Vishnu Sahasra Naamam-Vol III-RR-edit.pub - Ibiblio

heart to sustain life. In fact, even after the body falls, the AtmA continues to
live and does not get destroyed. This principle is true of everything else as
well (the principle of conservation of energy?). Perhaps the best example of
His being "the Best among those who strive - yadu-SreshThah", is in His
constantly striving to reach the jIva-s and trying to provide for opportunities
for them to re-unite with Him;
He does this by providing the veda-s to us for our guidance, by taking the arcA
form so that He is always accessible to us, by providing opportunities again and
again for us by giving us a body so that we can use it to reach Him, etc. On a
different level, His efforts to bring a reconciliation between the pANDava-s
and the kaurava-s by repeatedly trying His very best to impart sense in the
kaurava-s to avoid the war, is also an example of His being the best among
those who strive hard to achieve the best for everyone.
As with all other nAma-s, the dharma cakram writer relates the significance of
the nAma to our day-to-day life. He points out that in the case of Lord
kRshNa, because He was born in the yadu kulam, the clan itself became
famous, the place He lived - gokulam - became well-known, the day He was born
is widely celebrated, and both His natural parents and His adopted parents
became famous. Thus, when one is praiseworthy, everything else associated
with this individual also becomes praiseworthy. This is how kRshNa's guNa of
yadu-SreshThah is to be meditated. TiruvaLLuvar says: "tOnRin pugazhoDu
tOnRuga; ahdu ilAdAr tOnRalin tOnRAmai nanRu". We should use this gift of
life in a way that our life is praiseworthy; if we don't live such that our life
and everything associated with us is praiseworthy, we would have wasted this
precious gift of life.
The lesson to take from this nAma is that we should meditate on this quality
of bhagavAn, and live a life that leads to the mental maturity to constantly
meditate on Him and elevate ourselves to be SreshTha-s in our worship of Him.
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