Śrī Śikṣāṣṭakam

“Oh son of Nanda Mahārāj, I am Your eternal servant, yet because of my own karma, I have fallen into this terrible ocean of birth and death. Please accept this fallen soul and consider me a particle of dust at Your holy lotus feet.”

As a result of my selfish fruitive activities, which are without beginning, I have fallen into the ocean of material existence. And now I can see no means of deliverance. Day and night my heart burns from the vicious poison of these worldly affairs, and due to this my mind never finds any true happiness.

I am bound by hundreds and hundreds of desires that give unending distress and these desires play in the waves of ever-increasing materialistic tendency. Lust, anger, greed, pride, illusion and envy are like six highway robbers making me greatly fearful, and in this way my life is coming to an end.

The two highway robbers named intellectual knowledge and fruitive activity have cheated and misled me, and finally they have thrown me into the ocean of misery. At such a time as this, dear Krishna, You are my only friend. You are an ocean of mercy. Please be kind upon me and uplift me from this condition of suffering by Your divine power.

I am Your eternal servant, Oh merciful Lord. But, having forgotten this since time immemorial, I have become bound up in this network of illusion. Take this fallen servant of Yours, give him a place in the dust of Your lotus feet; give your shelter to this humble Bhakti Vinod.