Q. 222. WHAT BENEFITS CAN BE DERIVED FROM FIXING ONE`S CONSCIOUSNESS ON KRISHNA ?
A. BY SRILA PRABHUPADA.
yadātmany arpitaḿ cittaḿ
śāntaḿ sattvopabṛḿhitam
dharmaḿ jñānaḿ sa vairāgyam
aiśvaryaḿ cābhipadyate
SYNONYMS
yadā — when; ātmani — in the Supreme Lord; arpitam — fixed; cittam — consciousness; śāntam — peaceful; sattva — by the mode of goodness; upabṛḿhitam— strengthened; dharmam — religiosity; jñānam — knowledge; saḥ — he; vairāgyam — detachment; aiśvaryam — opulence; ca — also; abhipadyate — achieves.
TRANSLATION
When one's peaceful consciousness, strengthened by the mode of goodness, is fixed on the Personality of Godhead, one achieves religiosity, knowledge, detachment and opulence. (Srimad Bhagavatam).
PURPORT
A pure devotee becomes peaceful, śānta, by desiring everything for the service of the Lord and nothing for himself. He is strengthened by the transcendental, or purified, mode of goodness and thus achieves the supreme religious principle of directly serving the Lord.
He also achieves jñāna, or knowledge of the Lord's form and his own spiritual body, detachment from material piety and sin, and the opulences of the spiritual world. One who is not a pure devotee of the Lord, however, but whose devotion is mixed with a fascination for mystic knowledge, is strengthened by the material mode of goodness.
Through his meditation on the Lord he achieves the lesser results of dharma (piety in the mode of goodness), jñāna (knowledge of spirit and matter) and vairāgya (detachment from the lower modes of nature).
Ultimately, one should be a pure devotee of the Lord, since even the best the material world has to offer is most insignificant compared to the kingdom of God.
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