Family

[Guest guest]

Srimad Bhagavatam 7.6.11–13

(Prahlada Instructs His Demoniac Schoolmates)

 

TRANSLATION

 

How can a person who is most affectionate to his family, the core of

his heart being always filled with their pictures, give up their

association? Specifically, a wife is always very kind and sympathetic and

always pleases her husband in a solitary place. Who could give up the

association of such a dear and affectionate wife? Small children talk in

broken language, very pleasing to hear, and their affectionate father always

thinks of their sweet words. How could he give up their association? One’s

elderly parents and one’s sons and daughters are also very dear. A daughter

is especially dear to her father, and while living at her husband’s house

she is always in his mind. Who could give up that association? Aside from

this, in household affairs there are many decorated items of household

furniture, and there are also animals and servants. Who could give up such

comforts? The attached householder is like a silkworm, which weaves a cocoon

in which it becomes imprisoned, unable to get out. Simply for the

satisfaction of two important senses—the genitals and the tongue—one is

bound by material conditions. How can one escape?

 

PURPORT

 

In household affairs the first attraction is the beautiful and

pleasing wife, who increases household attraction more and more. One enjoys

his wife with two prominent sense organs, namely the tongue and the

genitals. The wife speaks very sweetly. This is certainly an attraction.

Then she prepares very palatable foods to satisfy the tongue, and when the

tongue is satisfied one gains strength in the other sense organs, especially

the genitals. Thus the wife gives pleasure in sexual intercourse. Household

life means sex life (yan maithun€di-ghamedhi-sukhaˆ hi tuccham [sB

7.9.45]). This is encouraged by the tongue. Then there are children. A baby

gives pleasure by speaking sweet words in broken language, and when the sons

and daughters are grown up one becomes involved in their education and

marriage. Then there are one’s own father and mother to be taken care of,

and one also becomes concerned with the social atmosphere and with pleasing

his brothers and sisters. A man becomes increasingly entangled in household

affairs, so much so that leaving them becomes almost impossible. Thus the

household becomes gham andha-k™pam, a dark well into which the man has

fallen. For such a man to get out is extremely difficult unless he is helped

by a strong person, the spiritual master, who helps the fallen person with

the strong rope of spiritual instructions. A fallen person should take

advantage of this rope, and then the spiritual master, or the Supreme

Personality of Godhead, KŠa, will take him out of the dark well.