Text 32
śrī-brāhmaṇa uvāca
santi me guravo rājan
bahavo buddhy-upāśritāḥ
yato buddhim upādāya
mukto ’ṭāmīha tān śṛṇu
śrī-brāhmaṇaḥ uvāca — the brāhmaṇa said; santi — there are; me — my; guravaḥ — spiritual masters; rājan — O King; bahavaḥ — many; buddhi — by my intelligence; upāśritāḥ — taken shelter of; yataḥ — from whom; buddhim — intelligence; upādāya — gaining; muktaḥ — liberated; aṭāmi — I wander; iha — in this world; tān — them; śṛṇu — please hear.
The brāhmaṇa said: My dear King, with my intelligence I have taken shelter of many spiritual masters. Having gained transcendental understanding from them, I now wander about the earth in a liberated condition. Please listen as I describe them to you.
The word buddhy-upāśritāḥ in this verse indicates that the brāhmaṇa’s spiritual masters did not directly speak to him. Instead, he learned from them by his intelligence. All living entities who are inimical to Lord Kṛṣṇa glorify useless material things and spend their lives trying to lord it over the material objects they falsely worship. Thus the conditioned souls try to increase their duration of life, as well as their fame and beauty, by means of mundane religiosity, economic development and gross sense gratification. King Yadu noticed that the saintly avadhūta did not behave like that. Therefore the King was inquisitive to find out the actual situation of the brāhmaṇa. In reply to the King the saintly brāhmaṇa states, “I do not consider the twenty-four elements of the physical world as objects of my sense gratification, and therefore I don’t consider accepting or rejecting them. Rather, I accept the material elements as my instructing spiritual masters. Thus, even though wandering throughout the material world, I am never bereft of service to the guru. Taking shelter of steady intelligence, I travel about the earth constantly engaged on the transcendental platform. By intelligence I transcend useless desires, and my ultimate goal is the loving devotional service of the Lord. Now I shall explain to you about my twenty-four spiritual masters.”