Bhagavatam-daily 76 – 11.07.66 – Attachment constricts our intelligence

Bhagavatam-daily podcast:

In this verse thank you so the bhagavatam 11th canto here as a part of the uddhava gita the avadhut brahmana is telling what he has learned from different people and he’s telling what he’s learned from the pigeons so he’s describing the tragic conclusion of the story of the pigeons so the hunter has trapped the baby pigeons and the mother and father she and he pigeon have come back and the sheep pigeon is charging towards the net in which her children are trapped saw that sheep pigeon spontaneously constantly we normally use it to refer to qualities in the vernacular languages quite often in hindi marathi and the language but in guna in sanskrit can also mean quality but can also mean modes and the word guna in sanskrit also mean ropes actually so the modes are ropes and similarly here the word guna is used in the sense of ropes she was bound by the ropes of the modes and constantly she was bound by the rope of the more than so chitta means consciousness or intelligence and dina is actually limited crippled so her consciousness her intelligence had become constricted she had become short-sighted because of being bound by attachment and where was that attachment coming from refers to the unborn supreme lord is his illusory energy so because of her continuous attachment she had been bound by the illusory lord and her intelligence had become crippled constricted so so soyam herself she ran towards the net she got caught in the net so she chose the net but in trying to rescue the children and while she was observing them with a stricken heart and a bewildered memory having forgotten herself so impulsive action can make a problem far bigger than what it needs to be now it is natural and necessary for us to do what we can when our loved ones are in danger but now the very instinct the very feeling of affection that brings that makes us responsible can also make us foolhardy can make us a reckless and can delude and destroy us you know say when a couple are there when they get a child the couple may just think that oh we are having fun in life but when they get a child and they have a child and that the presence of that young child in their lives brings a sense of responsibility we have a precious now life is dependent on us so that actually makes them more responsible because they realize that caring for others can actually draw us out of our self-centered pursuits of pleasure so the husband wife may think that we just have to enjoy yeah but then a child is there you know we have a responsibility to take care of the child so the affection is not affection can be good because when our impulsiveness is the the the the irresponsible or the carefree search for pleasure that is there that can be checked and regulated by the search by affection so often affection can when we have affection for people other people that can bring out our good side so a student who goes to college and goes to hostel and sees the whole world of sin opened up at that time in the college may well feel inspired oh my parents have i have taken care of me they have given me such values in education they are paying for my education and so i must behave responsibly i must not get spoiled in this campus culture so that sense of affection can bring out the good within us but at the same time if it is not checked properly if it is not regulated with intelligence with the understanding of the broader aspects of life then it can actually make us do foolish things make us do dangerous things self-destructive things it’s described because of being bound by affection the consciousness had become the intelligence had become crippled the nature of attachment is that it it constricts our vision our intelligence a person who is say attached to alcohol the intelligence becomes concentrated constricted generally we use the word concentrated in a positive sense constricted in a negative sense uh constrict concentrated means we by a conscious act of choice for to achieve a particular particular constructive purpose we try to focus our consciousness on a particular thing whereas constriction refers to the thing getting limited often not because of our will but because of some external forced circumstance something about which we are helpless. So essentially the difference between the two is in terms of the recognition that one is by one’s concentration by one’s choice for a particular purpose so student wants to study and for that study the consciousness is going here and there focuses on one particular thing the subject which is under study and puts aside everything else where a constriction happens when without our conscious conscious or deliberate exercise of our intelligence because of the force of circumstances one just doesn’t think of anything else so for alcoholic there is not constant that we can what is happening is not exactly concentration although we can say that alcohol is concentrated but that’s not by a conscious choice it’s because of the force of the conditioning so it’s a constriction of consciousness where the alcoholic can’t think of anything beyond the pleasure of alcohol and therefore just gets constricted just doesn’t think of consequences for one’s own body for one’s family members for one’s finances for one’s career for one’s life itself so similarly a constriction of consciousness has happened for the she-bird and she says oh my children they are in danger and what will happen to them who will protect them thinking like this he just charges into the net and gets trapped so affection so affection itself is not a bad thing but when affection is allowed to cause actually generally we use the word affection in a positive sense and attachment in a negative sense so an attachment is used to let attachment uh constrict our consciousness then we often end up doing foolhardy things which can cause harm to us and cause harm to others as happened to this she-bird when she in a frantic bid to somehow get close to her children or the birdlet she just charged in and got trapped in the same net in which they were trapped what happened next we will discuss in future sessions thank you