With reverence and devotion, one should meditate upon the Lord, envisioning Him radiant as molten gold, adorned with conch, discus, mace, and lotus, His four arms shining with peace and tranquility, and clothed in garments the delicate hue of lotus filaments. His form glows with a brilliant crown, bracelets, waistband, and splendid armlets. Upon His chest gleams the mark of Śrīvatsa, and He is adorned with the Kaustubha gem and a garland woven from forest flowers. In this sacred meditation and worship, the devotee places offerings—both wooden and those soaked in clarified butter—before the Lord. After dedicating portions of ghee to the ancestors and the gods, he presents the oblation, immersed in ghee, with devotion. Having worshipped and bowed, he offers gifts to the Lord’s attendants, recites the root mantra, and contemplates Brahman, remembering the essence of Nārāyaṇa. He gives water for sipping and the remnants, preparing them for Viṣvaksena, and then offers fragrant mouth-fresheners such as betel, in proper order. With singing, praising, dancing, and enactments of the Lord’s deeds, he narrates and listens to the stories of the Lord, becoming absorbed for a moment in divine remembrance. Through hymns, both exalted and humble, and praises from the Purāṇas and even common speech, he extols the Lord, prays, “Be gracious, O Lord,” 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 remainder given by the Lord upon his head; when concluding the worship, he respectfully returns the offering to the light, and again to the supreme light. Wherever and whenever there is faith in worship and related acts, he should worship the Lord there, for the Lord is present in all beings and within the self, as the universal soul. Thus, by the paths of ritual and yoga, whether Vedic or Tantric, the person who worships attains from the Lord the desired perfection in both ways. Establishing the Lord’s image, he should build a firm temple, and create delightful flower gardens for worship and festivals. For the ongoing flow of worship and related rites, whether on great festivals or daily, he should dedicate fields, shops, towns, and villages, thereby attaining the Lord’s realm. By consecration, he becomes sovereign of the three worlds with a residence; through worship and related acts, he attains Brahma’s world, and by three, equality with the Lord. Through exclusive devotion and yoga, he attains the Lord alone; thus, whoever worships the Lord obtains the path of devotion. Yet, whoever takes what he or others have given to the gods or Brahmins for their maintenance, becomes a dung-eater for tens of thousands of years. For the sake of the doer, the essence, and the approver—those who share in the actions—after death, they repeatedly obtain the greater fruit of those deeds. Śuka then spoke: On the eleventh day, fasting, Nanda worshipped Janārdana; on the twelfth, he entered the waters of the Kālindī to bathe. A servant of Varuṇa, an asura, seized him and brought him to Varuṇa’s presence, for Nanda had entered the water at night, disregarding the asuric boundary. The cowherds, unable to see Nanda, cried out, “Krishna! Rama!” Hearing their calls, the Blessed Lord understood that His father had been taken by Varuṇa. O King, the mighty one who grants fearlessness to His own went to that place. Seeing Hrishikesha arrive, the guardian of the world welcomed Him with great honor, worshipped Him splendidly, and spoke, celebrating the great festival of beholding Him. 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 Blessed Lord, Supreme Self, Brahman, where illusion and the imagined creation of worlds are not heard of. Unknowingly, through 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, let your father be taken back.” Thus propitiated, Krishna, the Lord of lords, took His father and returned, bringing joy to His relatives. Nanda, having witnessed the extraordinary glory of the guardian of the world and their reverence for Krishna, spoke to his kinsmen, astonished. The cowherds, their minds eager, wondered, “Will this Lord show us our own subtle destination?” The Blessed Lord, knowing the minds of His own people, considered this out of compassion, to fulfill their desire. People in this world, bewildered by ignorance, desire, and action, wander among higher and lower paths, not knowing their own true destination. Thinking thus, the Blessed Lord Hari, full of great compassion, revealed to the cowherds His own world, which is beyond darkness. That world is truth, knowledge, infinite—Brahman, the eternal radiance, which the sages behold when the qualities have ceased and their minds are absorbed. Krishna led them to the lake of Brahman, immersed them, and then lifted them out. They saw the world of Brahman, where Akrura had once gone. Nanda and the others, seeing that place, were filled with supreme bliss and, amazed, saw Krishna being praised there by hymns. Knowledge, discrimination, scripture, austerity, direct perception, tradition, and inference—whatever is present at the beginning and end of these, and time and causality as well, that alone exists in the middle. Just as gold, made by oneself before and after, is all-pervading in golden objects, so too, in the midst of various designations, the Lord is that. This knowledge is threefold in its states, consisting of the three guṇas—cause, effect, and agent; by both their conjunction and separation, that alone which is the fourth state is the truth. That which is not before, nor after, nor in the middle, is merely a designation; whatever is established as existent by the supreme, that alone is, thus is the Lord’s understanding. That which, though not existing, yet appears, is the transformation born of rajas; Brahman itself, being self-luminous, shines forth as the wondrous variety of Brahman, senses, objects, mind, and their modifications. Thus ends the twenty-eighth chapter of the first half of the tenth book in the great Purana, Srimad Bhagavata, the scripture of the supreme swan-like sages.