Text 22] Lord Ramacandra Rules the World 123
TRANSLATION
Lord Ramacandra returned to His abode, to which bhakti-yogis
are promoted. This is the place to which all the inhabitants of
Ayodhya went after they served the Lord in His manifest pastimes
by offering Him obeisances, touching His lotus feet, fully observ-
ing Him as a fatherlike King, sitting or lying down with Him like
equals, or even just accompanying Him.
PURPORT
The Lord says in Bhagavad-gita (4.9):
janma karma ca me divyam
evar yo vetti tattvatah
tyaktva deham punar janma
naiti mam eti so ’rjuna
“One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and
activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this ma-
terial world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.” Here this is con-
firmed. All the inhabitants of Ayodhya who saw Lord Ramacandra as
citizens, served Him as servants, sat and talked with Him as friends or
were somehow or other present during His reign went back home, back
to Godhead. After giving up the body, the devotee who becomes perfect
in devotional service enters that particular universe where Lord
Ramacandra or Lord Krsna is engaged in His pastimes. Then, after being
trained to serve the Lord in various capacities in that prakata-lila, the
devotee is finally promoted to sandtana-dhama, the supreme abode in
the spiritual world. This sandtana-dhama is also mentioned in
Bhagavad-gita (paras tasmat tu bhavo ‘nyo ’vyakto ‘vyaktat sanatanah).
One who enters the transcendental pastimes of the Lord is called nitya-
lila-pravista. To understand clearly why Lord Ramacandra returned, it is
mentioned herewith that the Lord went to that particular place where the
bhakti-yogis go. The impersonalists misunderstand the statements of
Srimad-Bhdgavatam to mean that the Lord entered His own effulgence
and therefore become impersonal. But the Lord is a person, and His
