Bhagavatapurana 11.9
English (machine translation) 11.9
- Language
- English
Contents
- 11.9.24 — 1 part
- 11.9.25 — 2 parts
- 11.9.26 — 2 parts
- 11.9.27 — 2 parts
- 11.9.28 — 2 parts
- 11.9.29 — 1 part
11.9.1
The brāhmaṇa said:
Possession indeed leads to sorrow, whatever is most dear to humans;
he who knows this, possessing nothing, attains endless happiness.
11.9.2
Other stronger birds without meat attacked an osprey carrying meat;
abandoning that meat, it found happiness.
11.9.3
I have neither honor nor dishonor, nor the anxieties of those who have houses and children; / playing within the self, delighting in the self, I wander here like a child.
11.9.4
Only two are free from care and immersed in supreme bliss: / the simple, innocent child, and he who has gone beyond the qualities of nature.
11.9.5
Once a young maiden, when suitors seeking her hand in marriage arrived at her home, / personally showed them hospitality, while her relatives had gone elsewhere.
11.9.6
As she was pounding rice in secret to provide food for them, O King, / the conch bangles resting on her wrists made a loud noise.
11.9.7
Considering that shameful, the intelligent girl, feeling bashful, / broke the conch shells one by one, leaving only two on each arm.
11.9.8
Yet from those two conch shells on each wrist there was still a clinking sound as she pounded; / thereupon she broke one more from each, and from a single [bangle] no sound arose.
11.9.9
I learned this instruction from her, O tamer of enemies, / while wandering through these worlds with a desire to know the truth of the world:
11.9.10
Where many dwell together there is quarrel; where two dwell, there is conversation; / therefore one should live entirely alone, like the maiden's single bangle.
11.9.11
Having conquered one's breath and conquered one's posture, one should concentrate the mind in one place, / holding it steadily through the yoga of dispassion and practice, without sloth.
11.9.12
The object in which the mind gains a steady foothold gradually sheds the dust of karma, / and having shaken off passion and darkness through heightened purity, it attains peaceful dissolution like a fire without fuel.
11.9.13
When the mind is thus restrained in the self, he perceives nothing outside or inside, / just as an arrow-maker, with his mind absorbed in an arrow, did not see the king passing nearby.
11.9.14
He should wander alone, homeless, vigilant, dwelling in the cave [of the heart], / unrecognized by his external habits, a solitary sage speaking little.
11.9.15
Undertaking to build a house brings only misery and is futile for a mortal of transient body; / entering a dwelling made by another, the serpent thrives happily.
11.9.16
The one Lord Nārāyaṇa, having withdrawn through the division of time / that which was previously created by His creative power, at the end of the cosmic age, / remained alone without a second—the foundation of the self, the shelter of all.
11.9.17
When the potencies of purity and the rest were brought to equilibrium by Time through His self-potency, / the primal Person, the Lord of nature and the individual soul,
11.9.18
abides as the supreme beyond the high and the low, designated as absolute liberation, / the mass of pure experiential bliss, devoid of limiting adjuncts.
11.9.19
By His pure self-potency, agitating His creative power consisting of the three qualities, / He creates first through it the cosmic thread, O tamer of enemies.
11.9.20
They speak of that [thread] as the manifestation of the three qualities, creating faces everywhere, / on which this universe is woven, and through which the soul wanders in cycle of rebirth.
11.9.21
Just as a spider draws thread from its heart through its mouth, / plays with it, and then swallows it back, so does the Great Lord.
11.9.22
Wherever an embodied being focuses his entire mind with intellect, / out of love, hatred, or fear, he attains that very form.
11.9.23
A worm, meditating upon the wasp by whom it was placed in a wall-crevice, / attains the same nature as it, O King, without casting off its former body.
11.9.24
Thus from these teachers this understanding was learned by me; / now hear, O master, the insight learned from my own self as I speak:
11.9.24.p1
My body is my guru, the cause of dispassion and discernment; / bearing destruction of existence, it brings forth constant distress in its consequences.
11.9.25
Although by means of it I contemplate the truths, / nevertheless, resolved that it belongs to another, I wander unattached.
11.9.25.p2
Desiring to please it, expanding possessions, one supports / wife, children, wealth, cattle, servants, home, and relatives;
11.9.25.p3
Desiring to please it, expanding possessions, one supports / wife, children, wealth, cattle, servants, home, and relatives;
11.9.26
yet in the end, having accumulated wealth with great hardship, that very body, / having created his seed, perishes according to the nature of a tree.
11.9.26.p2
The tongue pulls this man to one side in its thirst; / the genital pulls elsewhere, the skin, the stomach, and the ear from another direction;
11.9.26.p3
The tongue pulls this man to one side in its thirst; / the genital pulls elsewhere, the skin, the stomach, and the ear from another direction;
11.9.27
the nose elsewhere, the restless eye in another, and the organs of action pull somewhere; / like many co-wives, they tear the master of the house apart.
11.9.27.p2
Having created various bodies by His unborn personal power— / trees, reptiles, beasts, birds, and stinging serpents—
11.9.27.p3
Having created various bodies by His unborn personal power— / trees, reptiles, beasts, birds, and stinging serpents—
11.9.28
the Lord was not satisfied in heart with each of these, / but upon fashioning the human being, possessed of the intellect to perceive Brahman, He attained delight.
11.9.28.p2
Having obtained this human birth, very difficult to attain at the end of many births, / which yields the true goal though it is impermanent, a wise man in this world
11.9.28.p3
Having obtained this human birth, very difficult to attain at the end of many births, / which yields the true goal though it is impermanent, a wise man in this world
11.9.29
should swiftly strive for ultimate beatitude before he falls into recurrent death; / for sense gratification indeed can be had anywhere.
11.9.29.p1
[…]
11.9.30
Thus endowed with dispassion, illuminated by experiential knowledge within myself, / I wander this earth, free from attachment and free from egoism.
11.9.31
For knowledge cannot become truly firm or thoroughly abundant from a single guru; / this one non-dual Brahman is sung in many ways by the seers.
11.9.32
The Lord said: / Having spoken thus to Yadu, that wise brahmin, taking his leave, / bowed to and properly worshipped by the king, departed with joy as he had come.
11.9.33
Having heard the words of the avadhūta, that ancestor of our ancestors / became completely free from all attachment and even-minded.
Translations (1)
- The Srimad Bhagavatam — S. Subba Rau 1928, English
Commentaries (1)
- Padaratnāvalī — Vijayadhvaja Tīrtha, Sanskrit
Linked texts (1)
- Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit