Bhaja Govindam-2
Verse 2
muda
jahihi dhanagamatrsnam kuru sadbuddhim manasi vitrsnam |
yallabhase nijakaramopattam
vittam tena vinodaya cittam ||
Oh fool! Give up now
the thirst to amass wealth. Getting rid
of vain desires, fill
the mind with good
and holy thoughts. Entertain it with the
wealth you acquire by
fair means.
If in the first
verse, Sri Sankara denounced the delusion in respect of the worldly education,
here in the second stanza he decries the delusion in respect of the money,
adoring it as an end instead of treating it just as a means only. It is not
seeking money that is deplored; it is the ‘thrushna’, the relentless
quest for money that is decried. Here ‘Dhana’
stands not for money alone but for the entire artha purushartha. It is forgetting God in the chase of artha
purushartha, that is denounced here.
Earning money through honest means is Okay. But one shouldn’t become
greedy. It is greed that is the villain
that makes one indulge in unlawful means to amass money. There is no end to one’s greed if it gains a
free hand. As Nachiketas tells Lord Yama
in Kathopanishad (1-1-27) “ Na vithena tarpaneyo manushyaha”
meaning ‘ man is not to be satisfied with wealth’. Mind is always in a restless state and needs
something to engage itself. The mind
isolated from greed should be filled with spiritual thoughts, thoughts turned
Godward. Wealth thus acquired without
greed, through fair and legitimate means, when shared with the needy instead of
hoarding, cools down the passions in the mind.
With a mind free from passions, one is able to concentrate on spiritual
thoughts and engage in study of spiritual literature.
So Sri Sankara in
this sloka points out that while acquisition of wealth is required to function
in the materialistic world, one should do it without developing thirst to
acquire wealth for hoarding and be content with what one gets
through legitimate means and this also he should do with prasada-buddi. The mind thus freed of thoughts of amassing
wealth should be engaged in thoughts of contemplation on God. Cultivate detachment toward material
enjoyments and fill the mind with love of God and good thoughts. Of such a
householder who also uses his excess wealth to distribute to the needy, Swami
Vivekananda states “the householder who struggles to become rich by good means
and for good purposes is doing practically the same thing for the attainment of
salvation as the anchorite does in his cell when he is praying”.
Verse
3
naristanabhara nabhidesam drstva magamohavesam |
etanmamsavasadi
vikaram manasi vicintaya varam varam ||
Don’t get excited
with desire seeing the full breasts and navel area of women.
Think of them again and
again as mere modifications of flesh, fat and the like.
Just like preoccupation with money, preoccupation with
opposite sex also takes one away from the pursuit of spiritual goal of life. It is natural for one to seek money for
security. Once feeling secure, one’s mind
turns to seeking pleasure and sex comes to mind naturally because of the basic
animal nature of human beings. That is why even when one rises to higher
nature, one can fall a prey to kama easily if one is not careful and vigilant against carnal slipups. Sri Sankara is
talking about adopting prathipaksha bhavana to turn one’s mind away from
the glamorous curves of a female body whenever the thought occurs. In prathipaksha bhavana you try to see
the full picture by seeing the other side as well along with the attractive
side. In this case one tries to picture
the repulsive flesh and bones behind the attractive features of the body whenever
one’s mind strays towards them so that an aversion to counter the attraction is
also built up in the mind. This counter thought has to be reinforced again and
again (vaaram, vaaram) for it to take firm root and ensure that one does not
get lost in the temptation of the body, to the exclusion of higher things in life a
human life is meant for.
This type of exercise
is described in Viveka chudamani (verse 22) as “doshadrstya muhurmuhuḥ”
meaning ‘observing the
defects again and again’. In Kathopanishad Yama tells Nacchiketas
(1-2-2): “Sreyas (the good and preferable) and Preyas (the
pleasant and pleasurable) approach a man; the wise one using his intelligence chooses
Sreyas while the ignorant one yielding to temptation prefers Preyas” Sri Sankara is here cautioning about Preyas
and helping to choose Sreyas as in the previous verse. We should remember here that when sexual
pleasure is criticized, it is not man or woman or marriage that is the target,
but it is the uncontrolled temptation that has the effect of making one
completely forget the spiritual purpose of human life that is denounced. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa often
advised his devotees to slowly get rid of desire for “kamini kanchana” meaning
women and wealth, as these two create the biggest obstacles for the sadhakas who
want to progress on the spiritual path.
Verse
4
nalinidalagata jalamatitaralam tadvajjivitamatisayacapalam |
viddhi vyadhyabhimanagrastam lokam sokahatam ca samastamII
Life is uncertain and
unstable as a drop of water trapped in a lotus petal; know
that it is prone to
various maladies like diseases and egoism and the entire
worldly life of man is
mostly grief-stricken.
After addressing the artha,
kama purusharthas in the previous
two verses Sri Sankara is addressing the uncertainty of human life in this
verse by comparing it to a water drop on a lotus leaf in the pond. Water drop
on a lotus leaf is a beautiful simile in more than one respect. It brings out the uncertainty of human life
and the hollowness of its attractions. The
first look of a droplet delicately balanced on the lotus leaf is one of sheer
beauty. But on a closer look the other
side is revealed – its shaky uncertain existence, for it faces many threats to
its survival.
1.
A slight wind can simply blow it off the
leaf.
2. A
slight wave in the water can shake off the droplet back into the water.
3. Even
if it survives that, as soon as the sun rises a bit higher, even without any
wind
the droplet cannot avoid getting dried up out of existence
Life is similarly uncertain
in duration. No one can escape from the clutches of death and death
stalks at every moment. Life is not only
unstable, but it is afflicted with the maladies like diseases, pride and
egoism. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa says
“Jnana and mukti cannot be had as long as egoism persists. Birth
and death also do not come to an end to him who is given to egoism.”
This
simile has also a Vedantic angle. Lotus grows in water. Hence the water drop
which falls into the water again, joins its original source i.e, water. If we think of the infinite Brahman as water in
the pond and the Jeevatma as the water drop on the lotus leaf, then it conveys
the idea of identity of Jeevathma and Paramathma indicated by the
Mahavakya, ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ - Thou Art That (You are that), lotus
plant growing out of water standing for the worldly life that creates the
delusion of separation between Jeevathma and Paramathma. Pratipaksha Bhavana is brought into
play in this verse also. When we realize
the uncertainty of life, it will lead us to take to spiritual life more
seriously, and with a sense of urgency.
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