Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 11 Chapter 5 Verse 12

Canto 11: General History | Chapter 5: Nārada Concludes His Teachings to Vasudeva

Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 11.5.12

dhanaḿ ca dharmaika-phalaḿ yato vai

jñānaḿ sa-vijñānam anupraśānti

gṛheṣu yuñjanti kalevarasya

mṛtyuḿ na paśyanti duranta-vīryam

SYNONYMS

dhanam — wealth; ca — also; dharma-eka-phalam — whose only proper fruit is religiosity; yataḥ — from which (religious life); vai — indeed; jñānam — knowledge; sa-vijñānam — along with direct realization; anupraśānti — and subsequent liberation from suffering; gṛheṣu — in their homes; yuñjanti — they utilize; kalevarasya — of their material body; mṛtyum — the death; na paśyanti — they cannot see; duranta — insurmountable; vīryam — the power of which.

TRANSLATION

The only proper fruit of acquired wealth is religiosity, on the basis of which one can acquire a philosophical understanding of life that eventually matures into direct perception of the Absolute Truth and thus liberation from all suffering. Materialistic persons, however, utilize their wealth simply for the advancement of their family situation. They fail to see that insurmountable death will soon destroy the frail material body.

PURPORT

Those things that come under the control of the proprietor are called dhanam, or wealth. When a foolish person becomes addicted to spending all of his hard-earned money to increase the prestige of his material body and family, he is no longer able to see how death is steadily approaching his own body as well as the temporary bodies of his family and friends. Mṛtyuḥ sarva-haraś cāham: the Supreme Lord appears as all-powerful death, which destroys all material situations. Actually, even in family life one should use one's wealth for spiritual advancement of oneself and one's family. In the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement there are many religious householders who live a simple, peaceful life and use their wealth for arranging Kṛṣṇa conscious activities at home and for helping the renounced brahmacārīs and sannyāsīs who are actively preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness in public places. Such householders, even those who are not able to dedicate one hundred percent of their energy to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, gradually acquire a very solid understanding of the spiritual principles of life and eventually become transcendentalists firmly fixed at the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa. Thus they free themselves from all of the anxieties of conditional life, namely birth, old age, disease and death.

Life without Kṛṣṇa consciousness is actually poverty, but the poverty-stricken materialist, whose intelligence is limited, cannot perceive that real wealth is the expansion of consciousness up to the highest level of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, love of Godhead. Such persons raise their children to be just like animals, having as their only goal false prestige and material sense gratification. Such materialistic householders fear that excessive interest in spiritual life may damage the ambition of their children to acquire false material prestige. Actually, death will smash all of the endeavors and plans of such spiritually impoverished materialists. If family life and wealth are used for Kṛṣṇa consciousness, one will learn to discriminate between the eternal and the noneternal, between spirit and matter, between bliss and anxiety, and thus the living entity will become liberated and go beyond mere theoretical knowledge to acquire the highest perfectional benediction of eternal Kṛṣṇa conscious life. Limited sensory knowledge, pratyakṣa-jñāna, is useless without theoretical spiritual knowledge, parokṣa-jñāna, which gradually matures, with careful cultivation, into direct realized knowledge of the soul, aparokṣa-jñāna.

The word anupraśānti in this verse indicates that by spiritual knowledge (vijñānam) one achieves the most sublime state of eternal peace and bliss, far beyond the dreams of the materialistic conditioned soul.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness
His Holiness Hrdayananda dasa Goswami
Gopiparanadhana dasa Adhikari
Dravida dasa Brahmacari