Mukunda Mala Stotra 31 – 3 – The mantra that uproots material existence

samsaraochheda mantram: The mantra that uproots material existence.

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Mukunda Mala Sutra, verse 31, part 3. Samsara Uchcheda Mantram This Holy Name is a mantra that uproots Samsara Uchcheda, that means to remove right from the root. Now, most people are caught in Samsara, and they don’t even realize that this is a place of misery from which one needs to free oneself. They think that this world is a place of enjoyment, and I just have to make some adjustments by which I will be able to enjoy here.
So, this is the enjoying mentality that binds us to the material world. It’s just like a tree holds on to the ground by its roots. The enjoying mentality is like the root that causes us to hold on to the ground of material existence.
Path of Jnana is the path of recognizing that this world is a place of misery, and thereby renouncing the world. So this path is often compared to cutting off the tree. That means the Jnani renounces the world, goes to the forest, focuses only on mental speculation, and does not indulge in sense gratification.
So while this certainly does not lead to any further karmic bondage, usually speaking, but it in and of itself does not remove the enjoying mentality. The enjoying activities may have stopped, but the enjoying mentality has not been removed, because the soul still has the desire to enjoy, and at an intellectual platform one can try to resist that enjoyment, and seek some pleasure at the intellectual level, at the speculational level, at the level where by one’s intellect one just barely contacts the absolute truth, the Brahman reality. But usually speaking, because just by one’s intellect one cannot contact the source of all pleasure, Krishna, so the higher intellectual pleasure doesn’t sustain itself against these repeated onslaughts of the mind and senses, tempting and demanding raw sensual pleasures, and often the person falls back.
So therefore this method of Jnana is not compared to uprooting of the tree, it is only compared to cutting off of the tree. The roots still remain, and the roots may grow once again. Therefore, the path of Bhakti, centered around chanting of the holy names, which gives us the higher taste, which gives us the experience of inner happiness, frees us from the desire for enjoying sense gratification, because it gives us a higher enjoyment, it gives us the taste of Krishna’s lotus feet, that sweetness of Krishna’s remembrance, and when we get that higher taste, that sublime experience, then the enjoying mentality is countered at its very roots, because it is not that we are hungering for enjoyment and are starving ourselves, but rather we are giving up the meager forms of material enjoyment for the sumptuous feast of Krishna consciousness.
So as of now, the holy name may not seem like a sumptuous feast for us, but if we persevere with the knowledge that it is only because of my deceased mentality I am not able to taste the holy name, but the holy name itself is the medicine, and if I keep taking it, then I will start relishing the remembrance of Krishna, and then Krishna consciousness will become not just like a sumptuous feast, but it will become like a constant feast, because wherever I am, whatever I am doing, I can turn my thoughts towards Krishna, I can either loudly or softly chant Krishna’s name and taste His sweetness, and once we get the taste for the holy name, then samsaro chhed, the material existence will be destroyed from its root. The Srimad Bhagavatam also says, tapatraya unmoolanam, so unmoolanam, from the root, all the tapatraya, all the miseries of material existence will be destroyed when one awakens devotion for Krishna by chanting of the holy names. Shri Harinam prabhu ki jai.