202 Srimad-Bhagavatam [Canto 6, Ch. 17

the Lord and His devotees are liberated. They are on the same platform,
the only difference being that the Lord is the master and the devotees are
servants. Qualitatively, they are one and the same. In Bhagavad-gita
(9.29) the Lord says:

samo ’ham sarva-bhiitesu
na me dvesyo ’sti na priyah
ye bhajanti tu mam bhaktya
mayi te tesu capy aham

“‘T envy no one, nor am I partial to anyone. I am equal to all. But whoever
renders service unto Me in devotion is a friend, is in Me, and I am also a
friend to him.” From this statement by the Supreme Personality of God-
head, it is clear that the devotees of the Lord are always extremely dear
to Him. In effect, Lord Siva told Parvati, ‘“‘Both Citraketu and I are al-
ways very dear to the Supreme Lord. In other words, both he and | are on
the same level as servants of the Lord. We are always friends, and some-
times we enjoy joking words between us. When Citraketu loudly laughed
at my behavior, he did so on friendly terms, and therefore there was no
reason to curse him.” Thus Lord Siva tried to convince his wife, Parvati,
that her cursing of Citraketu was not very sensible.

Here is a difference between male and female that exists even in the
higher statuses of life—in fact, even between Lord Siva and his wife.
Lord Siva could understand Citraketu very nicely, but Parvati could not.
Thus even in the higher statuses of life there is a difference between the
understanding of a male and that of a female. It may be clearly said that
the understanding of a woman is always inferior to the understanding of
a man. In the Western countries there is now agitation to the effect that
man and woman should be considered equal, but from this verse it ap-
pears that woman is always less intelligent than man.

It is clear that Citraketu wanted to criticize the behavior of his friend
Lord Siva because Lord Siva was sitting with his wife on his lap. Then,
too, Lord Siva wanted to criticize Citraketu for externally posing as a
great devotee but being interested in enjoying with the Vidyadhari
women. These were all friendly jokes; there was nothing serious for
which Citraketu should have been cursed by Parvati. Upon hearing the
