The Key Ingredient

What attracted Lord Krishna to this elephant? Was it the incredible and unusual sight of an animal reciting a prayer? Was it the content of the prayer, a comprehensive delineation of Krishna’s glories, that attracted Him to the scene? Neither of these grab the attention of the Supreme Lord. After all, eloquent prayers are regularly recited in His honour by all kinds of living entities. The outstanding feature of Gajendra’s prayer was the sheer desperation with which it was uttered. Gajendra finally realised how precarious his position in the world was, not simply under the attack of the crocodile, but under the grips of the material energy. His eternal position was to be an eternally joyful servant of God, and when Gajendra understood this, he spontaneously uttered those beautiful prayers. The point was not that he knew the prayer and used it to remove himself from an ugly predicament, but that he felt the prayer, and recited it with his heart.