ye ye bhu-patayo rajan

 bhuñjate bhuvam ojasa

kalena te krtah sarve

 katha-matrah kathasu ca

 

Translation: 

 

My dear King Pariksit, all these kings who tried to enjoy the earth by their strength were reduced by the force of time to nothing more than historical accounts.

 

Purport: 

 

The word rajan, “O King,” is significant in this verse. Pariksit Maharaja was preparing to give up his body and go back home, back to Godhead, and Sukadeva Gosvami, his most merciful spiritual master, devastated any possible attachment that he might have to the position of king by showing the ultimate insignificance of such a position. By the causeless mercy of the spiritual master one is prepared to go back home, back to Godhead. The spiritual master teaches one to relax one’s strong grip on material illusion and leave the kingdom of maya behind. Although Sukadeva Gosvami speaks very bluntly within this chapter about the so-called glory of the material world, he is exhibiting the causeless mercy of the spiritual master, who takes his surrendered disciple back to the kingdom of Godhead, Vaikuntha.

 

Thus end the purports of the humble servants of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada to the Twelfth Canto, Second Chapter, of the Srimad-Bhagavatam, entitled “The Symptoms of Kali-yuga.”