Bhagavatam-daily 26 – 11.07.16 – Material improvement can’t replace spiritual advancement

And from the next verse onwards krishna will clarify thank you here uddhava ishwara bhagavatam 11 17 16 is continuing his request to the lord to enlighten him and he is taking the role of a conditioned soul speaking his plight so i am in the situation of mama and aham me and mine i am i mood material regard us this is the mood amati the deluded mentality it is a very deep i merged in it regard us and behind my illusion is your illusory energy and so by the illusory energy it has been created so with the body and the things related with the body bodily relationships so i am bound in that i am immersed in that regard has so by your illusory energy i had the foolish mentality of being absorbed in the body and its relationships thinking of them as me and mine but easily we have instructed by you the process what is the process that i can easily execute teach me the process by which i can become liberated from this bodily illusion so here uddhava is asking the most fundamental question that every serious seeker needs to ask now sarva dukkham everything is miserable everything is misery this is one of the great truths of buddhism actually prabhupada writes that actually buddhism jainism impersonalism and vaishnavism they all have something in common that is the recognition that this world is a place of misery and that the attempts to enjoy this world will increase misery will not bring happiness and therefore one has to go beyond this world now what exists beyond this world and what is the exact means for going beyond the world for that these different traditions have different means but essentially recognize that this world is an illusion in terms of what its promise of happiness so to identify this world is mudha mater the word mudha often refers to a donkey so donkey like mentality that is foolish mentality now the bhagavad-gita also defines yoga as freedom from misery of course it gives many definitions but one of the definitions 6.23 is that dukkha-sanyoga vyoga-yoga-sangita dukkha-sanyoga the contact with the dukkha that is there vyoga separation from that end of that that is a yoga-sangita that is called as yoga so bhakti yoga is the top most of the yogas in the sense that it most easily and effectively cuts off our connection from the miseries of this world by reconnecting us with the lord of the world whom we serve even through this world that means bhakti doesn’t focus on rejecting the negative but on subordinating the negative to the positive and harmonizing the negative with the positive so the world is a negative place in the sense that it is a source of illusion entanglement and misery we think the objects in this world are pleasurable no alcoholic things at all this but water of alcohol is the gateway to enjoyment that is an illusion and then there is entanglement entanglement is the alcoholic drinks once drinks twice drinks thrice and then becomes an addict and can’t give up drinking even when knowing that it will cause suffering and in the end there is suffering of course so the world is a place of illusion entanglement and misery now the wise asking some sadhyaani what method should i follow please instruct me oh lord by which i can get out of this world now one of the disadvantages of modern culture is that it is expert in concealing the miseries of material existence now of course it’s not that we have to parade or aggravate the miseries of material existence wherever there are miseries they have to be dealt with properly after the after the Kurukshetra war so many soldiers were killed and so many women became widows so the Yudhishthir made huge arrangements putting care of all the widows it’s not that he told them oh now we have realized this world is Dukkhaalem so now experience that no he tried to provide for them to the best using all the resources of the state that were available in the treasury that’s how his treasury got exhausted eventually so of course he did Yajna also and for that Arjuna got things from Arjuna got gold for him that’s how that’s one of the reasons why Arjuna’s name is Ananjaya so now the point which we are focusing on is that it’s not that when the because the world is a place of misery we let things be miserable or we make things more miserable no that’s not the point the point is that though this world is a place of misery we have a duty to try to help each other and within the scope of duty we try to minimize each other’s misery as much as possible but decreasing misery is not the same as concealing misery or denying misery modern civilization with its promise Yudhishthir he certainly tried to relieve the misery of others but also he ruled life ruled the kingdom according to Dharma and facilitate people to follow follow Dharma so that they could practice Dharma and get out of this world of misery ultimately so modern civilization on the other hand focuses on this denying misery and promising that things will be all right here itself if you just get a fast internet connection if you just get a quicker airplane travel if you just get this you just get that then this world will become like paradise that is a false hope a hope which will never come true now the providing material comforts and material needs it’s not wrong it’s like a doctor giving a painkiller now when a painkiller is giving along and along with the medicine the medicine is yoga is ultimately bhakti yoga so when the medicine the painkiller is given with the medicine and the patient can take the treatment the main medicine and get cured but so that is what the kings in the past did so the material social work was like the painkiller and the administration of Dharma and encouragement facilitation for people to practice Dharma that was the medicine now today’s culture not only discouraging this approves the medicine saying that oh religion is sectarian religion is sentimental pre-scientific mythology or whatever but on top of that it makes appear as if it makes the promises the painkiller itself will cure and that is unfortunate the painkiller can never cure no matter how much endeavors are made so if you want cure then we have to go beyond the painkiller to the medicine and most people don’t realize that the painkiller is not going to be enough and they just they just keep seeking temporary mitigation of pain through more and more technologically passionate and aggravated forms of stimulation and at the end they just left empty and they have they are empty internally but they are hugely loaded karmically and then suffer the consequence in this and future lives are the consequences are called the law of karma so accepting that this world is a place of misery is the easiest not about perpetuating misery but it is about finding the balanced way to come out of misery this combination of painkiller and medicine that is what we should be talking about we need to know how to navigate living in this world and we also need to know how to progress towards returning to Krishna in the next life that is the knowledge that Uddhava will be receiving from Krishna and that we can also receive from the scripture to live intelligently in this world to do our duties here to create some level of order and stability in our life so that we can go beyond this world so whether it is a brahmacharya or a grahastha the idea is not to think that we can make this world a happy place but it is to have some level of order so that one can pursue spiritual life seriously and return back to Krishna where we will be