Thursday, 21 March 2013

The Criticality of zraddhA: Giving Up Karma



tAvat karmANi kurvIta na nirvidyeta yAvatA |
mat-kathA-zravaNAdau vA zraddhA yAvan na jAyate || (SB 11.20.9)

On the strength of the above verse, how easy is it to give up nitya-naimittikAdi karmas !

But there is another warning-

zruti-smRtI mamaivAjJe yas te ullaGghya vartate |
AjJA-cchedI mama dveSI mad-bhakto’pi na vaiSNavaH ||

The Lord anticipates such human behaviour based on laziness and carelessness and warns that such people are not vaiSNavas even if they are my bhaktas ! "AjJA-cchedI mama dveSI mad-bhakto’pi na vaiSNavaH"; what use of words !

zraddhA does not mean faith. If one thinks that one can give up his kula-dharma, jAti-dharma etc on the basis of "faith", it would actually be counter productive and is bound to take one away from God rather than towards Him.

No comments:

Post a Comment