Bhagavatam-daily 93 – 11.08.09 – Madhukari-vrtti means to collect modestly and not from one place

Srimad Bhagavatam 11.8.9 Stokam stokam Stokam stokam means always a little little Not too much Grased Grased One should eat grassam Food Deho varteta yavata Deho varteta means for the body Varteta for maintaining yavata As much as is required for maintaining the body Grihan Ahimsan atishthet Grihan means the houses of the Householders Ahimsan means Non-violence But here it means Not to Irritate, not to trouble, not to harass Atishthet So one should practice or one should live Like this, that means one should go To the houses of different Householders and take a little Food from all of them so that If one takes too much food from one person Or goes to same person regularly that person may feel Harassed by the burden So one should take little And from different people’s houses Ruttim madhukarim munih And this is the Madhukarim rutti. Madhukarim means It’s like a honeybee goes to different flowers And takes little little Flower, little little honey From each flower like that The muni should take little little food From different people Now the madhukarim rutti Is practiced by sages And ajgar Rutti is one level We could say higher But it is relative.
Yes certainly In ajgar rutti there is more renunciation One is so Absorbed that one doesn’t care for Maintaining the body. Madhukarim rutti On the other hand also Gives the sage the opportunity To interact with householders and then The sage can also give some instructions to the householders So Ruttim madhukarim munih Madhukarim rutti means That just as a honeybee The honeybee goes to one flower And takes some honey from that flower And then after that It goes to another flower So it doesn’t just sit on one flower And drain out the whole supply Of the honey from that flower itself Other honeybees also come And take flower from there And the flower also continues to live So there is a symbiotic relationship Between the honeybee and the flower In the sense that the honeybee Doesn’t exploit the flower Similarly the householders Are not meant to The renunciates are not meant to Exploit the householders So In the process of The honeybee when it takes the honey It also carries some seeds And it helps in the cross pollination So the seeds go from The andrushium to the gynecium And in that way basically The Reproductive cycle of The flowers that is helped by the honeybee So the point is The honeybee benefits the flower And the flower benefits the honeybee So it’s a symbiotic relationship Where both of them benefit each other Similarly the relationship Between the renunciates and the householders Should be symbiotic like that That means the renunciate goes to the householders By that the renunciate Gets food Gets subsistence And the householders also Get the opportunity To hear some spiritual instruction And to get some dharmic credits By serving a person In the renounced order In this way both of them are benefited And in either way The important point Here is talking more from the Renunciate’s perspective because He is a He is a muni, he is a renunciate And he is talking from that perspective So now for that Relationship between the householders and the renunciate To remain symbiotic The house renunciate should not Burden the householder By taking too much or going too frequently To the same person’s house So like that one should be So here’s the steps Stokam stokam You know always a little bit So when one goes to house not that one burden oneself too much And one takes as much as is required Deho varte tayavata As much as is required for the body And in that way Ahim sanatishthe One can live without Harassing the householders Ahim sanatishthe So the point is that madhu karege Mithi is a very Time honoured Respectable and Valuable way For Interaction between Mutually productive Interactions between householders and renunciates And The honey bee example is also used For something else Just as a honey bee takes the Honey from different flowers And makes it into Its honey Which it may put into its honey So like that One may also put The honey Into One can also Learn from different people Different things And one can use that knowledge For moving onwards in one’s life Deho That is also another example used for the honey bee Now The honey bee Metaphor also comes in another case Where it is talked about how the honey bee works So hard to accumulate The honey but then the bee collector comes and Drives out the honey and takes away all the Honey so like that A person works very hard to hold wealth But then when death comes along The person is driven Away and the wealth is taken away So like that Futility of that is also talked about but that’s a different metaphor Now each metaphor has its Own value And here The central purpose of the metaphor here is To talk about how The There can be a symbiotic relationship between The sages The renunciates and the householders And this way the householder The renunciate also stays protected Because If the renunciate keeps going to the same house Even if the householder is very receptive And very hospitable But still the renunciate can get Attached to the hospitality And if the renunciate gets attached to the hospitality Then by that the renunciate Becomes entangled And by that the renunciate becomes Complacent, becomes attached Becomes entangled and then the whole purpose of Renunciation may get defeated So Baptizan Stakur gives a warning that You know Even if one goes to the houses of different Householders There also the danger can be there That one may go to the house of different Householders and all of them They offer royal, almost like royal Treatment to the renunciate They offer Such Gorgeous food They offer sumptuous Opulent food and each place He goes and he takes Renunciate eats opulent food at each place And then the renunciate becomes Because of eating too much opulent food the senses become agitated And then the Renunciate may also fall down So just like if a honey bee takes too much Honey, then the honey bee may become chubby And then the chubby Honey bee will not be very Will not be very Will fly very swiftly And it may get caught Very easily, it may get destroyed when the bee collector comes along It is more likely to get destroyed So Similarly The householder Not only should the renunciate have a Madhukuri vritti Madhukuri vritti has two aspects to it One is to not just go to one house But to go to different different houses And the second is to Also Not eat too much That’s why the word starts with stokam stokam With little little, always little So you go to different houses Take a little quantity from each house And Now What we can apply In our life here is That most of us, we are not in a situation Where we are going to Renounce the world and we are going to Take up the Madhukuri vritti You know even sannyasis and namacharis today There is so much Need for spiritual instruction And there has to Because this world is Because there are so many, so few spiritual teachers And there is so much need for spiritual knowledge That the sannyasis and brahmacharis Also don’t necessarily adopt the Madhukuri vritti Literally There is a more organized structure By which they live And by which they disseminate spiritual knowledge But the important point is That whatever facility We have For maintaining our body We should not become Too comfortable with that So whether it is A renunciate going to a householder’s Place or a householder having his own House and becoming Comfortable with the facilities Over there. The important thing is That one should Live with relative material simplicity So that there Can be persistent Spiritual clarity The material How does material simplicity bring spiritual clarity Because when there is simplicity At the material level Then one does not get too caught up In I have to acquire this also, I have to get that also And that will be so wonderful When we keep material life simple Then our thoughts become free to think about Higher things and then we can Develop spiritual clarity And with spiritual clarity we can move steadily Onwards in our spiritual life So just as a renunciate If he takes food at too many places And becomes obese And becomes sensually agitated Then the spiritual vision, clarity will be lost Similarly a householder If the householders become too comfortable In their householder life They can also lose their spiritual clarity So By retaining Material simplicity we can preserve Spiritual clarity