The real peacock is a different thing, and one must have the sense to
understand this. Those who are mad after capturing and enjoying the
imitation peacock, as well as those who have a pessimistic view of the
imitation peacock but lack any positive information of the real peacock --
both are illusioned by the modes of material nature. Those who are after the
imitation peacock are the fruitive workers, and those who simply condemn the
imitation peacock but are ignorant of the real peacock are the empiric
philosophers. Disgusted with the mirage of happiness in the material desert,
they seek to merge into voidness.
But a pure devotee does not belong to either of these two bewildered
classes. Neither aspiring to enjoy the imitation peacock nor condemning it
out of disgust, he seeks the real peacock. Thus he is unlike either the
deluded fruitive worker or the baffled empiricist. He is above these
servants of material nature because he prefers to serve the Lord, the master
of material nature. He seeks the substance and does not wish to give it up.
The substance is the lotus feet of Mukunda, and King Kulasekhara, being a
most intelligent devotee, prays to gain that substance and not the shadow.
From Srila Prabhupada's commentary on Mukunda-mala Stotra, verse 3
Comments