Bhagavatam-daily 77 – 11.07.67 – A time for commiseration, a time for education

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Bhagavatam 11 767 refers to Now, the pigeons, so this is actually the Uddhavita going on.
The story of the pigeons is being narrated by the Avadhut Brahmana and distressing but sobering lesson will be described now in the next few verses. So, the she-pigeon in a franting, going into a frenzy on seeing her baby, her children trapped, has charged towards the net and has herself also got trapped. And now, kapotah swatmajan baddhan, now the pigeon, the he-pigeon has already agonized on seeing swatmajan, children, baddhan, that they were trapped and those children, what was their relationship, what was the extent of their affection, aatmano apy adhikaan priyaan aatmano, more than oneself, adhikaan, more than oneself, priyaan, so the children were more dear to the pigeon than his own life and he saw that they had been trapped and haaryam cha aatma samam di no, and his wife was as dear to him as himself, whom he considered to be aatma samam, equal to himself in every way, di no, so he felt he was unfortunate, he was devastated, vilalap ati dukhita, ati dukhita, being immensely distressed, vilalap, he started lamenting, so we can see how the life can change in just one moment, everything can just get devastated in one short moment and that is what has happened here to the family of the pigeons, birds were trapped, baby birds were trapped helplessly, they were just unsuspectingly, they were playing and they got trapped and the mother bird ran impulsively and got trapped, now the father bird is horrified, what can I do, we can actually think of what terrible, terrible grief that must be going through, now sometimes when people are in terrible grief, at that time to try to philosophize and to draw out some lesson from it may seem very hard hearted and we have to recognize that there is a time for commiseration and there is a time for education, commiseration means for sympathizing, empathizing with somebody’s misery and education or instruction means that we try to give higher understanding, we try to give wisdom by which that person recovers from that, so the point of this story is not to make us hard hearted insensitive and to not commiserate with someone who is suffering, from God forbid if somebody undergoes such a terrible, terrible calamity, the whole family seems to be in danger and about to be, about to die, that person will be in horrible distress, heartbreak practically and if we face a person at that time, it’s important to commiserate at that particular time, not to educate, so understanding the difference between when to commiserate and when to educate that is the essence of sensitivity, so when Abhimanyu’s, when Abhimanyu passed away or was killed rather, brutally, unfairly killed when he was outnumbered and unarmed, so when Arjuna came to know about it, he was, he was devastated first and then infuriated and Krishna did not give any philosophy, you are not the body, you are the soul, don’t be attached to bodily emotions, Krishna was very sensitive at that time and he commiserated with him and he encouraged him to overcome the grief, not by a philosophical education but by sensitive commiseration primarily, so we are not meant to become hard hearted but at the same time, we are not meant to become, we shouldn’t let our emotions make us empty headed either, that we shouldn’t become so ruled by emotions that we can’t think properly at all, so this particular story is actually telling us that how griefs can multiply, griefs that come because of factors beyond our control can multiply if we don’t take care of the factors in our control, so the she-bird could not restrain her emotions and she just charged in, now the bird, baby bird’s trap was not under her control but her reaction was under her control but when she did not exert that control, what happened was that the whole situation became worse and she got trapped and now two significant words come over here with respect to the relationship of the Kapotaha, his children it is said to be more dear to him than himself and his Bharyam said to be equal to himself in every way, so that is the nature of affection in this world that for the sake of affection, one is sometimes ready to lay down one’s life also and one starts feeling that what is the point of my life without my loved ones, so this sort of affection it is not that this has to be abandoned but it has to be guided in a higher direction, even if no one is there for us, Krishna is there for us and when we don’t direct our emotions towards higher things, then we get caught and trapped, now the Kapotas, the pigeons may not have the higher intelligence, the higher consciousness to understand spiritual truths or to even inquire about the spiritual dimension and to learn to love the supreme spiritual reality Krishna, but we do have that and we are meant to use it, so we can learn from nature and we can see that how when misery comes in the lives of others, just as when somebody gets infectious disease, then we see them suffering, then we want to learn, we certainly sympathize with their suffering and if we can help them in any way to become, to recover in the recovery, we will, if we have a relationship with them and if I have the capacity to help them, we can and should help them, but along with that we also need to learn, we naturally will want to know what caused the disease, was it infected water, was it infected food, I should make sure that I don’t get infected like that, so when we see others in distress, at one level we want to, if possible, minimize their distress, at another level we also want to help them, we also want to make sure that our distress, that we don’t undergo such distress, that we can prevent, take preventive measures to avoid it, so the purpose of the story is to help us learn to take the preventive measure and the preventive measure is not just not developing relationships or not showing affection, but it is not letting affection rule our intelligence, not let material affection monopolize our affection, so that we have no intelligence, no emotion left for our spiritual side, which is actually eternal, so here, the intense affection caused intense lamentation, and that intense lamentation, how it will cause further devastation, that will be narrated in the future verses, thank you.