Bhagavatam-daily 127 – 11.08.43 – Peacefulness amidst distress shows authentic detachment

Devotional service and that way we become our own protectors. Thank you.
having made her intelligence one-pointed her refers to pingala the and the brahmana who is speaking this refers to the brahmana who is speaking to maharaj yadu instructing what he learned from his 24 gurus so he’s concluding what he learned from pingala over here in this way she made her mati her consciousness fixed one-pointed intent determined what are the determination that is a bad desire a sinful desire a misdirected desire refers to a craving for lovers the desire which had been born from a hankering for lovers she gave up that desire she gave up her desire for lovers then upashama is peacefulness peacefulness tranquility she became situated in that tranquility and thereafter shayam upaviveshya sa shayam on her bed upaviveshya sa she sat down now this might seem to be an anticlimactic end to the whole narrative in fact this is the last verse in this chapter which directly talks about pingala the next verse is the conclusion of the chapter where brahmana where although brahmana gives the and gives the conclusion of the lesson that he has learned from there so here he speaks the denouement the conclusion of the particular story of pingala and he states that thus when she sang her song that’s when she verbalized her epiphany epiphany is a sudden insight a deep realization so she had got this epiphany and after she got the epiphany she verbalized it in terms of the song which she spoke from the verse 30th from 30th to 42 13 verses and after that her resolution became strengthened often we have some thoughts in our mind which when we try to put them into words even if you are not able to put them precisely above precisely in words still the attempt to put them in words crystallizes those thoughts and then our resolution to do that thing often becomes stronger so as she tried to her she verbalized her thoughts so her mati her consciousness became determined she had already expressed that determination her determination was that she would offer herself she would surrender to the lord and in that way by offering herself to him she would purchase and just as ramayana enjoys with the lord ramayana is the goddess of fortune similarly she will also enjoy so this was her determination and with this determination that no other lovers are going to satisfy me only the supreme lord will satisfy me therefore i’ll to him he has made it easier for me to surrender to him because he has given me as it was described at the start of the past time in 28th verse so here it is described that now she is her determination has become strengthened reinforced and durasham the durasham the misdirected desire asha is desire dura is it can mean bad desire it can be misdirected desire can be difficult to fulfill desire in this context it means the misdirected desire the wrong desire her sinful desire what are the desire about kanta is lover tarsha is craving hankering jump means born from so the desire for a lover the craving for a lover which had made her desire to dress herself nicely and this was seductively and go out into the streets to attract attract someone she that desire durasham chitvo she gave up that desire and after giving up that desire upashamam asthaya shama refers to peacefulness this word shama has come earlier in the 38th verse purusha shamam rikshate which is when nirveda when detachment comes then peacefulness comes because detachment means actually there are no agitating desires in the mind and if there are no agitating desires in the mind then one is naturally peaceful so chitvo upashamam asthaya she became situated in peacefulness so earlier if you look at the start of the section it is described how she was dejected her face had become morose and she was overall dejected but now she has become situated in peacefulness and then what should she do so internally mentally she’s situated internally she’s in peacefulness and physically she sat down on her bed in the bhagavad-gita at the start of the gita arjuna sits down he says that that he put aside his bow and so upavivashyad means to sit down he sat down on the ratha deciding not to fight so there sitting down is considered to be a sign of weakness a sign of bewilderment and at the end of the bhagavad-gita arjuna in this was 1.46 where he sat down and that was the last verse of the first chapter in the last verse of the 18th chapter 18.78 it described how he got up he is the wielder of the bow he has picked up his bow and is ready to fight so in that particular context arjuna’s indecision and inactivity were indicative of his bewilderment and his decision to do an activity to take up the duty of fighting as a service to krishna was a sign of his enlightenment in this particular context pingala sitting down on her bed is a sign of enlightenment because she has realized that the futility of her craving normally if a shopkeeper has a shop and normally say the shopkeeper works in the day and say throughout the day not a single customer comes to the shop the shopkeeper will be in great anxiety maybe we’ll go out may look for in summer some customer coming may beckon some customer to come and will be overall very restless so for a shopkeeper after a whole day of zero business to be peaceful is extremely unlikely now a prostitute is like a shopkeeper except that her shop is her own body the wares that she’s selling is her own body and she her shop usually opens at night so for a prostitute to not get any customer throughout the night that is a disaster she would be normally very restless and she was like that earlier but after her epiphany after her realization now she’s no longer restless now she has become enlightened and enlightenment has resulted in peace so her sitting down her sitting down although it may seem anticlimactic and somebody sitting down on a bed at night is an utterly ordinary thing but in this case because it not because normally it is an ordinary we may miss out its extraordinariness in this situation in this situation it indicates that her detachment was for real that she was indeed renounced and because she was renounced she did not get disturbed and that’s how she could peacefully sit down and accept that now my life has changed i will not be agitated if i don’t get anything from my from my sinful profession and one and here itself the story of the of the of pingala ends the philosophical lesson will come in the last verse now what happened to pingala afterwards did she get another job did she get married to some good man none of that is described in the bhagavatam none of the acharyas as far as i know also talk about it but the important point is that the avadhut brahmana when he is instructing maharaja yadu he is not doing a biographical life sketch of the various characters he is not a biographer per se he is a seer and he is sharing what he learned by his observations from different incidents in life so he is giving basically a vignette one incident from a life from which he has learned something so here he describes the incident he described what he has learned and then the incident gets over so we are not offered any postscript it’s like a novel after the main drama is over postscript sometimes comes okay not of bhagavatam does not use any postscript but the very fact that she had such faith in the lord which evinced and that she became transformed like this indicates that the lord would have arranged for her protection in some way or the other and more importantly through her the lord has through her realization being recorded in scripture and shared with us we have the opportunity to similarly protect ourselves