BHAGAVAD-GITA 4:10

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BHAGAVAD-GITA 4:10

 

vita-raga-bhaya-krodha

man-maya mam upasritah

bahavo jnana-tapasa

puta mad-bhavam agatah

 

WORD FOR WORD

 

vita--freed from; raga--attachment; bhaya--fear; krodhah--and anger;

mat-maya--fully in Me; mam--in Me; upasritah--being fully situated;

bahavah--many; jnana--of knowledge; tapasa--by the penance;

putah--being purified; mat-bhavam--transcendental love for Me;

agatah--attained.

 

TRANSLATION

 

Being freed from attachment, fear and anger, being fully absorbed in

Me and taking refuge in Me, many, many persons in the past became

purified by knowledge of Me--and thus they all attained transcendental

love for Me.

 

PURPORT

 

As described above, it is very difficult for a person who is too

materially affected to understand the personal nature of the Supreme

Absolute Truth. Generally, people who are attached to the bodily

conception of life are so absorbed in materialism that it is almost

impossible for them to understand how the Supreme can be a person.

Such materialists cannot even imagine that there is a transcendental

body which is imperishable, full of knowledge and eternally blissful.

In the materialistic concept, the body is perishable, full of

ignorance and completely miserable. Therefore, people in general keep

this same bodily idea in mind when they are informed of the personal

form of the Lord. For such materialistic men, the form of the gigantic

material manifestation is supreme. Consequently they consider the

Supreme to be impersonal. And because they are too materially

absorbed, the conception of retaining the personality after liberation

from matter frightens them. When they are informed that spiritual life

is also individual and personal, they become afraid of becoming

persons again, and so they naturally prefer a kind of merging into the

impersonal void. Generally, they compare the living entities to the

bubbles of the ocean, which merge into the ocean. That is the highest

perfection of spiritual existence attainable without individual

personality. This is a kind of fearful stage of life, devoid of

perfect knowledge of spiritual existence. Furthermore there are many

persons who cannot understand spiritual existence at all. Being

embarrassed by so many theories and by contradictions of various types

of philosophical speculation, they become disgusted or angry and

foolishly conclude that there is no supreme cause and that everything

is ultimately void. Such people are in a diseased condition of life.

Some people are too materially attached and therefore do not give

attention to spiritual life, some of them want to merge into the

supreme spiritual cause, and some of them disbelieve in everything,

being angry at all sorts of spiritual speculation out of hopelessness.

This last class of men take to the shelter of some kind of

intoxication, and their affective hallucinations are sometimes

accepted as spiritual vision. One has to get rid of all three stages

of attachment to the material world: negligence of spiritual life,

fear of a spiritual personal identity, and the conception of void that

arises from frustration in life. To get free from these three stages

of the material concept of life, one has to take complete shelter of

the Lord, guided by the bona fide spiritual master, and follow the

disciplines and regulative principles of devotional life. The last

stage of the devotional life is called bhava, or transcendental love

of Godhead.

 

According to Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu (1.4.15-16), the science of

devotional service:

 

adau sraddha tatah sadhu-

sango 'tha bhajana-kriya

tato 'nartha-nivrttih syat

tato nistha rucis tatah

 

athasaktis tato bhavas

tatah premabhyudancati

sadhakanam ayam premnah

pradurbhave bhavet kramah

 

"In the beginning one must have a preliminary desire for self-realization.

This will bring one to the stage of trying to associate with persons

who are spiritually elevated. In the next stage one becomes initiated

by an elevated spiritual master, and under his instruction the

neophyte devotee begins the process of devotional service. By

execution of devotional service under the guidance of the spiritual

master, one becomes free from all material attachment, attains

steadiness in self-realization, and acquires a taste for hearing about

the Absolute Personality of Godhead, Sri Krsna. This taste leads one

further forward to attachment for Krsna consciousness, which is

matured in bhava, or the preliminary stage of transcendental love of

God. Real love for God is called prema, the highest perfectional stage

of life." In the prema stage there is constant engagement in the

transcendental loving service of the Lord. So, by the slow process of

devotional service, under the guidance of the bona fide spiritual

master, one can attain the highest stage, being freed from all

material attachment, from the fearfulness of one's individual

spiritual personality, and from the frustrations that result in void

philosophy. Then one can ultimately attain to the abode of the Supreme

Lord.

 

Copyright 1983 The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International. Used with

permission.