Bhagavatam-daily 100 – 11.08.16 – See analogy in the light of its purpose to avoid misunderstanding

Thank you. So, by this person, arjitair is attained, accumulated. So, with great trouble, with dukkha, that which is attained with misery, with tair, so the earning wealth requires great endeavor, pain, misery.
So, those who are very strongly desirous of things, those who are desiring worldly pleasures, Madhuha is the first, enjoys, similarly, the enunciates enjoy what is accumulated by the householders. Now, what this verse means is just as the honey stealer, the honey thief enjoys first whatever is collected by the honey bees. Similarly, whatever money is collected with great pain by grihasthas, desirous of worldly enjoyment, that is first enjoyed by the renunciates.
Now, the same issue, same subject can be seen from different ways. So, earlier, this example of, in the previous verse, this example of the honey bee stealing the honey was given. Now, in this verse, so at that point, the example was given for saying that one should not be foolish like a honey bee.
I can collect a lot of honey, which one will not be able to enjoy oneself. Now, in this verse, the Brahmana, the Brahmana is taking lessons even from an unflattering comparison. Vishwanath Chakraborty explains that I can learn even from the bee collector, honey bee collector.
So, in the honey bee collector, it does, lets others do all, that means the honey bees do all the hard work and just comes and takes the honey. So, he says like that, as a renunciate, I get the food which the householders labor to earn. So, I am also, I am not deprived of sense, I am not deprived of my bodily needs because of my renunciation, whatever I need is available to me, I get it.
Now, of course, every analogy has its limitation. And although the Madhuha, the thief collector is doing something unrighteous, is doing something, is taking away the, we could say that it is the word ha, thief is used. So, it is stealing away what the bee collector has accumulated.
Whereas, here the honey bee is, here the saintly mendicant is taking something which is being collected ultimately for the good of the householder. So, although it may appear that they are similar, and the similarity is pointed out by the Audubh Brahmana, but we also have to see from the point of view of the whole section, where we see the saintly consciousness of the Audubh Brahmana, and we have talked about, and saintly qualities of renunciate also. So, the point of learning here is that the renunciate gets what is required, either for his necessities or even for his services, just as those who want to do some services for the Lord, they get Lakshmi without, for the service of Narayana, without having themselves to do laborious work, they get it from the, as the result of the laborious works of others who then donate Lakshmi for the service of Narayana.
So, although externally it may seem that the hubby collector very unbrutally collects the movie and then takes it away from the hubby who has actually collected it, and it may externally seem that the renunciate do something like that, the householders get all, work very hard and earn money and the renunciates take it away. So, we should not let one words or let one aspect of one example mislead us. Now, one perspective of looking at this is that as renunciates one should not worry, one will get one necessities satisfied by the arrangement of the Lord.
So, another way of looking at it is from the householders point of view that the whole Uddhava Gita and in fact the whole Bhagavatam is largely focused on a message of renunciation. Parikshit Maharaj is about to die and for a person on the verge of death, the focus has to be on unswervingly on the imminent death that is coming and therefore all other distractions should be minimized if not eliminated. So, here when a person is working very hard in householder life, trying to accumulate things and trying to fulfil desires, if the householder thinks objectively, then with a dispassionate attitude and say that actually my body necessities, I am working so hard to fulfil them and yet the renunciates who don’t work so hard, they are getting those same necessities also.
So, now this is meant to inspire a mood of renunciation, a mood of emulating in their footsteps and similarly focusing on spiritual life. Now, if one is uninformed, then one may start resenting the renunciates. Oh, these people are doing, they are good for nothing, they are parasites and this verse seems to legitimize their parasitical existence by saying that they are actually like honeybee collectors who take away the honey.
So, similarly I am working so industriously and I am earning money and these householder renunciates are taking it all away and we have to understand that everything has to be seen from a long-term perspective. So, the renunciates also have to work hard, their hard work is internal, it is not so much physical as it is internal, mental and intellectual and spiritual. Imagine somebody who is fighting against formidable enemies, a wrestler fighting against 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, so many enemies keep coming and fighting and the wrestler keeps fighting again and again resisting those enemies, it’s going to be exhausting work.
So, similarly the renunciates have to fight the internal enemies, lust, anger, greed, especially one who has renounced the world has to fight lust constantly and has to resist it, cannot indulge in it. So, that is a fierce and draining fight. So, in this world actually nobody is saved from fighting, everybody has to fight unless of course one is fully purified, then one fights only for the cause of Krishna, to share Krishna’s love with the world and to overcome anti-devotion forces in this world.
But the point relevant to our discussion here is that everyone has to fight and the renunciates also have to work hard, work hard to overcome their own impurities and if they overcome impurities then they have to fight to overcome the impurity of pride because it is very easy to become proud when one sees that oh I am above all these desires and these people are so much caught by these desires. So, anyway instead of getting going off on a tangent, we need to see that the renunciates are helping the householders because the householders if they do not give charity for a higher spiritual cause then their money which they have earned that will become a cause of bondage for them. So, charity is a very important principle in scripture and the charity which the householders give it is not just for the householders benefit, it is not just for the renunciates parasitical living, not at all.
It is for the householders spiritual protection to save them from karmic bond, getting karmically bound. Now, the important point in this verse is that the practical point that can be applied is that why should one work laboriously for getting things that one cannot enjoy anyway and others get those basic things anyway without all the hard work. So, when a householder compare householders compare their lives with the renunciates, I think the renunciates are also getting the basic necessities of life and now I accumulate more to enjoy more but and that wealth is going away to the renunciates.
Now, people who resent this may say that why should we give any donations, we will not give any donations and we will keep the wealth that we will enjoy but the problem is that when we enjoy adharmically then the desire for enjoyment keeps growing and growing and growing and greed becomes like a giant who outgrows whatever cloth however big we get for it. So, no matter how much we earn it will never be enough and the point is we will earn and we will want to work harder to earn more again which will fuel the greed and which will make us work harder to earn more and it’s a never-ending spiral. So, the point is of this verse is that we should not waste our energy in greedy accumulation but focus on spiritual realization the way the renunciates are focused.
Now, it’s not that householders can renounce the world and they needn’t also in the path of bhakti through all ashrams one can attain perfection but the point is we need to have a spiritual focus whatever the ashram. So, if the renunciates think oh this renounced ashram is a simple is a very convenient cozy arrangement where others work for me and I will enjoy the food and other facilities which they give as donations then the renunciate will also fall and the purpose of spiritual realization and liberation will not be fulfilled for a renunciate and similarly if the householder thinks that oh you know these renunciates are lazy good for nothing and why should I why should I give any relation to them so then this accumulates wealth for sense gratification and then that householder will also fall into deeper and deeper entanglement of greed enslavement to greed. So, whatever be the order one has to learn from life learn from nature learn from scripture and make one’s life more spiritually focused and less materially obsessed.