Radha Krishna - Chapter 40: Akrûra's Prayers

(1) S'rî Akrûra said: 'I bow down to You, o Cause of All Causes, Lord Nârâyana, o Original Inexhaustible Person from whose navel generated the lotus on the whorl of which Lord Brahmâ appeared from whom came about this world. (2) Earth, water, fire, air, ether and where that is from [the false ego]; the mystifying totality of matter [see footnote 10.13: ***] and her origin [the spirit], the mind, the senses, the objects of all the senses and the demigods are all the [separate secondary] causes of the universe that have generated from Your [transcendental] body. (3) They, under the direction of the material realm, do because of its inertia not know the true identity of the Supreme Self, the Soul of You indeed; the unborn one [Brahmâ] seized by the modes of material nature is bound to follow them; he does not know Your true form superior to the modes [see also 10.13: 40-56]. (4) It is certainly for You, the Supreme Personality and Controller with oneself, with others, with the greater of nature and with the saints, that the yogis perform sacrifice. (5) Some brahmins in respect of the three sacred [agni-traya] fires worship You by means of the mantras and the three Vedas elaborately with various rituals for demigods of different names and forms. (6) Some in the pursuance of knowledge in resignation of all fruitive actions attain peace by the sacrifice of cultivating knowledge in worship of the embodiment of knowledge [the guru, the Lord; see e.g. B.G. 4: 28; 17: 11-13; 18: 70]. (7) And others, whose intelligence is purified through the principles [the vidhi] that You offer, worship You filled with thoughts about You as the one form that has many forms. (8) Yet others worship also You, the Supreme Lord, by following the different presentations of many teachers to the form of S'iva in treading the path layed out by Lord S'iva. (9) They all, even though they as devotees of other divinities have their attention elsewhere, do worship You who as the Controller comprises all the gods [see B.G. 9: 23]. (10) Like the rivers that filled by the rain springing from the mountains from all sides enter the ocean, o master, do similarly all these paths [of the demigods] finally lead to You [see B.G. 2: 70; 9: 23-25, 10: 24 and 11: 28]. (11) All the conditioned living beings from the immobile up to Lord Brahmâ are in this entangled in the qualities [gunas] of goodness [sattva], passion [rajas] and slowness [tamas] of Your material nature [see B.G. ch 14]. (12) My obeisances to You, aloof in Your vision, who as the consciousness and Soul of everyone and as the Witness to the flow of the material modes as constituted by Your lower energy, makes Your way among those presenting themselves as gods, humans and animals. (13-14) One thinks of fire as Your face, earth as Your feet, the sun as Your eye, the sky as Your navel and the directions as Your sense of hearing; heaven is Your head, the ruling demigods are Your arms, the ocean is Your abdomen and the wind Your vital air and physical strength. The trees and the plants are the hairs on Your body, the clouds are the hair on Your head, the mountains are the bones and nails of the Supreme of You, day and night are the blinking of Your eye, the founding father is Your genitals and the rain is considered Your semen [see e.g. also 2.6: 1-11]. (15) Within You, their Inexhaustible One Personality comprising all mind and senses, originated together with their rulers the worlds including the many souls that crowd them just like the aquatics that move about in the water or the small insects in an udumbara fig.

(16) For the sake of Your pastimes in this world You manifest various forms by whom the people, cleansed with them of their unhappiness, full of joy sing Your glories. (17-18) My respects to You the Original Cause who in the form of Matsya [the fish, see 8.24] moved about in the ocean of dissolution and to Hayagrîva [the horsehead, see 5.18: 6]; my obeisances to You, the slayer of Madhu and Kaithaba; to the huge master tortoise [Kûrma, see 8.7 & 8] who held the mountain Mandara; my reverence and all hail to You in the form of the boar [Varâha, see 3.13] whose pleasure it was to lift up the earth from the ocean. (19) Obeisances to You the amazing lion [Nrisimha, see 7.8 & 9], o Remover of the fear of the saintly wherever they are and to You who as the dwarf [Vâmana, see 8.18-21] stepped over the three worlds. (20) All honor to You, the Lord of the descendants of Bhrigu [Paras'urâma, see 9.15 & 16] who cut down the forest of conceited nobles and my obesicances to You the best of the Raghu-dynasty [Lord Râma, see 9.10 & 11] who has put an end to Râvana. (21) My obeisances to You Lord Vâsudeva, my obeisances to the Lord of the Sâtvatas and to Lord Sankarshana [His in ego], Pradyumna [His in intelligence] and Aniruddha [His in mind, see further 4.24: 35 & 36]. (22) My obeisances to Lord Buddha [He as the awakened], the Pure One, the bewilderer of the demoniac descendants of Diti and Dânu and my respects for You in the form of Lord Kalki [the Lord to come 'for the foul'] the annihilator of the offensive meat-eaters [mlecchas] posing for kings [see also 2.7].

(23) O Supreme Lord, the individual souls in this world are bewildered by Your deluding material energy [mâyâ] and are to the false conceptions of 'I' and 'mine' [asmitâ] made to wander along the paths of fruitive activities [karma]. (24) Also I am, concerning my body, children, home, wife, wealth, followers and so on, deluded in foolishly thinking that they, being more like a dream, would be true, o Mighty One. (25) Taking pleasure in the temporal that is not the real self and in [things that are factually] sources of misery have I with a mind of thinking to the contrary lusted in duality and have I, absorbed in ignorance, failed to recognize You as the One most dear to me. (26) Like a fool overlooking water covered by the plants growing in it and like someone running after a mirage, have I the same way turned away from You. (27) I, with a of desires and profitminded labor pitiable intelligence, couldn't find the strength to check my disturbed mind that by the so very powerful, willfull senses was dragged from here to there [see B.G. 13: 1-4, picture & 5.11: 10].