Live the Bhāgavatam · SB 10.84.38
Mukti· LiberationLearn to Release Material Desires
“An intelligent person should learn to renounce his desire for wealth by performing sacrifices and acts of charity. He should learn to renounce his desire for wife and children by experiencing family life. And he should learn to renounce his desire for promotion to a higher planet in his next life, O saintly Vasudeva, by studying the effects of time. Self-controlled sages who have thus renounced their attachment to household life go to the forest to perform austerities.”
What the purport teaches
- An intelligent person learns to renounce the desire for wealth through sacrifices and acts of charity.
- Experience of family life should teach one to renounce the desire for wife and children. Studying the effects of time helps one relinquish the desire for promotion to a higher planet.
- Self-controlled sages who have renounced attachment to household life go to the forest to perform austerities.
Try this today
Make one small act of charity today, consciously practicing release from attachment to wealth.
Ask yourself
What do the effects of time teach me about the lasting value of material ambitions?
Carry the question through the day, then answer it in your own words before sleep.
From Canto 10, chapter 14 onward, the translation and purports were completed by Śrīla Prabhupāda's disciples after his departure, and published by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.