The Appearance and Disappearance Of Krsna and His Devotees
One may ask, The devotees die, and the nondevotees also die. What is the difference? It is like this: The mother cat may catch a rat and carry it in her mouth, and she also carries her kittens in her mouth. It is the same mouth, but the kittens are comfortable and safe, whereas the rat is feeling the jaws of death. Similarly, at the time of death the devotees are transferred to the spiritual realm, Vaikuntha, whereas the ordinary sinful man is dragged down to the hellish regions by the Yamadutas, the constables of Yama-raja. This was apparently to be Ajamilas fate.
In the Bhagavad-gita (4.9) Krsna says, janma karma ca me divyam: My appearance and disappearance are spiritual, transcendental; they are not ordinary. Why does Krsna appear in this world? That He explains in the previous verse (Bg. 4.8):
To deliver the pious and annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I appear millennium after millennium. Gods only business is to protect the faithful devotees and to kill the demoniac. Therefore we find Lord Visnu pictured with His weapons, the club and cakra (disc), for protecting the devotees, and the lotus flower and conch for their benediction.
Similarly transcendental are the appearance and disappearance of Krsnas devotees who are sent to this material world to preach the glories of the Lord. According to the principles of Vaisnavism, both the appearance and the disappearance of such Vaisnavas, or devotees of Visnu (Krsna), are all-auspicious. Therefore we hold festivals in their honor on the anniversaries of both days.
Actually, even ordinary living entities never take birth or die, what to speak of Krsna and His devotees. Sometimes atheistic men say God is dead. They do not know that even the smallest living entity does not die. So how can God be dead? Atheists are described in the Bhagavad-gita as mudhas, or foolish rascals. They have no knowledge but pose themselves as learned men and mutter something that is good neither for them nor the public.
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