Text 31
eṣa me prāpitaḥ sthānaṁ
duṣprāpam amarair api
sāvarṇer antarasyāyaṁ
bhavitendro mad-āśrayaḥ
eṣaḥ — Bali Mahārāja; me — by Me; prāpitaḥ — has achieved; sthānam — a place; duṣprāpam — extremely difficult to obtain; amaraiḥ api — even by the demigods; sāvarṇeḥ antarasya — during the period of the Manu known as Sāvarṇi; ayam — this Bali Mahārāja; bhavitā — will become; indraḥ — the lord of the heavenly planet; mat-āśrayaḥ — completely under My protection.
The Lord continued: Because of his great tolerance, I have given him a place not obtainable even by the demigods. He will become King of the heavenly planets during the period of the Manu known as Sāvarṇi.
This is the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Even if the Lord takes away a devotee’s material opulences, the Lord immediately offers him a position of which the demigods cannot even dream. There are many examples of this in the history of devotional service. One of them is the opulence of Sudāmā Vipra. Sudāmā Vipra suffered severe material scarcity, but he was not disturbed and did not deviate from devotional service. Thus he was ultimately given an exalted position by the mercy of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Here the word mad-āśrayaḥ is very significant. Because the Lord wanted to give Bali Mahārāja the exalted position of Indra, the demigods might naturally have been envious of him and might have fought to disturb his position. But the Supreme Personality of Godhead assured Bali Mahārāja that he would always remain under the Lord’s protection (mad-āśrayaḥ).