It’s amazing to note how a person can be in devotee association for a long time and still his or her heart remains the same! We have been discussing glories of association, but for one who is simply blaspheming devotees, such a person can never have darshan of devotees, what to speak of Krishna. Even if such a person has darshan of Krishna, that darshan is of no use.
Duryodhana lived with Pandavas since the beginning of his childhood. Imagine staying with the most exalted devotees present on the planet earth. Even Sukadeva Goswami glorifies the Pandavas in an extra-ordinary way. He says in SB 5.6.18,
“My dear King, the Supreme Person, Mukunda, is actually the maintainer of all the members of the Pāṇḍava and Yadu dynasties. He is your spiritual master, worshipable Deity, friend, and the director of your activities. To say nothing of this, He sometimes serves your family as a messenger or servant. This means He worked just as ordinary servants do. Those engaged in getting the Lord’s favor attain liberation from the Lord very easily, but He does not very easily give the opportunity to render direct service unto Him.”
Even Narada Muni glorifies Yudhisthira Maharaja and all the Pandavas. He says,
yūyaṁ nṛ-loke bata bhūri-bhāgā
lokaṁ punānā munayo ‘bhiyanti
yeṣāṁ gṛhān āvasatīti sākṣād
gūḍhaṁ paraṁ brahma manuṣya-liṅgam
“My dear Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira, all of you [the Pāṇḍavas] are extremely fortunate, for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, lives in your palace just like a human being. Great saintly persons know this very well, and therefore they constantly visit this house.”
The Pandavas, being glorified by the likes of such exalted devotees, we can just think how exalted a devotee Duryodhana should have become considering he was always with them, in the same palace from his childhood and attending the same school.
How come the association of Pandavas didn’t affect him even a bit? How come his heart didn’t even soften a single time for the Pandavas who were glorious in every way?
The reason is ENVY. Duryodhana was blinded by envy.
SB 10.74.53 describes,
duryodhanam ṛte pāpaṁ
kaliṁ kuru-kulāmayam
yo na sehe śrīyaṁ sphītāṁ
dṛṣṭvā pāṇḍu-sutasya tām
[All were satisfied in the Rajasuya sacrifice] except sinful Duryodhana, the personification of the age of quarrel and the disease of the Kuru dynasty. He could not bear to see the flourishing opulence of the son of Pāṇḍu.
Śrīla Prabhupāda writes, “Duryodhana by nature was very envious because of his sinful life, and he appeared in the dynasty of the Kurus as a chronic disease personified in order to destroy the whole family.”
Envy is a great obstacle that hinders our progressive association of devotees. Due to envy, we may even have the best of association, but the only thing that we may do is offend Vaishnavas.
HH Jayapataka Swami Maharaja writes in his book Vaishnava Ke,
“If a devotee, even after renouncing desire for gross sense gratification and fruitive activity, becomes careless and is swayed by desire for superficial importance and material position, he immediately feels dissatisfaction. Although this dissatisfaction alone is certainly the cause of untold suffering, should he, under pressure from his materialistic desires, grow envious of exalted souls, his situation becomes especially dangerous. In this way the uncontrolled mind leads him from material suffering to actively offending the Vaiṣṇavas, and he proceeds along the royal road to destruction.
But rather than showing humility and accepting the truth of the situation, the mind, infatuated with the desire to achieve importance, imagines no wrong in its envious attitude towards the real devotees of the Lord and reacts with false pride when shown that its path is mistaken. This pride is the symptom of falldown from spiritual life. Therefore, a devotee should be very careful to train his mind in avoiding this dangerous path and learn instead to be humble and sincere.
One may think, “Why does he have that responsibility? Why don’t I have it? I am as good as he is, or better! I cannot tolerate this any longer!”. In this mentality it is easy for one to unnecessarily criticize devotees and to leave the association of devotees compelled by material envy, lust and greed. Thus one falls into illusion and forgets the orders of the spiritual master.”
This is an extremely unfortunate situation wherein a devotee falls in the trap of envy and instead of gaining inspiration from devotee association and thus advancing, he or she falls down from the path of progressive devotional service.
Therefore, always being appreciative of devotees is the best way to have darshan of Vaishnavas. Otherwise, one may become like Duryodhana or Daksha. Daksha had the darshan of Lord Shiva absorbed in samadhi – sattvaṁ viśuddhaṁ vasudeva-śabditaṁ. Lord Shiva was thinking of Krishna. If Daksha would have glanced at Lord Shiva with some respect and a favorable attitude, he would have become purified of all sins. But, he simply found fault with Lord Shiva out of his envy and thus got degraded from his path of spiritual life. To the extent that even after performing austerities for 4 manvantara periods, when he obtained the darshan of the Lord, all he asked for was a boon to increase his progeny. He didn’t become purified even after getting the darshan of Supreme Lord. And later, when he had the darshan of Lord’s dear devotee Narada Muni, Daksha offended him as well. All of this was a result of his offense to Lord Shiva.
As far as Duryodhana is concerned, he was having the darshan of Krishna quite often. Lord was present in the planet that time. But because Duryodhana had this offensive mentality arising from his envy, he could not even see the Lord properly and get purified through that darshan. Rather he attempted to bind Krishna with chains!
The lens of appreciation is the best spectacle to view Vaishnavas. And if we are not able to view in that way, then we must take guidance, help and support from superior Vaishnavas. If our hearts and eyes remain clouded with the fog of fault-finding, there is a great chance of accident even on the royal road of Krishna Consciousness.
