What to ask Mahajan Yamaraja for

Caturatma das: If you uphold your Dharma, Dharma will in turn protect you. This is an important thing to remember, that we all have a particular quality, a particular religious responsibility as Vaiṣṇavas and if we embrace those qualities of Vaiṣṇavas and are very true to them then they will also protect us as we go about our life’s work. There is one of those thoughtful phrases you see posted in different places around and it says, “You know, your honesty is who you are when nobody is watching.”

So this is the important thing to remember that the qualities that we’re supposed to represent as a devotee; we should be embracing those, and then this same qualities will be our own strength. In this way, Yamarāja served a very interesting purpose with Yudhiṣtira; a purpose that’s benefited by all of us today.

Yamarāja is one of the twelve Mahājanas. These are the personalities that give us our understanding and our standards in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. We can greatly benefit from that. Now for the non-devotee, for those not interested in their spiritual upliftment, Yamarāja has one purpose, he’s the lord of death. He’s feared by everyone who is not in their devotional position and he is the source of anxiety and stress when an individual who is not a devotee is leaving this world. But for those of us who are taking those instructions that he gives in our Kṛṣṇa Conscious development, he actually becomes our friend.