Mukunda Mala Stotra 32 – 6: The holy name frees us from fears worse than death

bhava bhaya pradhvamsanaika aushadham: [The Holy Name is] the medicine that destroys the fear of material existence

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Mukund Mala Stotram, verse 32, part 6. bhavabhaya pradbhanse nahi kaushidham Lord Shiva, while comparing the holy name with various forms of medicines, states that the holy name is the medicine that destroys the fear of material existence. So the fear of material existence is not just because of the dangers in terms of accidents and problems, misunderstandings, is not just in terms of the adhyatmic, adhibhautic, adhidaivic cliches that are possible for us. Yes, they do cause us fear.
And the holy name, by giving us remembrance of Krishna, can help us to go beyond those fears. The more we absorb ourselves in the remembrance of Krishna, our consciousness gets elevated above the body. And the kleshas can affect only the body or the mind.
But if we are situated at the spiritual level relating with Krishna, then we are unaffected by the three kleshas. So, bhavabhaya pradbhanse nahi kaushidham that the misery of material existence, or rather the fear of the material existence is removed by the chanting of the holy name. So firstly, the fear of the miseries of material existence is removed because we can raise our consciousness beyond the reach of fear.
More importantly for a sadhaka, the fear of material existence is often the fear of the many temptations that can mislead and cause great slips and falls and that way bring disasters and ruinations to one’s spiritual progress. For a devotee, in one sense, fall down is more to be feared than even death. Because death will come by its own will as a result of our past karma.
And although we may suffer at the time of death, we are not creating any further bad karma by dying. We are only exhausting our bad karma by dying. But when we are falling down, actually fall down happens not by Krishna’s will as happens death, but fall down happens by our will.
And we are not only going away from Krishna’s lotus feet, we are also doing further bad karma and entangling ourselves in material existence. So therefore, the greater danger that a devotee feels is the danger of the temptations of this world. Because these temptations can make us misuse our free will and increase the load of karmic suffering that we have to endure.
And more importantly, it can break our relationship with Krishna, break our relationship with devotees and even cause some karmic reactions to go to the spiritual master and other Vaishnavas whom we love and whom we wish to serve. So this fear of the temptation of the material existence goes away by the chanting of the holy names because the holy name gives us a higher taste. The temptations attract us because they make us feel that we are missing something in this life by not indulging in them.
But when we chant the holy names, the holy name gives us such an inner satisfaction that we don’t feel the need for any other pleasure. And not only do we not feel any need for pleasure, we also feel that actually the pleasure in sense gratification is so meager and measly that there is no need to crave after it and certainly no need to do sinful activities to indulge in it. So the miseries of material existence in terms of the repeated temptations are removed because these temptations which normally torment us can no longer torment us when we take shelter of the holy name.
And in this way the holy name, if we absorb ourselves in it and get a higher taste, frees us from the fear of material existence. Shri Harinam Prabhu Ki Jai