SB 3.24.29

SB 3.24.29

Devanagari

स एव भगवानद्य हेलनं नगणय्य न: । गृहेषु जातो ग्राम्याणां य: स्वानां पक्षपोषण: ॥ २९ ॥

Verse text

sa eva bhagavān adya helanaṁ na gaṇayya naḥ gṛheṣu jāto grāmyāṇāṁ yaḥ svānāṁ pakṣa-poṣaṇaḥ

Synonyms

saḥ eva that very same ; bhagavān Supreme Personality of Godhead ; adya today ; helanam negligence ; na not ; gaṇayya considering high and low ; naḥ our ; gṛheṣu in the houses ; jātaḥ appeared ; grāmyāṇām of ordinary householders ; yaḥ He who ; svānām of His own devotees ; pakṣa poṣaṇaḥ — who supports the party .

Translation

Not considering the negligence of ordinary householders like us, that very same Supreme Personality of Godhead appears in our homes just to support His devotees.

Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

The Supreme Lord, who favors his devotees, not considering our neglect of him, has today appeared in the house of a materialist. We, very lazy, are among the third type of persons. However, his mercy is unlimited. The Lord does not consider our negligence (helanam), treating him lightly. That is your very nature. You elevate even a shadow devotee to a high position. You support (paksā-poṣaṇaḥ) those who are devotees, considering them your relatives.

Purport

Devotees are so affectionate toward the Personality of Godhead that although He does not appear before those who practice yoga in a secluded place even for many, many births, He agrees to appear in a householder’s home where devotees engage in devotional service without material yoga practice. In other words, devotional service to the Lord is so easy that even a householder can see the Supreme Personality of Godhead as one of the members of his household, as his son, as Kardama Muni experienced. He was a householder, although a yogī, but he had the incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead Kapila Muni as his son. Devotional service is such a powerful transcendental method that it surpasses all other methods of transcendental realization. The Lord therefore says that He lives neither in Vaikuṇṭha nor in the heart of a yogī, but He lives where His pure devotees are always chanting and glorifying Him. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is known as bhakta-vatsala. He is never described as jṣānī-vatsala or yogī-vatsala. He is always described as bhakta-vatsala because He is more inclined toward His devotees than toward other transcendentalists. In Bhagavad-gītā it is confirmed that only a devotee can understand Him as He is. Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti: “One can understand Me only by devotional service, not otherwise.” That understanding alone is real because although jṣānīs, mental speculators, can realize only the effulgence, or the bodily luster, of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and yogīs can realize only the partial representation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, a bhakta not only realizes Him as He is but also associates with the Personality of Godhead face to face.