The Prayers of Gajendra

The text describes the prayers of Gajendra, the King of the Elephants, who learned a prayer from the Supreme Lord. Gajendra, formerly known as Indradyumna, learned the prayer and began to chant it to himself. He offered respectful obeisances to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who was formerly a human being. Despite his awkward position, he tried to chant the mantra and expressed his inability to recite it well. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is the cause of all causes, the original person from whom everything has emanated, and the root cause of cosmic manifestation.

He is transcendental, doing everything in relation to the material world through His external energy. He is eternally situated in the spiritual world, in Vaikuntha or Goloka Vrndavana, where He engages in His eternal pastimes.

The material world is a product of His external energy, or material nature, which works under His direction. Creation, maintenance, and annihilation take place in the material world. The Lord exists at all times, making it difficult for nondevotees to understand. The transcendental Supreme Personality of the Godhead is perceivable by everyone, but only pure devotees perceive His presence and activities.

The Lord appears and exhibits His activities for the satisfaction of the devotee, and those who know this secret can enter the kingdom of God. He is the controller of everything, the witness of all activities, and the original source of all living entities. He is untouched by any of His by-products, making him like a gold mine that is the source of gold in ornaments but different from the ornaments themselves.

The Lord is worshipped according to the method prescribed in the Pancaratras, and it is our duty to understand Him according to the instructions of devotees, particularly the spiritual master. By following the instructions of saintly persons and the spiritual master, we can be freed from material clutches. The self-effulgent material form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is adored by nondevotees, while his impersonal form is adored by those advanced in spiritual knowledge.

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is capable of dissipating the darkness of the conditioned soul through His instructions in Bhagavad-gita. He is the ocean of transcendental qualities and can only be understood by liberated persons freed from the bodily concept of life. By His causeless mercy, the Lord can rescue the conditioned soul from the material clutches and enable them to return home to Godhead. A pure devotee does not aspire to return to Godhead but rather is satisfied with executing their service in the material world.

In summary, the text describes the prayers of Gajendra, the King of the Elephants, who prayed directly to the Supreme Personality of Godhead without mistaking him for one of the demigods. The Supreme Personality of the Godhead, Narayana, appeared before Gajendra, and the crocodile was pulled from the water, rescuing Gajendra from the material world.