SB 1.11.9
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
TEXT 9
- yarhy ambujākṣāpasasāra bho bhavān
- kurūn madhūn vātha suhṛd-didṛkṣayā
- tatrābda-koṭi-pratimaḥ kṣaṇo bhaved
- raviṁ vinākṣṇor iva nas tavācyuta
SYNONYMS
yarhi — whenever; ambuja-akṣa — O lotus-eyed one; apasasāra — You go away; bho — oh; bhavān — Yourself; kurūn — the descendants of King Kuru; madhūn — the inhabitants of Mathurā (Vrajabhūmi); vā — either; atha — therefore; suhṛt-didṛkṣayā — for meeting them; tatra — at that time; abda-koṭi — millions of years; pratimaḥ — like; kṣaṇaḥ — moments; bhavet — becomes; ravim — the sun; vinā — without; akṣṇoḥ — of the eyes; iva — like that; naḥ — ours; tava — Your; acyuta — O infallible one.
TRANSLATION
O lotus-eyed Lord, whenever You go away to Mathurā, Vṛndāvana or Hastināpura to meet Your friends and relatives, every moment of Your absence seems like a million years. O infallible one, at that time our eyes become useless, as if bereft of sun.
PURPORT
We are all proud of our material senses for making experiments to determine the existence of God. But we forget that our senses are not absolute by themselves. They can only act under certain conditions. For example, our eyes. As long as the sunshine is there, our eyes are useful to a certain extent. But in the absence of sunshine, the eyes are useless. Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, being the primeval Lord, the Supreme Truth, is compared to the sun. Without Him all our knowledge is either false or partial. The opposite of the sun is the darkness, and similarly the opposite of Kṛṣṇa is māyā, or illusion. The devotees of the Lord can see everything in true perspective due to the light disseminated by Lord Kṛṣṇa. By the grace of the Lord the pure devotee cannot be in the darkness of ignorance. Therefore, it is necessary that we must always be in the sight of Lord Kṛṣṇa so that we can see both ourselves and the Lord with His different energies. As we cannot see anything in the absence of the sun, so also we cannot see anything including our own self, without the factual presence of the Lord. Without Him all our knowledge is covered by illusion.