Bhagavatam-daily 82 – 11.07.72 – Seek shelter from merciless hunters in the mercful Lord

Bhagavatam-daily podcast:

Thank you. Srimad Bhagavatam 11.7.72 tam labdhva lubdhaka kroorah kapotam grihamedhinam kapotakan kapotimcha siddhartah prayogriham So, the Brahmana is continuing instructing Yudhu Maharaj about his 24 gurus and he is telling what he learnt from the parrot.
The story is coming to the conclusion which though distressing is also sobering and enlightening. So, here tam labdhva after that obtaining is referring to now the lubdhaka kroorah lubdhaka is the hunter kroorah was cruel of the hunter has to because of the nature of the profession of killing become desensitized to pain and to a large extent one who kills on a daily basis becomes heartless because the heart will become an obstacle in the daily killing so one deadens the heart it happens consciously as well as subconsciously so just as somebody might cut butter or bread like that a hunter sometimes cuts animals isn’t it completely desensitized to the pains of those animals so kroorah kapotam grahamedhinam kapotam is the pigeon who was grahamedhinam grahamedhi is one who is attached to the household life he was blindingly attached to his family and because of that far from helping them he himself also got trapped as they were trapped in the hunter’s net so kapotakam kapotimcha so now the hunter had got the hunter had originally by his efforts got the baby birds but now because of the grief struck self destructiveness of the kapoti and kapota he had got them also so siddhartha he thought oh my artha is completed siddhartha is a name often and it was a name of buddha also but siddhartha if you look at the sanskrit siddha artha artha is purpose siddha is completed oh my purpose is completed i had come to the forest to get some prey and i have got such a good prey now siddhartha prayograham so he departed for his graham for his house so actually in this world jeevo jeevasya jeevanam one life is the one life form subsists on another life form and although in human society cannibalism is outlawed as per international law so literally humans may not feast on other humans but still in the cut throat competitive societies today humans do devour other humans in a competitive world we have often backbiting where in order to get appraisal in order to get a raise in order to get a promotion people just are standing not just standing in line but often they are fighting either overtly or more often covertly trying to prop oneself up and push another person down so in such a world there are opponents who are there waiting to exploit us and if we are not cautious then we can’t blame anyone else when we get victimized it is our responsibility to protect ourselves and if we don’t take care of that responsibility then who will and that way we will get trapped we will get lost so here the pigeon now had been living in the forest so the pigeon was familiar with the dangers of the forest and the pigeon had grown to the age of having a spouse and children so the pigeon obviously had some survival skills as had his wife but when the when the heartbreaking calamity came upon them both of them lost their intelligence their emotion overcame their reason their intelligence and then the enemy offers no reprieve the the hunter was cruel did not feel any pity oh these birds are grieving so much maybe I should I should really relieve them often it is said when a harsh battle is going on no quarters are given so no quarters are actually when we go into the battle of life we need to go with without expecting any quarters it’s a it’s a harsh world and there is there are severe battles in this harsh world so if we let emotion trump reason then we will become trampled that is what unfortunately happened to these pigeon couple and the pigeon was also trapped and he was also devoured sorted and devoured now the nature of attachment is such that it is merciless just as Krishna is merciful Krishna’s illusory energy is merciless and merciless means that the illusory energy of Krishna is just looking for weaknesses looking for opportunities for where we let down our guard and then it pounds us right at those weaknesses right at those moments when we have lowered our guard and like that it weakens and wrecks us so we have to be always cautious we cannot live in this world with a dry or empty heart we interact with people and we have relationships with others but we have to be cautious that those relationships don’t consume us so much emotionally that we become we have no room in our consciousness left for anything higher leave alone Krishna even there is sometimes material emotions can become so overwhelming that there is no place left for even worldly intelligence here at least it is talking about a couple who were living together in a civilized way the pigeon society may not have the formality of marriage but they were actually living like a married couple and they were taking care of their family responsibilities taking care of their children and even in such a while doing such a materially responsible life even then the attachment overwhelmed and wrecked them what to speak of in today’s culture where temptation comes from all directions and there are so many allurements so sometimes a person is having a good family life and suddenly a temptation comes in the form of some opportunity for some affair or something like that and and the maelstrom of emotion that is triggered because of contemplating the temptation the person sometimes ruins oneself not just spiritually but even materially a wonderful family life is devastated just because of a desire for a few moments of pleasure for just some little hormonal thrill person sometimes creates hurts that last for a lifetime a lifetime of heart breaking pain one causes to others and sometimes one causes to oneself also so the principle we have to remember is that we need to be on guard Lubdaka Krooraha is a cruel hunter so actually the forces of illusion are also cruel hunters and they will not show mercy lust, anger, greed they are relentless in their attacks and the way they act is by making by tempting us and by creating desires within us but another way they act is direct frontal attack enjoy this, enjoy this, enjoy this and you will be happy but another way they attack is that when life’s reversals overwhelm us and we although reversals are very harsh and painful, at one level reversals are routine then this world is and they will come, reversals will come sooner or later, obstacles and reversals will come, so when we face such obstacles and reversals at that time if we are not if we don’t have the positive shelter of Krishna or if we have not cultivated the habit of taking the shelter of Krishna then these temptations offer pseudo shelter and oh I am into so much stress and you know my spouse doesn’t understand me and I need somebody who will give me a sympathetic ear and as one starts looking elsewhere and then one goes directly and seeks a false shelter a dangerous shelter and that shelter rather turns out to be not a shelter but a trap which buries us under so much complexity and calamity in the long run so we by knowing that it’s a it’s a cruel world wherein Krishna is merciful and whatever happens he will offer his shelter but if we take shelter of things other than Krishna then they will mercilessly mislead us, they will allure us they will promise us pleasure and then they will wreck us as this Kapota couple were wrecked so by cultivating the shelter of Krishna and by contemplating the philosophy of how all shelters apart from Krishna are false shelters we seek our happiness in Krishna and when there is distress we seek relief from that distress also in Krishna and then we can survive in this world which is filled with cruel competition and ultimately go beyond this world to Krishna. Thank you.