God’s concern for His devotees

The Kurukshetra war has gone in favour of the Pandavas,

and Yudhisthira comes to see Lord Krishna. He finds the

Lord meditating, and wonders whom the Lord can be thinking of? The Lord replies that His mind is not with Him, but is with that great bhakta Bhishma, who, lying on a bed of arrows, is awaiting death.

Thus, during Bhishma’s last days on Earth, he has the great

blessing of being in the Lord’s thoughts. Yet another instance of the Lord’s attachment to and concern for His devotees is seen when Vidura and Uddhava meet. Vidura returns from a pilgrimage, and meets Uddhava, who

tells him about the outcome of the war.

Uddhava also tells him of Krishna’s departure from this

world. Uddhava tells Vidura that the Lord, while leaving, told him to direct Vidura to take instruction from Maitreya. Thus, the Lord even as He brought His avatara to an end, was thinking of His bhakta’s welfare. But how many can we think of who have the kind of devotion that Bhishma or Vidura had? The Lord Himself says that those who seek nothing but the Lord alone are few and far between.

Lord Krishna says such gnanis, who seek only the Lord,

are His atma.

We do not spend much time thinking about God. But He has

shown us an easy path to salvation,said M.V. Anantapadmanabhachariar, in a discourse. The Lord has made it clear that all we have to do is to resort to

Saranagati (surrender), in order to attain moksha.But even when an easy path is shown to us, we do not take it.

We are like the miser who was in a boat that capsized. There were five men on the boat, of whom the miser was one. The miser was the only one among the five who did not know how to swim.

One of the other four men said to the miser, “give me your hand, and I will save you.” But the miser did not extend his hand, for he, being miserly, was never in the habit of extending his hand to anyone. So the rescuer himself

had to reach out and grab the miser’s hand to pull him out of danger. Likewise we are miserly in showing bhakti to the Lord, but He reaches out to us with the message of Saranagati.