"Let Me Go With You" #
The meal was over and Kurma had finished his prayer of gratitude, described in full on Hospitality at Kurma-kshetra, when he made a request of his own. He begged Mahaprabhu to let him give up his household and go with Him. In Krishnadasa Kaviraja's phrasing, he said that he could no longer tolerate the waves of misery caused by materialistic life. The same wish had already moved other householders on this tour to want to give up everything at the sight of the Lord. As usually happened on this journey, the answer was a refusal.
Stay Home, Chant, and Preach #
Mahaprabhu's answer was direct. Never suggest such a thing again, He told Kurma; better to remain at home and chant the holy name of Krishna without interruption. The reason for this refusal was practical as much as spiritual. In the conditions of this age, a person who suddenly gives up family life, without real training in renunciation, rarely gains anything by it. He often loses what he already had. Mahaprabhu had already heard a version of this same argument at the start of this journey, when He let Nityananda Prabhu persuade Him not to travel entirely alone. The fuller story of that earlier argument is told on the South India tour page. This time it was the other way round. It was Kurma, not the Lord, who was being told that renunciation was not the answer.
Whomever You Meet, Tell Him What Krishna Said #
What Mahaprabhu offered Kurma instead is the verse for which this entire episode is remembered. Its sense, translated plainly, is this: instruct everyone you meet in the teaching Krishna Himself gives in the Bhagavad-gita and the Srimad-Bhagavatam; by doing only that, under the Lord's own order, become a guru and help liberate this whole land. The verse does not require anyone to master scripture, take formal disciples, or leave his occupation. It asks only that he repeat faithfully, without changing anything, what has already been taught. Krishnadasa Kaviraja does not treat this as a special case made for one willing brahmana. A few verses later he states plainly that this was the Lord's method at every house where He accepted a meal on the entire tour. That is why the instruction runs like a thread through the whole journey. It was not a private word to one man.
Bhaktisiddhanta's Reading: No Excuse for False Pride #
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura addressed this exact verse at length in his own Bengali commentary, the Anubhashya. His explanation brings out something that is easy to miss in the plain instruction. He read the verse as meant for devotees who mistake outward renunciation for real spiritual advancement, or who mistake for it a certain kind of self-important humility about "mere" preaching. Such people imagine that only grand, large-scale service counts as real spiritual work. They have in mind the service of Rupa Goswami, Sanatana Goswami, Jiva Goswami or Raghunatha Dasa Goswami in their books, or the wide following gathered by teachers like Madhvacharya or Narottama Dasa Thakura. As reported in later Gaudiya writing on this instruction, Bhaktisiddhanta's point was the opposite. Remaining a householder and simply repeating Krishna's own words to one's neighbors is not a lesser path that needs an apology. And looking down on it is itself the kind of false pride the instruction was meant to correct.
The Promise of the Lord's Company #
Mahaprabhu did not leave Kurma with only an order; He left him with a promise. If Kurma followed this instruction, the Lord told him, the waves of his householder life would never again overwhelm him the way they had before. More than that, he would have the Lord's company again, whether or not they ever met again in person. Kurma was being told that he could not follow the Lord on the road. For such a man, this promise answered the very worry that had made him ask to leave home in the first place. The Instruction That Outlived the Man tells what became of Kurma after this promise, and what the instruction itself went on to mean four centuries later.
