Daily-Bhagavatam 65 – 11.07.55 – Don’t expect the future to be a continuation of the comfortable present

11.755 So here the brahmana is describing the life of the kapota kapal they would lie down sit walk around stand varta, krida krida, sanadikam varta is talking, krida is playing around sanadikam so together the kapal he and she pigeon visharabdhau they perform these activities and trust it by trusting what? trusting the future, trusting that everything will stay as it is they perform all these activities in the grove of forests in this world sometimes when things are comfortable we have a very simplistic vision of time, notion of time as if it will be like a straight train track which will just keep going along and things will remain the same so, yes, I am enjoying now and I think of the future as a of time as a train track that leads from the present to the future with not much difference between the two but that sort of faith is actually unfounded, naive why? because is the future going to be a simple extension or application of the present? no, not necessarily in one moment something can change and change devastatingly in the Greco-Roman kingdom there is the story of Pompeii, Mount Vesuvius the volcano exploded and people just people were living normal lives some people were sitting and eating their meals at home and actually the volcano exploded and they died and their bodies were destroyed over there itself and some of the skeletons they had stood their mouth open and they were trying to put some food inside so that was buried for a long time at city of Pompeii and then it was dug by archaeologists and they found this remains so the future can be drastically tragically different from the present and the vision of the future as an extension of the present is a deception is an illusion a sign of intelligence is to prepare for the future now at one level we can't really prepare for the future because we don't know what the future is going to bring but still even animals they plan they may not do it consciously but they have instincts which make them do it so a frog may go another animal like that may go into hibernation in the winter season a camel store food and water in its body and especially its hump so that it doesn't have to starve and die because of thirst due to travelling through the hot, humid lonely desert so even the animals to some extent plan for the future although they may not do it consciously they may do it more based on their body instincts now we humans have the intelligence by which we can perceive the future for example we may see a particular book and infer oh this is an old book this is a new book so in the case of our practicing of bhakti is it an old process or a new process actually it is a timeless process that is equally applicable in old times as well as in new times now the challenge is that this process though timeless keeps us caught up so instead of naively expecting that the future will simply be a continuation and extension of the present wherein the same material things which have given us comfort and pleasure and shelter now will continue to give us comfort and shelter and pleasure in the future that is a misleading expectation the only thing that will always give us comfort and pleasure and shelter is Krishna and our connection with Krishna precisely because Krishna is always there but only when we take shelter of him do we experience his shelter so now certainly we need a basic level of stability in our material life so that we can practice bhakti peacefully but the danger of seeking too much stability or more specifically the danger of delaying the practice of bhakti till we gain stability the danger of such delaying is that we will never be adequately stable and when we become adequately stable we will feel that oh I am comfortable here why do I need to practice bhakti at all so by knowing that ok whatever situation I am in let me practice bhakti wholeheartedly and if I am in a material comfortable situation let me see that comfort as a facility provided by Krishna so that I don't have to worry about material things and I can focus my energy on Krishna but if you think that the material comforts are themselves the blessing of Krishna and that is all that there is to life then we are in for a rude shock in the future when those material things will be taken away from us so by remembering that Krishna alone is our shelter that material things will not provide us shelter that we shouldn't naively trust the future that even when the present is comfortable that the future will also be comfortable by remembering that material nature is endlessly mutable constantly changing by remembering the ever changing nature to the material nature we can seek shelter in the unchanging in Krishna and then even when life shows throws a curved ball at us life gives us a nasty shocks still we will be able to deal with them because we will be sheltered not in the false expectation of the future being a continuation of the present but in the true expectation that whether it is future or present or whenever Krishna is always there to shelter us and in that shelter we can find happiness in this life and at the end of this life for eternity we can be with him thank you.