Bhagavatam-daily 91 – 11.08.07 – Illusion makes the destructive seem attractive

Srimad Bhagavatam 11.87 Dhristva sthriyam devamayam Tad bhavairajitendriya Pralobhita patatyande Tamasya gnaupatangavat So Dhristva sthriyam devamayam Dhristva seeing sthriyam Woman Dhristva sthriyam devamayam Deva is the supreme lord Maya is the illusory energy So woman whose form is created By the illusory energy of the lord Tad bhavairajitendriya ha Tad bhavair So by her Seductive alluring activities Ajitendriya ha One who has not controlled the senses Pralobhita patatyande Pralobhita Becoming enticed Patatya Patatya means to fall Andhe into the darkness Tamasya Tamasya refers to the Darkness or ignorance of hell Agnaupatangavat Agnau is fire Patangavat is a moth So just as a moth Falls into fire Because of being allured by the Good looking form of the fire Similarly a man with uncontrolled senses Attracted to the woman And falls into the darkness of hell Because of this Now this This particular metaphor of Of we being caught by our senses Is repeatedly talked about in scripture And What is being mentioned here is That this So for our eyes The moth example is quite common This is a moth Now moth has a Tendency to look Has By its very nature it finds fire very attractive And What it finds attractive Is actually destructive So In one sense The nature of illusion Is to make the destructive appear attractive The nature of illusion Illusion means we don’t see things as they are We see things As Things distortedly We see things different from the way they actually are So Instead of seeing A fire as destructive As it actually is When the moth falls in fire It will get burned It will die But the nature of illusion is to see The destructive as attractive So the moth sees the fire Which is actually going to destroy it as attractive And not as attractive Irresistibly attractive Sometimes if there is a bulb And The bulb is Bulb has flames Filament is there Which is covered by glass So the moth gets so attracted to the Light That it goes and hits against the glass And it just goes with full force With its tiny body And hits against the bulb And it cannot crack the bulb And falls back because of the impact And again gets up And again goes and hits at the bulb Again falls down And again goes and hits at the bulb And in that way It just gets It just gets wounded In its effort to try to Reach to the filament And is never able to reach the filament till the end So in this way The The moth actually Is protected from getting burnt By the filament By the glass around it But then it thinks the glass Which is there around the bulb’s filament To be The Its obstacle to pleasure And if somehow It is able to by repeated efforts Crack through the glass And get to the filament Then it touches the filament And Now it just gets electrified It just gets burnt And it dies over there And then its corpse Comes crashing down So That means It goes through so much trouble To break the obstacle Which is actually protecting it from its destruction So That is the tragic story of the moth And Similarly in this world Our eyes Delude us Now It may seem quite uncharitable To consider A beautiful form of this world To be like a Fire To be as dangerous as a fire But the point is that There is real beauty And then there is illusory beauty Illusory doesn’t mean that the beauty doesn’t exist In the Bhagavad Gita in 10.41 Krishna says that All beautiful, opulent and glorious things Spring from but a spark of my splendor That means the beauty of the sense objects Also comes from Krishna And they manifest A spark of Krishna’s beauty But the problem is The spark Cannot satisfy us The spark is So tiny that In and of itself It can attract It can titillate But it cannot satisfy And that’s why Those who are attracted to the spark They stay trapped They don’t move forward in their life They don’t move onwards Towards Krishna They actually Do not get real happiness So Rather than Rejecting the beauty of this world as false What we understand What the scriptures tell us is that We need to Recognize the beauty of this world As a spark of Krishna’s beauty And redirect our attraction From this world’s beauty To Krishna’s beauty So here Devamaya The word is used Striyam Scriptures generally In the past Whenever books were written We did not have Feminist sensitivities So The idea was that It is used In an inclusive sense So For the man A woman is a sense object For a woman A man is a sense object And both can be Attracted to each other And If that attraction Is not Within the presence of dharma Then that attraction Can be a cause of Great bondage And Sin And misery thereafter So here it is mentioned that Pralobhita patatyandhe Pralobhita means When one gets Seduced Then patatyandhe One falls Falls Fiercely Severely down into The dark delusions Of Of ignorance and of Sin and of hell So pralobhita patatyandhe Tamasya agno patangavat So patangavat refers to Just like the moth We have to be careful That we don’t Get caught In the delusions of this world If you get caught in the delusions Then We will stay trapped So the way to protect ourselves From the delusions of this world Is By Giving ourselves Higher experiences Of higher spiritual happiness So here the word is Dhrishtva Now We cannot go around in this world With our eyes closed But when we move around In this world with our eyes We don’t let the eyes Take control of our lives And we let the eyes go In any and every direction Instead We focus on ensuring That our eyes Stay focused on Pure things You know we keep our eyes In Krishna’s beauty And we use the eyes In his service So Although This may seem difficult But actually Krishna’s beauty Is so fulfilling That if we can stay Connected with Krishna And his beauty Then we will find That gradually The other objects Which are alluring And deluding us They Will slowly Become Less attractive They will become Less seductive And over a period of time We will be able to Reign in We will no longer be Pralobhitah So to be forewarned Is to be forearmed Now if we If we know That on a particular road There There are likely To be pits If sometimes There is a warning Is provided on a road There is This road is Unsafe Then Even if we have to Go along that road Then we go cautiously So like that in this world When we read Scriptural passages like this Where it describes how Attachment to the forms Of this world Can drag us into illusion Actually it can make us So captivated That We lose We lose Intelligence We lose perspective We know how This is exactly what Happened to Ajamila He looked at one The form of the Shudrani And he was lost And it took years And years for him to Come out of his Sensory Delusion And today We see people Not just Falling down Like that But They commit Barbaric crimes They They abuse They molest And They do All sorts of Horrible things Why? Because Through the eyes They let themselves Get Caught By the Seductiveness Of the forms And then they become Trapped So by knowing That there is danger And by knowing that We need to protect Ourselves We can stay Forearmed And we can be Forearmed And then we can Protect ourselves From the danger So by being aware Of the danger And by keeping Ourselves conscious Of Krishna We can keep Ourselves safe From the danger Thank you