iN 1” 7 A
} @
8/ Vision of the Universal Form

After this incident, Vasudeva asked his family priest Gargamuni to visit
the place of Nanda Maharaja in order to astrologically calculate the future
life of Krsna. Gargamuni was a great saintly sage who underwent many
austerities and penances and was appointed priest of the Yadu dynasty:
When Gargamuni arrived at the home of Nanda Maharaja, Nanda Maharaja
was very pleased to see him and immediately stood up with folded hands
and offered his respectful obeisances. He received Gargamuni with the
feeling of one who is worshiping God or the Supreme Personality of
Godhead. He offered him a nice sitting place, and when he sat down,
Nanda Maharaja offered him a warm reception. Addressing him very
politely, he said: ““My dear brahmana, your appearance in a householder’s
place is only to enlighten. We are always engaged in household duties and
are forgetting our real duty of self-realization. Your coming to our house
is to give us some enlightenment about spiritual life. You have no other
purpose to visit householders.” Actually a saintly person or a brahmana has
no business visiting householders who are always busy in the matter of
dollars and cents. If it is asked, ““Why don’t the householders go to a saintly
person or a brahmana for enlightenment?” the answer is that householders
are very poor-hearted. Generally householders think that their engagement
in family affairs is their prime duty and that self-realization or enlighten-
ment in spiritua! knowledge is secondary. Out of compassion only, saintly
persons and brahmanas go to householders’ homes.

Nanda Maharaja addressed Gargamuni as one of the great authorities
in astrological science. The foretellings of astrological science, such
as the occurrence of solar or lunar eclipses, are wonderful calcula-
tions, and by this particular science, a person can understand the
future very clearly. Gargamuni was proficient in this knowledge. By
this knowledge one can understand what his previous activities were,

56
