-kāṇḍa – “There may be One who has connected us with this world and karma, but the karma is all in all. He is an indifferent inspector. He has got no hold on us any longer. Karma is there, the karta is there, and according to our karma we shall thrive or we shall go down. So, these activities are recommended to you. If you go on this way with your karma, you will be happy. Of course, it cannot be denied that karma–phala, the results of karma, diminishes and ends. But stick to good karma – don’t go to bad karma. The result of good karma will be finished, but that does not matter; again go on doing good karma, and the good result will await you in heaven, and you will have a happy life. Continue with karma. If anything is friendly to you, it is your karma. There is God, but He is indifferent. He is bound to serve you, either good or bad, according to your karma. He has no independence.”
Then there is another class of philosophy – the Buddhists, who come with their nirvāṇa proposal. “Only the combination of different things has created your mental system. With the dissolution of the mental system, nothing remains. Somehow, we must dissolve it by the practice of ahiṁsā, nonviolence, satya, truthfulness, and so on.”

All these ‘doctors’ are running to come and cure me. So many ācāryas with their own ideas are coming to canvass us and make us their disciple. They are all agents of Satan offering different things.

tava ka-i’ nija mate, bhukti mukti yācata
pāta-i nānā-vidha phāṅda

Apparently, they come to represent You. They want to use Your name, Your stamp, but whatever goods they deliver has their own impression and experience. They canvass for their own line, but all of them have one end. All these philosophers are talking either of bhukti or mukti, higher exploitation or liberation from all sorts of enjoyment. Either the higher pleasurable life of the subtle world, or complete annihilation, effacement, samādhi. Ultimately, they lead us to these two things – nothing more. They have nothing positive to give us. Pāta-i nānā-vidha phāṅda – but to take us to these two goals, they set different types of enchanting traps here and there. They make arrangements to make the jīva fall into one trap or another.

so sabu vañcaka, tuyā bhakti-bahir-mukha
ghaṭāoye viṣama paramāda

But fortunately, by the light divine that I have received from above, I understand that they are all deceivers – vañcaka. Tuyā bhakti-bahir-mukha – they all have a common stand that they have no touch of Your devotion. They cannot admit that You are the highest authority. From the substantial point, we will detect that though they may have the stamp of Your name, they have no proper conception and no connection with You. Ghaṭāoye viṣama paramāda – in Your name they come to exploit us, and at the last moment we find that we have attained nothing, and ultimately, we shall have to face a great reactionary force. The result for the greatest fool is that, at last, he will find that he has been deceived. Ultimately, he is left in chaos.

vaimukha-vañcane, bhaṭa so-sabu
niramila vividha pasāra

From the absolute standpoint, I see that they are engaged by You. They are engaged to deceive those that are not fit for the devotional school, just as Śaṅkarācārya was ordered, lokam mad-vimukhān kuru (‘Make the people averse to Me’). In a hospital, those who are seriously diseased and hopeless are segregated from persons who are less diseased in order to save them. Similarly, to save those who are sincere, the strong atheistic section is removed by some temptation. That is Your design, and these agents are being played with in Your hand like so many dolls. They are Your agents and are also serving You in some way, because nothing is outside of You. They only come for those half-hearted persons and take them away, so that the devotees may peacefully go on. Ultimately, if we are to judge them, then we shall find that they are being used by the authority to test our chastity, our sincerity of purpose, to see whether we can be tempted. Those who are really sincere at heart will be safe and will get the facility for further service. That is the underlying purpose.

Niramila vividha pasāra – all these agents are posing that they are coming to give the fullest satisfaction to me. They say that they will deliver that for which I am searching for, but no! They have made a shop and have created multifarious charms for canvassing their customers, who are all those fellows who are vaimukha-vañcane, who are determined not to go towards You. They fall victims to those traders. Those that are sincere won’t be affected by their canvassing.

daṇḍavat dūrata, bhakati-vinoda bhela
bhakata-caraṇa kari’ sāra

But Bhaktivinoda has understood that and says, “I shall show respect to all these so-called good agents, but I shall avoid them!” He says, “Yes, you are all big men, and your commodities are also very good, but I don’t want them. I want something else. You all go away! I have nothing to do with any of your proposals. I bid you all goodbye.”

Bhakata-carana kari’ sāra – I will summarily reject everything else and try to catch hold of the divine feet of the śuddha-bhaktas, the pure devotees. That is my real capital. I do not care for anything else because Your real servants are all in all. By Your grace, I have no other ambition. That is everything. That is the source of all my prospects. Nitāi-Caitanya!

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