Monday, July 18, 2016

20,800 IMPRISONED KINGS RELEASED

Jarasandha has been killed by Bhimasena and the 20,800 political prisoners are released from the prison camp... a large cave inside a mountain. They are emaciated and miserable having been imprisoned there for a long time. But they have become enlightened and learned to simply meditate on Krishna no matter what condition of life. Krishna (they see Him as Lord Vishnu) releases them and reinstates them as kings... but now they are saintly kings...
Their prayers so beautiful... their kingdoms flourish, are peaceful and happy and the goal of life Krishna consciousness is the goal of their rule.
They here describe their understanding of the problems they faced before incarceration and their material confusion while rulers.
"This is the disease of political power. As soon as a king or a nation becomes rich in material opulences, it wants to dominate other nations by military aggression. Similarly, mercantile men want to monopolize a certain type of business and control other mercantile groups. Degraded by false prestige and infatuated by material opulences, human society, instead of striving for Krishna consciousness, creates havoc and disrupts peaceful living. Thus men naturally forget the real purpose of life: to attain the favor of Lord Vishnu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead." KB 2.18
This was 5000 years ago. But we see the same exact problems today.
"O Lord, we were simply engaged in the abominable task of killing citizens and alluring them to be unnecessarily killed, just to satisfy our political whims. We did not consider that Your Lordship is always present before us in the form of cruel death. We were so fooled that we became the cause of death for others, forgetting our own impending death." KB 2.18
The solution then was Krishna consciousness. The solution now is Krishna consciousness. Krishna has come as the great mantra for deliverance:
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

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