Live the Bhāgavatam · SB 6.16.57
Ūti· What drives us to actRemember Our Dependence on the Supreme
“When a living entity, thinking himself different from Me, forgets his spiritual identity of qualitative oneness with Me in eternity, knowledge and bliss, his material, conditional life begins. In other words, instead of identifying his interest with Mine, he becomes interested in his bodily expansions like his wife, children and material possessions. In this way, by the influence of his actions, one body comes from another, and after one death, another death takes place.”
What the purport teaches
- Conditioned life begins when the living entity forgets his spiritual position and pursues interests apart from the Lord’s. Attachment to bodily expansions and possessions leads to repeated birth and death.
- The living entity shares the Lord’s qualities of eternity, knowledge and bliss, but is not equal to Him in quantity. Thinking oneself equal to the Supreme Personality of Godhead in all respects is ignorance.
- Sunshine shares the sun’s heat and light, yet depends upon the sun. Similarly, forgetting the living entity’s dependence on the Supreme Lord is called māyā.
Try this today
Before acting on one desire today, pause and ask whether it identifies your interest with the Lord’s or only with bodily possessions.
Ask yourself
Where am I pursuing an interest as though I were independent of the Lord?
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.