Bhagavatam-daily 20 – 11.07.10 – Don’t let relative security distract from absolute security

Thank you verse 10 so one who is endowed with knowledge and realization Krishna is continuing here instructions of Uddhava of how Uddhava should face the upcoming calamity of the departure of the lord and the advent of the age of Kali so he is saying that become endowed with knowledge and realization then for all embodied living beings such a person who is realized who is knowledgeable and realized becomes dear and then one gets a experience of one’s own self atma anubhava and when one gets the anubhava of the self Krishna says over here tushta atma so this line begins with atma and ends with atma so the anubhava leads to tushti the anubhava of the atma leads to tushti for the atma and then after that na antarayai vihanyase so antarayai means disturbances vihanyase means checked or disturbed blocked so your progress will not be blocked by disturbances so Krishna is saying if you acquire knowledge and realization you will become dear to all living beings you will become satisfied you will experience the self and become satisfied and you will not be checked by external disturbances so jnana vijnana samyukta jnana samyukta samyukta samyukta jnana samyukta jnana samyukta you become jnana vijnana samyukta and then atma let’s go to third line first atma anubhava tushita atma actually the soul is satchitananda the soul is joyful in and of its own constitution ananda is a part of the constitution of the soul of course the soul does not exist in isolation the soul exists in connection with krishna and the soul’s joyful nature is in a potential state at the realization of the atma but that potential becomes manifest or kinetic or active when there is service to krishna it’s like a person may be a millionaire and now the million dollars are there with the person but when the person acts as a millionaire say spends the money or gets a new car gets a big house gets whatever one wants then those million dollars give some pleasure just those million dollars in a conceptual state in a non-active state don’t really give pleasure of course because we are talking about material things from the transcendental point of view you can say that even possessing and spending wealth doesn’t give pleasure but for the relative point of view it’s an example that i may have a delicious feast in front of me but just having the feast in front of me doesn’t in and of itself make me contented it actually will make me more hungry more agitated have more craving it is when not when i have a feast in front of me in my plate it is when the feast goes into my stomach that i feel contented so so that way it is not just knowing that i am not the body and the soul that i am such ananda that will make us anandi but it is acting at the level of the soul and because the soul is a part of krishna and the soul is meant to serve krishna just as the part is meant to serve the whole so to the extent we serve krishna to that extent we become satisfied to that extent we become enriched to that extent we become elevated and tushta atma so the to truly get anubhav of the atma means to get anubhav to get experience of the soul’s nature to serve krishna and to get experience of the immense joy that is there and once you once one gets that then one feels that i don’t need any other joy so therefore tushta atma now atma bhutah sharir naam actually we may say that everybody has enemies in this world even great devotees like yudhisthira had enemies even prabhupada had his critics he was a great devotee so what does it mean to become dear to all living beings at one level even krishna doesn’t become dear to all living beings because even krishna had his blasphemers his enemies and even he had his assassins who wanted to kill him not just one but so many demons came to try to kill him so here we are talking about a principle there may be exceptions because of individual deviant mentalities but the devotee who is who is enriched with jnana vijnana that person does not desire to lord it over anyone does not envy anyone does not have any inimical feeling towards anyone so that friendly disposition that friendly disposition towards others comes back as friendly disposition from others and in this way there is there is the joyful interchange of good wishes of positive vibrations between the devotee and others and then he says that when this is there one will not be disturbed by externals you know to the extent we need the externals to the extent we think that those externals are the source of our pleasure to that extent disturbances in those external things will agitate us if a person is a drunkard and a person finds out that oh the bottle the rack in which the bottle was kept somehow that rack had a weak nail and the rack has fallen and the liquor bottle has fallen in the floor and smashed and all the liquor is wasted now the alcoholic will feel very disturbed by that somebody else for whom the alcohol doesn’t mean much will not be disturbed why because for the alcoholic alcohol is considered to be a source of pleasure the alcoholic is not and therefore there is there will be disturbance there will be agitation there is disruption because of because of external disturbance so this is just a extreme example now most of us are not alcoholics but we all have our things which are equivalent to alcohol bottles things which are those objects of our attachment and things which if small difficulties happen in that small dangers come to that small threats come to that we become enormously agitated it may be our bank account it may be our house it may be our job we may say these things are important yes yes definitely they are important and we need them for our survival for our security for our position in society but we need to know that none of these are going to have offer permanent security and yes we need relative security also in this world while we are living but we should not be so lulled into the sense of safety by relative security that we become blind to the ultimate unsecurity the ultimate destructibility of the world the ultimate so we seek relative security so that we can focus on seeking ultimate security absolute security for one who has absolute security then the loss of the relative security also does not disturb much yes there is a matter of concern when things go wrong when we are concerned but we are not disturbed then we have ultimate security the security of our connection with Krishna then no matter what happens in the outer world we know that security is there for us always security of our connection with Krishna and when some form of relative security gets upset gets lost then we are concerned because while living in the world we need that relative security also to some extent so we are concerned but we don’t get disturbed because we know we are not personally threatened as souls who are parts of Krishna who are under the protection of Krishna we will always be safe but as souls who are living in the bodies in particular societies we also have to make arrangements so that we can function effectively in this world and we will do that we don’t let our sense of identity and security rest in our arrangements for relative security rather by practicing sadhana bhakti seriously by remembering Krishna we get a taste of the absolute security of Krishna and by that even if relative security goes off sometimes as is going to happen to Uddhava Uddhava is a part of prosperous powerful kingdom the Yadu dynasty and the supreme lord also there now of course this is not relative security at one level it’s absolute security because the lord is there and his associates are there but because the lord and his associates their presence on the earth is temporary at least in the manifested past times so they that is going to become unmanifest now so there is going to be insecurity for Uddhava at the relative level but Krishna is telling that if you experience transcendence Atma Nama Tushita Atma if you experience transcendence then you will not be disturbed even when there are external disturbances because you will be sheltered in the absolute security of devotion to me and that is the absolute security that we should all seek while living in this world and having our relative securities we don’t let all our energy get wasted in just trying to maintain or improve our relative security better bank balance better house better relationships we can put some limited effort for these things but our primary focus should be on using all these relative securities so that we can get the absolute security of our sincere strong sustained devotion for Krishna thank you