Live the Bhāgavatam · SB 11.13.4
Ūti· What drives us to actChoose Influences That Strengthen Goodness
“According to the quality of religious scriptures, water, one’s association with one’s children or with people in general, the particular place, the time, activities, birth, meditation, chanting of mantras, and purificatory rituals, the modes of nature become differently prominent.”
What the purport teaches
- Scriptures, water, association, place and time influence which modes become prominent. Activities, birth, meditation, mantra chanting and purificatory rituals also have this influence.
- These ten items have superior and inferior qualities and may be in goodness, passion or ignorance.
- Selecting scriptures in goodness, pure water and friendship with people in goodness increases goodness. One should carefully avoid influences polluted by inferior modes.
Try this today
Choose pure water today and consciously consider how this simple choice supports goodness.
Ask yourself
Which of my daily influences most needs to change toward goodness?
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.