The Kidnapping of Subhadra 235

it is. My dear Lord, I offer my respectful obeisances unto You. My dear
self-effulgent Lord, I am Your eternal servitor. Therefore, kindly order me
—what can I do for You? The conditioned soul feels the pangs of material
contamination as threefold miseries as long as You are not visible to him.
And as soon as You are visible by development of Krsna consciousness, all
miseries of material existence simultaneously become vanquished.”

The Supreme Personality of Godhead Krsna is naturally very much
affectionately inclined to His devotees. When He heard Srutadeva’s prayers
of pure devotion, He was very much pleased and immediately caught his
hands and began to address Him thus: ‘My dear Srutadeva, all these great
sages and saintly persons have been very kind to you by personally coming
here to see you. You should consider this opportunity to be a great fortune
for you. They are so kind that they are traveling with Me, and wherever
they go they immediately make the whole atmosphere as pure as transcen-
dence simply by the touch of the dust of their feet. People are accustomed
to go to the temples of God. They also visit holy places of pilgrimage, and
after prolonged association with such activities, for many days by touch
and by worship, gradually they become purified. But the influence of great
sages and saintly persons is so great that by seeing them one immediately
becomes completely purified.

“Moreover, the very purifying potency of pilgrimages or worship of
different demigods is also achieved by the grace of saintly persons. A
pilgrimage site becomes a holy place because of the presence of the
saintly persons there. My dear Srutadeva, when a person is born as a
brahmana, he immediately becomes the best of all human beings. And if
such a brahmana, remaining self-satisfied, practices austerities, studies the
Vedas and engages in My devotional service, as is the duty of the brahmana
—or in other words, if a brahmana becomes a Vaisnava—how wonderful
is his greatness! My feature of four-handed Narayana is not so pleasing or
dear to Me as is a brahmana Vaisnava. Brahmana means ‘one well con-
versant with Vedic knowledge’; a brahmana is the insignia of perfect
knowledge, and I am the full-fledged manifestation of all gods. The less
intelligent class of men do not understand Me as the highest knowledge,
nor do they understand the influence of the brahmana Vaisnava. They are
influenced by the three modes of material nature and thus dare to
criticize Me and My pure devotees. A brahmana Vaisnava, or a devotee
already on the brahminical platform, can realize Me within his heart, and
therefore he definitely concludes that the whole cosmic manifestation and
its different features are effects of different energies of the Lord. Thus he
has a clear conception of the whole material nature and the total material
