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Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Vishvaksena

There was a very dear, parama bhagavata devotee of Vishnu names Viswaksena. He was traveling throughout the world. Once, feeling tired, he sat down in a forest. There was a village close by. The son of the village chief happened to come by. Seeing the brahmana Viswaksena, he said, “I am the son of the village chief. I have a very bad headache today so I cannot offer worship to my ista, Shivaji. So I request you, please offer worship to Shivaji today on my behalf.”

Viswaksena said, “I am a Vishnu-bhakta, I am a dear devotee of Vishnu. I offer worship to Krishna and His forms such as Vishnu, Vasudeva, Sankarshana, Pradyumna and Aniruddha. I never offer worship to demigods. I never offer worship to anyone else. You may go elsewhere.”

The son of the village chief became angry and drew his sword, “if you do not obey me, if you do not worship my ista, Shiva, on my behalf, then I will cut off your head.”

In order to save himself from death, Viswaksena said, “Yes, yes. I will worship. I will worship.” He thought to himself that Shiva is Rudradev, the incarnation of ignorance, tamo-guna.

Rudra is the incarnation of tamo-guna and Nrisinghadev is the killer of the demons, in whom tamo-guna is predominating. So Viswaksena thought, “I must worship Nrisinghadev in the Shiva murti to kill this person’s tamo-guna.” So uttering the mantra “sri nrsimhaya namah” – “I offer my obeisances to Lord Nrsimhadeva” – he offered flower to the Shiva deity. When the son of the village chief heard him chant the mantra he got angry and drew out his sword to cut off his head, “What are you doing? You are uttering Nrisingha mantra? You are not worshiping my ista, Shiva!” When that person drew his sword to cut off Viswaksena’s head, immediately Nrisinghadev appeared from the Shiva murti and cut off the sword of that person and all of his family members.

So where is the difference between Shiva and Vishnu? This shiva-linga that Nrisingha came out of is still there in South India. It is known as linga-sphota. You may go and see it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishvaksena#Worship
https://www.google.com/search?q=linga+sphota 

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