Text 54] Dhruva Maharaja Leaves Home for the Forest 331

TRANSLATION

Orn namo bhagavate vasudevaya. This is the twelve-syllable mantra
for worshiping Lord Krsna. One should install the physical forms of the
Lord, and with the chanting of the mantra one should offer flowers and
fruits and other varieties of foodstuffs exactly according to the rules and
regulations prescribed by authorities. But this should be done in considera-
tion of place, time and attendant conveniences and inconveniences.

PURPORT

Om namo bhagavate vasudevaya is known as the Duadasaksara-mantra,
This mantra is chanted by Vaisnava devotees, and it begins with pranava,
or omkara. There is an injunction that those who are not brahmanas
cannot pronounce the pranava mantra. But Dhruva Maharaja was born a
ksatriya. He at once admitted before Narada Muni that as a ksatriya he
was unable to accept his instruction of renunciation and mental
equilibrium, which are the concern of a brahmana. Still, although not a
brahmana but a ksatriya, Dhruva was allowed, on the authority of Narada,
to pronounce the pranava omkara. This is very significant. Especially in
India, the caste brahmanas object greatly when persons from other castes,
who are not born in brahmana families, recite this pranava mantra. But
here is tacit proof that if a person accepts the Vaisnava mantra or
Vaisnava way of worshiping the Deity, he is allowed to chant the
pranava mantra. In Bhagavad-gita the Lord personally accepts that anyone,
even one of a low species, can be elevated to the highest position and go
back home, back to Godhead, simply if he worships properly.

The prescribed rules, as stated here by Narada Muni, are that one
should accept the mantra through a bona fide spiritual master and hear
the mantra in the right ear. Not only should one chant or murmur the
mantra, but in front of him he must have the Deity or physical form of
the Lord. Of course, when the Lord appears it is no longer a physical
form. For example, when an iron rod is made red-hot in a fire, it is no
longer iron; it is fire. Similarly, when we make a form of the Lord—
whether of wood, or stone, or metal, or jewel, or paint, or even a form
within the mind—it is a bona fide, spiritual, transcendental form of the
Lord. One must not only receive the mantra from the bona fide spiritual
master like Narada Muni or his representative in the disciplic succession,
but one must chant the mantra. And not only must one chant, but he
should also offer whatever foodstuff is available in his part of the world,
according to time and convenience.
