Born Again from Brahmā

While his mind was fixed on Kṛṣṇa, free of attachment and clean, his time came, sudden as lightning out of a cloud. His body of the five elements fell away, its work done, and he was joined to a pure body that belonged to the Lord. At the end of that age, when the Lord drew the world into himself and lay down on the waters to sleep, Nārada entered into him with his breath. When a thousand ages were over and the Lord rose again to send forth the world, Nārada was born again from Brahmā's breath, with Marīci and the other sages.

From then on, by the grace of Viṣṇu, he went about the three worlds, earth, sky and heaven, inside and outside, without any hindrance, his vow never broken. He carries a vīṇā the god gave him, and its music is Brahman, the one reality behind all things, become sound; and as he goes he sings the story of Hari. When he sings of the Lord's great deeds, the Lord comes at once into his mind, as if he had been called. For those whose minds are sick with longing for the things of the senses, Nārada says, the telling of Hari's deeds is the boat across the sea of becoming.