Bhagavatam-daily 132 – 11.09.04 – Even the ignorant can inspire seekers of the transcendent

11.94 Avadhut Brahmana is continuing his instruction to Maharaja Yadu and he’s speaking about a intriguing feature of material existence in the previous verse he said how attachment is the attachment especially in terms of possessiveness is the cause of misery and in this verse he states how detachment is the source of and then he said that detachment is a source of freedom from misery and he said how I am detached and so I can move around freely without any anxiety and now he says there are two kinds of people who are free from anxiety Dvaveva chintaya muktau two kinds of people certainly chintaya muktau they are free from anxiety and they experience great happiness Vimuktho is one who is foolish ignorant jada and is like a is retarded without developed activities jada balo childish and one who is one who is beyond the modes of material nature having achieved having achieved the supreme one who is gathaha situated knows the supreme is situated in the supreme now this means that every particular observation has a particular purpose if we see from external point of view the mode of goodness involves people who are relatively peaceful then the mode of passion involves people who are very active and even the mode of ignorance involves people who are relatively inactive and they may seem peaceful but although externally goodness and ignorance appear similar they are radically different because in goodness the person is situated in knowledge and it is the it is the acquisition of knowledge and the subsequent use of intelligence to choose activity intelligently because of which the person in goodness is peaceful because the goodness thinks and then invests energy carefully on the other hand in ignorance often when the person is inactive that is because of laziness so externally sometimes goodness and ignorance may appear similar but they are radical opposites similarly here the two categories of people are talked about as similar but they are radical opposites these two categories of people who are talked about here are the those who are transcendent the modes and those who have and so those who are right at the bottom uh that means those who are above the modes and those are below the modes now we have to say there’s a world of difference between the two isn’t it how can those who are at the bottom of the cycle of the modes how can they be considered to be equal to those who have transcended the bottom of the modes and those are top of the modes how are they similar in the sense that they are free from anxiety now the similarity is that the person in ignorant person who is childish who is here three words are used one who is ignorant one who is retarded one who is childish now these kind of people their characteristic is that they can’t see the future at all they don’t they can’t they don’t have the capacity they’re not developed enough to they just live in the present and because they have no capacity to think about the future just like children just want to play and they think that lifelong i’ll be able to play they don’t think that in the future i have to grow up i have to take a job i have to earn a living and for that i have to prepare for a career and they don’t so the childishness or unintelligence is characterized by inability to see one’s future so on one side the ignorant are free from anxiety because they can’t see the future they don’t have the capacity developed to see the future and on the other hand those who transcended the modes they understand that i am spirit those who have situated with the lord they understand this is my eternal ecstatic destiny no matter what happens in future at the material level at the spiritual level i will always be with the lord and i will always be happy and that is what i want forever so therefore i will not let myself get agitated by any worldly thing instead they just because they have risen above the modes because they know that they are not the body that the soul and they feel constantly the presence of krishna so there is no reason for them to feel anxious they are simply joyful being situated in the lord and this way they are happy so the comparison of these two or the relative equation of these two is given to emphasize a central point the central point is what the brahmin learned from the kurara bird that possessiveness is what causes misery attachment to wanting more and more things is what causes misery the pursuit of sense gratification because of which one wants things because one thing things will give sense gratification that is what causes misery so recognizing this if one gives up the pursuit of sense gratification then the person can stay free from misery and that’s how an individual can be happy in life so the way to happiness um is by being free by becoming free breaking free from attachments so the point of this verse is not to equate the two but to by the dramatic equalization of the two underscore the point that we need not get ourselves unnecessarily agitated with anxiety there is a famous story alexander and an indian sage and alexander’s teacher asked him that when you go to india and conquer india you know i would like to interact with the indian sage so you please get an indian sage with me you know when you come back so he asked surges to search for indian sage and summon him to his presence the indian sage refused to come and he was he went to the and he asked what do you uh what do you want and so he started talking and the indian sages just move out of the way you are coming in the way of my son way of my bathing in the sun he said i am the emperor of the world so he said okay fine as you know so um so he said so what what is uh so the see when the key basically when the when the sage just told him nonchalantly move out of the way he said do you know i’m the emperor of the world and what are you doing just sitting here doing nothing he said yes what is the goal of your life he says i conquered most of the world i want to conquer the entire world and then what so then i’ll conquer all the directions then what then i’ll have many wives lots of horses and lots of pleasures then what then i’ll have children then what then all my then i will relax and enjoy so he said i’m doing that right now so the point of this is not that one become passive but that one not be needlessly hyperactive so the sage who has transcended three modes who is situated in transcendent that person is happy because the person is free from attachment worldly attachments is connected to the absolute truth who is the source of all happiness so similarly what we need to do is that we also try to shed our attachments slowly and the more we can shed our attachments the happier we will find ourselves and over a period of time by shedding attachments like this we’ll move closer and closer to krishna and then we will transcend the modes that we will become forever happy so chintaya mukta as it is stated now the point of comparing uh with a person who is jada who is jada balo is that that state of there is carefree attitude and there is careless attitude so those who are carefree are they are carefree are so not because they are irresponsible but because they have handed over their care to krishna and those who are in ignorance they are careless because because they just uh they just irresponsible they don’t see the future they don’t need to see the need to plan for the future whereas there are the in between are not we won’t call them careful we will call them care filled they are filled with so many cares so instead of letting such care such anxiety such worries burden oneself one can rise to the