Srimad Bhagvata Mahapurana Book 6 Chapter 15:17-28

Book 6: Chapter 15

Srimad Bhagvata Mahapurana: Book 6: Chapter 15: Verses 17-28 Citraketu consoled The sage Angira said : I am (the same) Angira, who blessed you with a son when you longed for one, O king ! (And) here is the divine sage Narada, son of Brahma (the creator) himself. Knowing you, a devotee of Lord Visnu (the Supreme Person), plunged in (a sea of) despondency-difficult to get through-due to grief caused by the loss of your son, though not fit to be drowned in it, we have come down here to shower our grace on you, O Citraketu ! (For) a votary of the Brahmanas and a devotee of the Lord does not deserve to be despondent. I was going to impart the highest wisdom to you even then when I visited your house (for the first time). Coming to know of your insistence on having something else (however), I conferred on you (the boon of) a son alone. Now the agony of those blessed with a son is being directly experienced by you. Even so a wife, house, riches, power and prosperity of various kinds, sound and the other objects of sense, the fleeting glories of sovereignty, lands, kingdom, army, treasury, dependants and ministers and friends and relations---all these, O ruler of the Surasena territory, are sources of grief, infatuation, fear and affliction. (Nay,) they are (of a momentary nature) like an imaginary city seen in the sky and are of the nature of (similar in character to) a dream, illusion, and fancy. They are (merely) conceptual in that they are perceived without reality and disappear (the very next moment). (If it is urged . that the acquisitions mentioned above , are rewards of meritorious acts done in a previous life and not merely conceptual), the various actions (too) proceed from the mind of a man thinking of such material possessions under the force of tendencies of action (acquired in former existences). As a matter of fact, this body (alone)-consisting of the gross elements, the senses of perception and the organs of action-has been spoken of (by the knowers of truth) as causing afflictions and agonies of various kinds to the embodied soul who regards it as his own self. Therefore, investigating with a composed mind the true nature of the Self, give up faith in the abiding reality of the objective world (implying duality) and resort to quietism. Narada said : Having been purified (through a bath and other purificatory rites after disposing of the dead body), receive from me the following sacred text (quoted in xvi. 18-25) as an abode of the highest blessing. By repeating and fixing your thought on it you will be able to behold Lord Sankarsana (only) after seven nights. By resorting to the soles of His feet, O king of kings, devotees belonging to the (remotest) past-Lord Siva (the Destroyer of the universe) and others-got rid of the illusion of this world (implying duality) and forthwith attained to (oneness with) His unsurpassed, nay, unequalled greatness, and you too will attain before long the same supreme result. Thus ends the fifteenth discourse entitled "Citraketu consoled", in Book Six of the great and glorious Bhagavata-Purana,otherwise known as the Paramahamsa-Samhita.