Man, Woman, or Any Living Being Becomes Dear through Wholehearted Worship
Uttara Kanda, Doha 88
Doha 88 · Movement 2 of 2
Keep this contemplation
Preserve, print, or share
Rama's declaration crosses every bodily and social boundary. Whether man, eunuch, woman, or any living being, moving or still, whoever abandons deceit and worships with the whole heart becomes supremely dear to him.
The Lord repeats the truth to the crow: a pure servant is dear as his own life. No form of embodiment is excluded from the possibility of complete devotion or from the intimacy with which devotion is answered.
Therefore let every other hope and reliance fall away, Rama says, and worship me. The invitation is not reserved for a spiritual elite. It reaches across gender, species, status, motion, and stillness to the sincerity within a being. Bhushundi himself stands as its living emblem: a crow has been offered the highest mysteries because the measure of nearness is not the body's rank but the absence of deceit in love.
Rama looks through every form and calls the wholehearted servant dearer than life.
Read the passage from the Manas
पुरूष नपुंसक नारि वा जीव चराचर कोइ। सर्ब भाव भज कपट तजि मोहि परम प्रिय सोइ।।87(क)।। सत्य कहउँ खग तोहि सुचि सेवक मम प्रानप्रिय। अस बिचारि भजु मोहि परिहरि आस भरोस सब।।87(ख)।।
Whether man, eunuch, or woman, any living being, moving or still, whoever worships Me wholeheartedly, abandoning deceit, becomes supremely dear to Me. Truly I say to you, O Khag, a pure-hearted servant is dear to Me as My own life. Reflecting thus, worship Me alone, letting go of all other hopes and reliances.