Text 24
sa nityaṁ bhagavad-dhyāna-
pradhvastākhila-bandhanaḥ
bibhrāṇaś ca hare rājan
svarūpaṁ tan-mayo ’bhavat
saḥ — he (Pauṇḍraka); nityam — constant; bhagavat — upon the Supreme Lord; dhyāna — by his meditation; pradhvasta — completely shattered; akhila — all; bandhanaḥ — whose bondage; bibhrāṇaḥ — assuming; ca — and; hareḥ — of Lord Kṛṣṇa; rājan — O King (Parīkṣit); svarūpam — the personal form; tat-mayaḥ — absorbed in consciousness of Him; abhavat — he became.
By constantly meditating upon the Supreme Lord, Pauṇḍraka shattered all his material bonds. Indeed, by imitating Lord Kṛṣṇa’s appearance, O King, he ultimately became Kṛṣṇa conscious.
Śrīla Prabhupāda writes as follows in Kṛṣṇa: “As far as Pauṇḍraka was concerned, somehow or other he always thought of Vāsudeva by falsely dressing himself in imitation of the Lord. Therefore Pauṇḍraka achieved sārūpya, one of the five kinds of liberation, and was thus promoted to the Vaikuṇṭha planets, where the devotees have the same bodily features as Viṣṇu, with four hands holding the four symbols. Factually, his meditation was concentrated on the Viṣṇu form, but because he thought himself Lord Viṣṇu, he was offensive. After being killed by Kṛṣṇa, however, that offense was also mitigated. Thus he was given sārūpya liberation, and he attained the same form as the Lord.”