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SB 1.13.23 (1965)



His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada



TEXT No. 23

Aho mahiayashi jantor jivitasha yatha bhavan Bhima apavarjitam pindam adatte grihapalavat.


TRANSLATION

Alas ! how much powerful is the hope of a living being to continue a life as much as you are living just like a household dog eating the remnant bits of foodstuff given by Bheema !


PURPORT

A sadhu is never meant for flattering a king or a rich man for living comfortably at their cost. A sadhu is to speak the bare truth to the compact householders about the naked truth of life so that one may come to his senses about the precarious life in material existence. Dhritarastra is a typical example of attached old man in household-life. He had become a popper in the true sense and still he wanted to live comfortably in the house of the Pandavas of whom Bheema specially is mentioned because personally he killed two prominent sons of Dhritarastra nameley Duryodhone and Duhsasan. These two sons of Dhritarastra were very much dear to him for their being notorious in nefarious activities and Bheem is particularly pointed out because it is he who killed these pet sons of Dhritarastra. And why he was living there at the house of the Pandavas ? Because Dhritarastra wanted to continue his life comfortably even at the risk of all humiliation from the point of his own poistion. Vidura therefore, became astonished how much powerful is the sense of continuing life of the living being. This sense of continuing one's life indicates that a living being is eternally living entity and he does not want to change his habitation of the body. The foolishman does not know that a particular term of bodily existence is awarded to him to undergo a term of imprisonment and the human body is awarded, after many many births and deaths, as a chance for self-realisation and thus go back to home go back to Godhead. But persons like Dhritarastra try to make plans to live here in a comfortable position with profit and interest and he does not see things as they are. The things are different from his utopian conception of life but he is blind like Dhritarastra and continue to hope for living comfortably in the midst of all kinds of reverses of life. A Sadhu like Vidura is meant for awakening such blind persons like Dhritarastra and thus help him going back to Godhead where life is eternal once going there nobody wants to come back to this material world of miseries. We can just imagine how much important and responsible task is entrusted to a Sadhu like Mahatma Vidura.