Live the Bhāgavatam · SB 5.14.17
Ūti· What drives us to actFamily Attachment Feeds Dreamlike Consolation
“Sometimes the conditioned soul imagines that his father or grandfather has again come in the form of his son or grandson. In this way he feels the happiness one sometimes feels in a dream, and the conditioned soul sometimes takes pleasure in such mental concoctions.”
What the purport teaches
- Through fruitive activity, relatives come together like straws gathering in a moving stream. Their association is temporary, and they later separate.
- Strong material affection leads a person to imagine that a departed father or grandfather has returned as a child or grandchild. This gives pleasure resembling the happiness of a dream.
- The purport allows that such a return may sometimes happen, but emphasizes the pleasure taken in imagined conclusions. Ignorance of the Lord's real existence encourages these mental concoctions.
Try this today
Identify one comforting assumption about a family relationship and gently distinguish what you know from what you imagine.
Ask yourself
Do I sometimes treat a comforting thought about family as certain knowledge?
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.