Last week, we read the story of Dhundhukari, who committed all kinds of atrocities, driving his mother to commit suicide and father to run away from home and take up the life of a renunciate. This Dhundhukari was also killed by five women he was living with. After death of his body, his soul remained like a whirlwind, with none to help him with food and water to satiate the hunger and thirst that the dead experience.
His elder brother Gokarna returned from his pilgrimage at Gaya. He had done the funeral ceremony for his brother and mother there itself. He came to his village house. Dhundhukari appeared to him in a frightening fiery form—now like an elephant, then like a ram; now like the king of gods Indra and then like fire. Gokarna chanted a mantra and sprinkled that water on the ghostly form of his brother. With power from the sprinkled water, the ghost spoke, appealing to him to do something for him to attain salvation. “But I gave offerings at Gaya in your name?” Gokarna said. “For the sins that I have committed, that offering alone is not enough,” the ghostly Dhundhukari replied, and prayed to him to find some special means.
Even the learned men of the village could not find a suitable answer. Gokarna then stopped the Sun god by virtue of his penance and asked him to tell a means to liberate his brother. “It is from the Srimad Bhagavata that the mind can be liberated. Arrange for its week-long rendition,” the Sun god replied.
The whole village gathered to listen to the Bhagavata discourse by Gokarna himself. While the living humans occupied their respective seats, a bamboo pole with seven knots was erected and Dhundhukari’s spirit entered into it. As each day progressed, a loud sound would be heard and one nodule of the bamboo will burst. On the seventh day, all the nodules burst and out emerged a divine form looking like Sri Krishna himself and was taken to Vishnu loka in a celestial car by divine messengers.
All the people were amazed to see how Dhundhukari got transformed by listening to the Bhagavatam. However, Gokarna asked the messengers, “While everyone listened, how is it that only Dhundhukari is liberated?” The messengers replied, “True, all listened, but it was only Dhundhukari who listened with complete attention and contemplation.”
On hearing this, another such discourse of the Srimad Bhagavatam was arranged for a week by Gokarna himself and this time, the audience listened with so much concentration and devotion that the whole auditorium of people ascended to Vaikunta, the realm of Vishnu.
(www.sharanyachaitanya.blogspot.in)