Devanagari
यस्मिन् सत्कर्णपीयुषे यशस्तीर्थवरे सकृत्
श्रोत्राञ्जलिरुपस्पृश्य धुनुते कर्मवासनाम् ॥ ६२ ॥
Verse text
yasmin sat-karṇa-pīyuṣe
yaśas-tīrtha-vare sakṛt
śrotrāṣjalir upaspṛśya
dhunute karma-vāsanām
Synonyms
yasmin
—
in the history of the transcendental activities of Kṛṣṇa upon the surface of the earth
;
sat
—
karṇa — pīyuṣe — who pleases the demands of the transcendental, purified ears
;
yaśaḥ
—
tīrtha — vare — keeping oneself in the best of holy places by hearing the transcendental activities of the Lord
;
sakṛt
—
once only, immediately
;
śrotra
—
aṣjaliḥ — in the form of hearing the transcendental message
;
upaspṛśya
—
touching (exactly like the water of the Ganges)
;
dhunute
—
destroys
;
karma
—
vāsanām — the strong desire for fruitive activities .
Translation
Simply by receiving the glories of the Lord through purified transcendental ears, the devotees of the Lord are immediately freed from strong material desires and engagement in fruitive activities.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
A person who, with ears like cupped hands, drinks just once the topics of the Lord, which are nectar for the ears of the devotees, topics which are water from the most famous holy place, destroys all impressions of karma.
“You have said that the fame of the Lord is supuṇya. That means by hearing about the Lord one goes to Svarga.” No, that is not so. The ears are like cupped hands for drinking the water of the best holy place, fame personified, which is nectar for the ears of the devotees. By performing even ācamana with this nectar-- what to speak of drinking it, and taking it just once--what to speak of many times, one destroys ignorance-- the impressions of karma. Even though the Lord is not present, just by hearing his glories one crosses saṁsāra.
Purport
When the devotees aurally receive the activities of the Supreme Personality of Godhead as enacted in
Bhagavad-gītā
and
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam,
they immediately achieve a transcendental vision in which they are no longer interested in materialistic activities. Thus they achieve freedom from the material world. For sense gratification practically everyone is engaged in materialistic activities, which prolong the process of
janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi
— birth, death, old age and disease — but the devotee, simply by hearing the message of
Bhagavad-gītā
and further relishing the narrations of
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam,
becomes so pure that he no longer takes interest in materialistic activities. At the moment, devotees in the Western countries are being attracted by Kṛṣṇa consciousness and becoming uninterested in materialistic activities, and therefore people are trying to oppose this movement. But they cannot possibly check this movement or stop the activities of the devotees in Europe and America by their artificial impositions. Here the words
śrotrāṣjalir upaspṛśya
indicate that simply by hearing the transcendental activities of the Lord the devotees become so pure that they are immediately immune to the contamination of materialistic fruitive activities.
Anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam
. Materialistic activities are unnecessary for the soul, and therefore the devotees are freed from such activities. The devotees are situated in liberation (
brahma-bhūyāya kalpate
), and therefore they cannot be called back to their material homes and materialistic activities.