Text 1: Sūta said: O brāhmaṇa Śaunaka! The powerful Vyāsa, son of Satyavatī, after hearing about Nārada’s birth and activities, again asked him questions.

Text 2: Vyāsa said: When the mendicants who had taught you that knowledge departed, being of young age, what did you do?

Text 3: Son of Brahmā! How did you spend the rest of your life? In what manner did you give up that body as the son of the maidservant at the time of death?

Text 4: Time destroys everything. Why did time not destroy your memories from some previous day of Brahmā?

Text 5: Nārada said : When the mendicant teachers who had given me knowledge left, even though I was of young age, I did as they instructed.

Text 6: My mother, a woman, uneducated, a menial servant, had only me as a son. She therefore had great affection for me, her only shelter.

Text 7: Because she was dependent, though she wanted to protect me she could not do so. Just as a puppet master controls a female puppet, the Lord controls all people.

Text 8: Only five years old, inexperienced with time, place and direction, I lived in a brāhmaṇa house, with the belief that she would never leave me.

Text 9: One time, a snake, impelled by time, touched by her foot, bit my poor mother who had gone from the house to milk the cow at night and was walking along the path.

Text 10: Considering that her death was the mercy of the Lord who is concerned for the welfare of his devotees, I departed immediately for the north.

Text 11: I passed through large populated areas, capitals, brāhmaṇa villages, cowherd villages, mines, farms, villages on mountain sides, gardens of flowers and betel, wild groves and plantations.

Text 12-13: Passing by mountains colored with gold and silver, trees with branches broken by elephants, pools with fresh water, and lakes used by the devatās, beautified by bees wandering about, awakened by the sounds of birds; all alone, I saw a huge, repulsive, fearsome forest dense with reeds, cane, clumps of śara grass, kuśa grass and hollow bamboo which was the playground for snakes, owls and jackals.

Text* 14: Senses and body exhausted, thirsty and hungry, after bathing in a pool of a river, I performed ācamana and took rest.

Text 15: In that desolate forest, sitting at the base of a pippala tree, I concentrated by using my intelligence on Paramātmā situated within my mind, as I had been taught.

Text 16: As I meditated on the lotus feet of the Lord with a mind conquered by prema, with tears in my eyes from longing, step by step the Lord made his appearance in my mind.

Text 17: My limbs covered in distinct goose bumps out of excessive prema, filled with delight, I fainted out of bliss, and could not see myself or the Lord.

Text 18: Suddenly not seeing the attractive form of the Lord which destroys all lamentation, I became agitated from the sorrow of separation. I became despondent like someone who has lost a treasure.

Text 19: Desiring to see that form again, I fixed my mind in the heart. Though I looked intently, I did not see that form. Dissatisfied, I became like a diseased person.

Text 20: As I endeavored to see him in that lonely place the Lord, inexpressible by words, then spoke to me with affectionate words, which removed my grief.

Text 21: Oh! In this body you will not be able to see me again. But lax practitioners who still have some contamination cannot see me at all.

Text 22: O sinless Nārada! I showed myself once to produce a desire in you to see me. The devotee so desiring me gradually becomes freed of all material desires.

Text 23: By serving the devotees for even a short time, your intelligence became firmly fixed in me. When you give up this body of low birth, you will become my associate.

Text 24: Your intelligence being absorbed in me will never be destroyed. Even at the time of creation and destruction of the living entities, by my mercy, your memory of the previous kalpa will not be destroyed.

Text 25: Having spoken this, the Lord, whose words are the highest proof, whose words appeared in the sky, who was not visible to the eyes, and who was capable of bestowing mercy to the most fallen boy, the Lord stopped speaking. Receiving his mercy, I lowered my head to greatest of the great.

Text 26: Giving up shyness, I began to chant the names of the unlimited Lord, and to remember his most excellent, hidden pastimes. I wandered the earth with satisfied mind, without material desires, without pride or selfishness, waiting for that time.

Text 27: O brāhmaṇa Vyāsa! Concentrating only on Kṛṣṇa, not attached to material enjoyment and pure in mind, the time of receiving my spiritual body occurred simultaneously with that of giving up my material body, like lightning flashing simultaneously with lightning.

Text 28: Having been awarded a transcendental body befitting an associate of the Lord, the body made of five material elements, with karmas relating to the present body, fell away.

Text 29: At the end of the kalpa when Brahmā withdrew the universe with his breathing, I entered into Brahmā who desired to sleep in Nārāyaṇa, who was lying in the water of the only ocean.

Text 30: At the end of thousand yuga cycles, Brahmā awoke and Marīci, other sages and I appeared from the senses of Brahmā, who desired to create the universe again.

Text 31: With continuous worship of the Lord, by the grace of Mahā-viṣṇu, I travel outside and inside the universe with no obstacles at all.

Text 32: Playing mūrcchanas and ālāpas on the vīṇa given by the Lord, using the seven sacred notes of the scale, I wander about singing the glories of the Lord.

Text 33: When I sing his glories, the Lord who makes any place that he touches holy, and who is attracted to those who sing his glories, quickly appears in my heart, as if being called.

Text 34: For persons whose minds are constantly afflicted with desires for enjoyment of sense objects, I have directly experienced that singing the glories of the Lord is the boat for crossing material existence.

Text 35: The ātmā constantly afflicted by lust and greed will not be satisfied by aṣṭaṅga-yoga and other paths as much as by direct service to Mukunda.

Text 36: O sinless Vyāsa! I have explained all this, confidential knowledge about my birth and activities about which you have asked so that your mind will be satisfied.

Text 37: Sūta said: Nārada, freely moving without material motive, having spoken to Vyāsa, the son of Satyavatī, and taking leave, departed while taking pleasure in his vīṇa.

Text 38: Oh! Nārada is most fortunate because, singing and rejoicing in the glories of Kṛṣṇa with his vīṇa, he gives bliss to the suffering world.