SB 11.23.15 – Lethargy in devotion sentences us to self-torment

Transcript

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thank you continuing his lamentation over his unidimensional obsession with wealth and he’s saying that for the misers wealth doesn’t bring happiness even in this life what to speak of the next in generally the is a change form of wealth refers to the misers na sukhai kadachana kadachana means anytime so no time does it bring happiness why? here it causes torment how? because one is constantly in anxiety will somebody steal my wealth? that stealing may not just be by thieves and others who may forcibly take it away but one even starts thinking of one’s relatives family members with suspicion because one doesn’t want to give that wealth to anyone so that’s why one has the super negative attitude towards everyone and that’s why one is in constant anxiety atmopatapaya it’s a very graphic word upatapaya torment atma is causing self-torment see which is the nature of the anarthas lust, anger, greed no the more we let them grow disproportionately the more they cause torment to us itself and not just sometime later he says so a person who does not use artha for dharma is going to get the karmic consequences and depending on the kind of the karma that a person is in person may even go to hell but even if a person doesn’t consider the next life consequences even from the point of view of this life consequences they are quite serious atmopatapaya in general obsession with material things leads to atmopatapaya to self-torment and we can all feel this it is as if somebody is the desires created by lust or anger or by greed it’s like somebody has got a sharp needle and is piercing us from within do this, get this, do, do, do and it’s a constant torment atmopatapaya and actually the problem with this torment is that we think that the torment will go away if we acquire more of that particular thing over which we are obsessed so miser thinks if I only acquire more wealth then my anxiety will go away but it won’t because the torment is coming because of greed not because of the presence or absence of particular quantity of wealth and the only way to get ourselves relieved of this inner piercing torment is to get a inner armor and the remembrance of Krishna which can be best evoked through the chanting of the holy names is the best armor for protecting ourselves and the more we can shield ourselves in this remembrance of Krishna the more we will find that our inner torment is decreasing and eventually going away otherwise if we just do our chanting ritualistically and if we cultivate Krishna consciousness as a external formula not as a act of gaining an inner shelter and armor then we will continue to sentence ourselves to self-torture and this self-torture will never go away in fact if we keep contemplating on it it will only grow because it will make us more and more vulnerable to the anartha which is increased also because of our contemplating on it so therefore Atma Upadapaya by being lazy in cultivating remembrance of Krishna we we sentence ourselves to self-torment because of the anarthas that are already present in our heart and are just looking for an opportunity to torment you torment us so if I have an enemy I know he’s going to attack me and if I have an armor with which I can protect myself if I’m lazy to put on the armor and I’m going to sentence myself to suffering because the enemy is not going to miss the opportunity so in this way by remembering that the holy name is Anarama the remembrance of Krishna is a shelter that will save us from this torment we can shed aside the lethargy and take shelter of Krishna wholeheartedly vigorously intelligently thank you