Sacrificial Ceremonies Performed by Vasudeva
211
Your lotus feet. The Ganges water is flowing as perspiration from the lotus feet of Your Lordship. And we are all so fortunate that today we have been able to directly see Your lotus feet. Dear Lord, we are all surrendered souls, devotees of Your Lordship; therefore, please be kind and bestow Your causeless mercy upon us. We know well that persons who have become liberated by constant engagement in Your devotional service are no longer contaminated by the material modes of nature; thus they have become eligible to be promoted to the kingdom of God in the spiritual world.”
After first offering prayers to Lord Krṣṇa, the assembled sages wanted to take permission from King Dhṛtarāṣṭra and King Yudhiṣṭhira and then depart for their respective  āśramas . At that time, however, Vasudeva, the father of Lord Krṣṇa and the most celebrated of all pious men, approached the sages and with great humility offered his respects by falling down at their feet. Vasudeva said, “My dear great sages, you are more respected than the demigods. I therefore offer my respectful obeisances unto you. I wish that you will accept my one request, if you so desire. I shall consider it a great blessing if you kindly explain the supreme fruitive activity by which one can counteract the reactions of all other activities.”
The great sage Nārada was the leader of all the sages present there. Therefore he began to speak. “My dear sages,” he said, “it is not very difficult to understand that because of his great goodness and simplicity, Vasudeva, who has become the father of the Personality of Godhead by accepting Krṣṇa as his son, is inclined to ask us about his welfare. It is said that familiarity breeds contempt. As such, Vasudeva, having Krṣṇa as his son, does not regard Krṣṇa with awe and veneration. Sometimes it is seen that persons who are living on the bank of the Ganges do not consider the Ganges to be very important, and they go far away in order to take their baths at a place of pilgrimage. Being that Lord Krṣṇa, whose knowledge is never second in any circumstances, is personally present, there is no need of Vasudeva’s asking us for instruction.
“Lord Krṣṇa is not affected by the process of creation, maintenance and annihilation; His knowledge is never influenced by any agency beyond Himself. He is not agitated by the interaction of the material qualities, which changes things in the modes of time. His transcendental form is full of knowledge which never becomes agitated by ignorance, pride, attachment, envy or sense enjoyment. His knowledge is never subjected to the laws of  karma  regarding pious or impious activities; nor is it influenced by the three modes of material energy. No one is greater than or equal to Him, because He is the supreme authority, the Personality of Godhead.