Techniques of Hearing and Memorizing 93

remembering the form, qualities, pastimes, etc., of the Lord.

In the Padma Purana there is a statement about remembering the
activities of the Lord: “A person who is always engaged in medita-
tion on the sweet pastimes and wonderful activities of the Lord
surely becomes freed from all material contamination.”

Meditation on Executing Devotional Service

In some of the Puranas the evidence is given that if someone is
simply meditating on devotional activities, he has achieved the de-
sired result and has seen face to face the Supreme Personality of
Godhead. In this connection, there is a story in the Brahma-vaivarta
Purana that in the city of Pratisthanapura in South India there was
once a brahmana who was not very well-to-do, but who was never-
theless satisfied in himself, thinking that because of his past misdeeds,
and by the desire of Krsna, he did not get sufficient money and opu-
lence. So he was not at all sorry for his poor material position, and
he used to live very peacefully. He was very openhearted, and some-
times he went to hear some lectures delivered by great realized souls.
At one such meeting, while he was very faithfully hearing about
Vaisnava activities, he was informed that these activities can be per-
formed even by meditation. In other words, if a person is unable to
actually perform Vaisnava activities physically, he can meditate
upon the Vaisnava activities and thereby acquire all of the same re-
sults. Because the brahmana was not very well-to-do financially, he
decided that he would simply meditate on grand, royal devotional
activities, and he began this business thusly:

Sometimes he would take his bath in the river Godavari. After
taking his bath he would sit in a secluded place on the bank of the
river, and, by practicing the yoga exercises of pranayama, the usual
breathing exercise, he would concentrate his mind. This breathing
exercise is meant to mechanically make the mind fixed upon a par-
ticular subject. That is the result of the breathing exercise and also of
the different sitting postures of yoga. Formerly, even quite ordinary
persons used to know how to fix the mind upon the remembrance of
