Live the Bhāgavatam · SB 5.26.3
Ūti· What drives us to actImpious Actions Bring Different Degrees of Suffering
“Just as by executing various pious activities one achieves different positions in heavenly life, by acting impiously one achieves different positions in hellish life. Those who are activated by the material mode of ignorance engage in impious activities, and according to the extent of their ignorance, they are placed in different grades of hellish life. If one acts in the mode of ignorance because of madness, his resulting misery is the least severe. One who acts impiously but knows the distinction between pious and impious activities is placed in a hell of intermediate severity. And for one who acts impiously and ignorantly because of atheism, the resultant hellish life is the worst. Because of ignorance, every living entity has been carried by various desires into thousands of different hellish planets since time immemorial. I shall try to describe them as far as possible.”
What the purport teaches
- Just as pious activities lead to different heavenly positions, impious activities lead to different hellish positions.
- The resulting misery is least severe when wrongdoing arises from madness, intermediate when one knows right from wrong, and worst when it arises from atheism.
- Since time immemorial, ignorance and various desires have carried living entities into thousands of different hellish planets.
Try this today
Identify one desire that could lead you to wrongdoing, and refrain from acting on it today.
Ask yourself
Am I allowing a desire to lead me toward something I know is wrong?
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.