Live the Bhāgavatam · SB 4.29.18-20
Ūti· What drives us to actReal Progress Ends Repeated Material Birth
“Nārada Muni continued: What I referred to as the chariot was in actuality the body. The senses are the horses that pull that chariot. As time passes, year after year, these horses run without obstruction, but in fact they make no progress. Pious and impious activities are the two wheels of the chariot. The three modes of material nature are the chariot’s flags. The five types of life air constitute the living entity’s bondage, and the mind is considered to be the rope. Intelligence is the chariot driver. The heart is the sitting place in the chariot, and the dualities of life, such as pleasure and pain, are the knotting place. The seven elements are the coverings of the chariot, and the working senses are the five external processes. The eleven senses are the soldiers. Being engrossed in sense enjoyment, the living entity, seated on the chariot, hankers after fulfillment of his false desires and runs after sense enjoyment life after life.”
What the purport teaches
- The body is a chariot, the senses are its horses, the mind is the rope, and intelligence is the driver. Its two wheels are pious and impious activities.
- Moving into different bodies or rising to higher material planets is not real progress. Real progress means leaving material existence without having to accept another material body.
- The thirst for sense enjoyment keeps one pursuing happiness that remains out of reach. By giving up fruitive activity and mental speculation and becoming fixed in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, one can become free from birth and death.
Try this today
Identify one plan based on “I will be happy when,” and spend a few minutes instead studying this purport’s teaching on Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Ask yourself
Am I measuring progress by changing material circumstances or by freedom from material entanglement?
Carry the question through the day, then answer it in your own words before sleep.
The study points, practice and question are short summaries drawn from Śrīla Prabhupāda's translation and purport. Read the full purport to go deeper.