With loving faith, the devotee gathers the necessary items for worship: pure water for washing the Lord’s feet and for sipping, fragrant substances, fresh flowers, unbroken rice, incense, lamps, and various offerings. These are all presented to the Lord with a heart full of devotion. He prepares special foods for the offering—sweet rice cooked with jaggery, clarified butter, fried cakes, rice cakes, and other sweets, as well as curd, soups, and whatever else is available, all arranged with care. Each day, and especially on festival days, he anoints and massages the sacred image, offers mirrors, cleans the teeth, bathes, provides food and drink, and fills the air with singing and dancing, all as acts of loving service. In the prescribed manner, the devotee prepares a consecrated fire-pit, complete with a girdle, fuel, and altar, kindling the fire and tending it according to tradition. After spreading kuśa grass and sprinkling the area, he places the offerings as directed, purifies them with water, and, approaching the fire, makes the offerings to the Lord. While doing so, he meditates deeply on the Lord, envisioning Him as radiant as molten gold, bearing conch, discus, mace, and lotus, shining with four arms, serene and peaceful, clad in garments the color of lotus filaments. The Lord appears resplendent, adorned with a crown, bracelets, waistband, and splendid armlets, bearing the mark of Śrīvatsa on His chest, glowing with the Kaustubha gem and garlanded with forest flowers. As he worships and meditates, he places wooden offerings and those soaked in clarified butter into the fire. He offers portions of ghee for the ancestors and the gods, and then presents the main oblation, immersed in ghee, to the Lord. Having worshipped and bowed, he offers gifts to the Lord’s attendants, reciting the root mantra and contemplating Brahman, fixing his mind on the essence of Nārāyaṇa. He gives water for sipping and the remnants of the offerings, preparing them for Viṣvaksena, and then, with fragrant betel and other mouth-fresheners, offers them as appropriate. With singing, praising, dancing, and enacting the Lord’s divine deeds, he narrates and listens to the Lord’s stories, becoming absorbed, even if only for a moment, in the Lord’s presence. With hymns both lofty and simple, with praises drawn from the Purāṇas and even from everyday speech, he glorifies the Lord, prays for grace, and prostrates himself. Placing his head at the Lord’s feet, arms crossed, he implores, “Protect me, O Lord! I have surrendered, frightened by the ocean of death and its snares.” With reverence, he places the sacred remnants given by the Lord upon his head. If it is time to conclude the worship, he respectfully returns the offering to the light, and then to the supreme light. Wherever and whenever he feels faith arise, he worships the Lord there, knowing that the Lord dwells in all beings and within the self as the universal soul. Thus, by the paths of ritual and yoga—both Vedic and Tantric—a person who worships the Lord attains from Him the desired perfection, by either way. Establishing the Lord’s image, he builds a firm temple, creating delightful flower gardens for worship and festivals. For the ongoing flow of worship and related rites, on great festivals and daily, he dedicates fields, shops, towns, and villages, thereby attaining the Lord’s realm. Through consecration, he becomes sovereign over the three worlds with a residence; through worship and related acts, he attains Brahma’s world; and by threefold worship, he attains equality with the Lord. Through exclusive devotion and yoga, he attains the Lord alone; thus, whoever worships the Lord obtains the path of devotion. But whoever takes what has been offered to the gods or Brahmins, intended for their maintenance, whether by himself or others, becomes a dung-eater for tens of thousands of years. For the sake of the doer, the essence, and the approver, all who share in the actions, after death, repeatedly obtain the greater fruit of those deeds. Now, Śuka continued: On the eleventh day, Nanda observed a fast and worshipped Janārdana. On the twelfth day, he entered the waters of the Kālindī river to bathe. But, as he entered the water at night, crossing the boundary set by the asuras, a servant of Varuṇa, an asura, seized him and brought him to Varuṇa’s presence. The cowherds, unable to see Nanda, called out anxiously, “Krishna! Rama!” Hearing their cries, the Blessed Lord understood that His father had been taken by Varuṇa. The mighty Krishna, who grants fearlessness to His own, went at once to that place. When Hrishikesha arrived, Varuṇa, the guardian of the world, welcomed Him with great honor, worshipped Him with splendor, and rejoiced at the great festival of His sight. Varuṇa said, “Today my body is pacified; today, O Lord, my purpose is fulfilled. Those devoted to Your feet, O Blessed One, have reached the end of the path. Obeisance to You, O Supreme Lord, Supreme Self, Brahman, where illusion and the imagined creation of worlds are not heard of. Unknowingly, by my own foolishness and ignorance, Your father was brought here; may You forgive this. You, who see all, O Krishna, are worthy to show Your favor to me as well. O Govinda, lover of Your father, please take Your father back.” Thus propitiated, Krishna, the Lord of lords, took His father and returned, filling His relatives with joy. Nanda, having witnessed the extraordinary glory of the guardian of the world and their reverence for Krishna, spoke to his kinsmen, amazed. The cowherds, their minds eager, wondered, “Will this Lord show us our own subtle destination?” Krishna, knowing the minds of His own people, considered their wish out of compassion, intending to fulfill their desire. For people in this world, bewildered by ignorance, desire, and action, wander among higher and lower paths, not knowing their true destination. Thinking thus, the Blessed Lord Hari, full of great compassion, revealed to the cowherds His own world, which is beyond all darkness. That realm is truth, knowledge, infinite—Brahman, the eternal radiance, which the sages behold when all qualities have ceased and their minds are absorbed. Krishna led them to the lake of Brahman, immersed them, and then lifted them out. There, they saw the world of Brahman, the very place where Akrura had once gone. Nanda and the others, beholding that place, were filled with supreme bliss and wonder, and saw Krishna being praised there by hymns. Thus ends the twenty-eighth chapter of the first half of the tenth book in the great Purana, Srimad Bhagavata, scripture of the supreme swan-like sages.