SB 7.9.40 We are besieged by our inimical senses and need Krishna’s help to break free

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Srimad Bhagavatam 7940 so Prahlad Maharaj is continuing the thread of thought of how we are all being attacked by the forces of adharma and we need the lord’s mercy lord’s intervention so in the previous verse he talked about the mind now he is talking about the senses and he is talking about how each sense drags us towards its respective sense object so the tongue is never satisfied, it always craves for delicious things to eat the stomach wants more the tongue wants to fill the stomach more and more beyond its capacity, the genitals constantly want satisfaction in their own way the belly wants to be fulfilled, the skin wants to touch its own soft its own palatable soft objects, the ear wants to hear sweet music like that so the nose wants to smell fragrant things the eyes want to see good looking things and karma shakti our capacity to do karma is to do activities in this world is plundered away by all these various senses the way just as a householder, if he has many wives all those wives drag him in different directions and he gets torn among all of them not knowing what to do so, in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that on the spiritual path, we need one pointed determination vyavasayatmika buddhi eke hakunandana and on the other hand when we are too caught up by our various material desires what happens to us is described in the second part of that verse 2.41 bahushakha hi anantasya buddhyo vyavasayinam bahushakha means many branches, in fact Krishna goes and says actually there are not many, there are innumerable branches for those whose intelligence is not fixed so when our intelligence is fixed we keep the senses under control when our intelligence is not fixed we let the senses run here and there and then the senses make us run here and there and how many pursuits do the senses make us run? that is actually bahushakha hi anantasya they are unlimited so often we feel that our sensory demands are too many and too mighty to control and that remains true as long as we don’t consult the almighty so to the extent we try to battle against our material desires independently to the extent we will remain enslaved by those desires because the senses are all around us and the senses will keep attacking us from various directions and if our only battle strategy is to be on the defensive against the attack of the senses, no matter how much we are on guard somehow the guard will slip and some sense will come in into our consciousness will seek to gratify it and then we will from one to another will become puppet of all the senses so the only way we can fight this situation is by going on the offensive that means by trying not just to avoid gratifying the senses but by trying consciously to gratify Krishna so when we think of Krishna, when we think of glorifying and serving Krishna that enables us to gain a higher satisfaction and that higher satisfaction enables us to fight off the temptations for the lower pleasure and in that way we can stay steady so by remembering that we are surrounded by all the senses who are like plunderers and by remembering that we need protection from Krishna we can seek that protection by absorption in his devotional service