Crossing the River When it is Dry

River at ISKCON New Govardhana,Eungella NSW by VinodT

This is an instructive story by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura recorded as Upakhyane Upadesa.

There used to be a person who was an extreme introvert and he didn't want to leave his own house... One day his friend asked him, O Kaminimohan! Let us both go and visit a sadhu. A great personality has come to Sridham Mayapur and he is preaching very nice transcendental subject matters. You life will be fulfilled upon hearing his instructions. Kaminimoham was very reluctant to leave the comfort of his home just to visit a sadhu’s place. Then his friend tried to allure Kaminimohan, saying, By the way, there’s a great funfare at the bank of Kuliya. It is full of recreation and amusements. So let us go and visit the fare. So Kaminimohan agreed to go visit the funfare at Kuliya for some enjoyment. The friends plan was to take Kaminimohan to the bank of Kuliya and then it would be possible for him to take him across the Ganges to arrive at Sridhama Mayapura.

Arriving at the bank of Kuliya, Kaminimohan enjoyed at the funfair for a while. Then his friend told him, just across the river is Sri Mayapur. Let us go and visit the holy dhama. There you will find the birth place of Lord Sri Caitanyadeva, tomb of Chand Kazi, the remnants of Ballal Sen’s ancient royal palace, the great lake of Ballal Sen and many other places of interest.

Kaminimohan realised now that his friend had become almost determined to take him across the river for a visit to the holy dhama. So he made out a counter-plan and said, My dear friend, I am very afraid of crossing a river. I am, in fact, not at used to boarding a boat, it gives me nausea, dizziness, I become extremely afraid of drowning and palpitations start immediately. This is rainy season, but in winter, when the river will become dry, then we can easily walk down the river without the help of any boat. At that time I will definitely visit Sri Mayapur and all its interesting places.

Listening to Kaminimohan plea, his friend told him, O my dear friend, you say you’ll cross the river when it is dry. This is nothing but your insincerity and hypocrisy. The river will never be dry, and you wouldn't be able to cross it.

****Many of us think that we may devote enough time for listening to the transcendental preaching from some saintly person after completing our business in the field of our domestic material entanglements concerning our family members, their desires and wants, diseases and other things. But in fact, these entanglements will never go. Devotional practices will never be undertaken, unless we make it a point to start devotional practices immediately.

Similarly, Prahlad Maharaj gives the following instructions to his school friends. From Srimad Bhagavatham Canto 7 verses 6 – 8 (Translation and Purport by Srila Prabhupada)

  

·         Every human being has a maximum duration of life of one hundred years, but for one who cannot control his senses, half of those years are completely lost because at night he sleeps twelve hours, being covered by ignorance. Therefore such a person has a lifetime of only fifty years.

·         In the tender age of childhood, when everyone is bewildered, one passes ten years. Similarly, in boyhood, engaged in sporting and playing, one passes another ten years. In this way, twenty years are wasted. Similarly, in old age, when one is an invalid, unable to perform even material activities, one passes another twenty years wastefully.

·         One whose mind and senses are uncontrolled becomes increasingly attached to family life because of insatiable lusty desires and very strong illusion. In such a madman’s life, the remaining years are also wasted because even during those years he cannot engage himself in devotional service.

Purport:

Without Krsna consciousness, one wastes twenty years in childhood and boyhood and another twenty years in old age, when one cannot perform any material activities and is full of anxiety about what is to be done by his sons and grandsons and how one’s estate should be protected. Half of these years are spent in sleep. Furthermore, one wastes another thirty years sleeping at night during the rest of his life. Thus seventy out of one hundred years are wasted by a person who does not know the aim of life and how to utilize this human form.

Lord Brahmā, a human being and an ant all live for one hundred years, but their lifetimes of one hundred years are different from one another. This world is a relative world, and its relative moments of time are different. Thus the one hundred years of Brahmā are not the same as the one hundred years of a human being. From Bhagavad-gītā we understand that Brahmā’s daytime of twelve hours equals 4,300,000 times 1,000 years (sahasra-yuga-paryantam ahar yad brahmaṇo viduḥ). Thus the varṣa-śatam, or one hundred years, are relatively different according to time, person and circumstances. As far as human beings are concerned, the calculation given here is right for the general public. Although one has a maximum of one hundred years of life, by sleeping one loses fifty years. Eating, sleeping, sex life and fear are the four bodily necessities, but to utilize the full duration of life a person desiring to advance in spiritual consciousness must reduce these activities. That will give him an opportunity to fully use his lifetime.

This is the account of one hundred years of life. Although in this age a lifetime of one hundred years is generally not possible, even if one has one hundred years, the calculation is that fifty years are wasted in sleeping, twenty years in childhood and boyhood, and twenty years in invalidity (jarā-vyādhi). This leaves only a few more years, but because of too much attachment to household life, those years are also spent with no purpose, without God consciousness. Therefore, one should be trained to be a perfect brahmacārī in the beginning of life and then to be perfect in sense control, following the regulative principles, if one becomes a householder. From household life one is ordered to accept vānaprastha life and go to the forest and then accept sannyāsa. That is the perfection of life. From the very beginning of life, those who are a jitendriya, who cannot control their senses, are educated only for sense gratification, as we have seen in the Western countries. Thus the entire duration of a life of even one hundred years is wasted and misused, and at the time of death one transmigrates to another body, which may not be human. At the end of one hundred years, one who has not acted as a human being in a life of tapasya (austerity and penance) must certainly be embodied again in a body like those of cats, dogs and hogs. Therefore this life of lusty desires and sense gratification is extremely risky.

On the same lines, Sripad Shankaracharya writes in his Bhaja Govindam verse 7,

bālastāvatkrīḍāsaktaḥ

taruṇastāvattaruṇīsaktaḥ 

vṛddhastāvaccintāsaktaḥ

pare brahmaṇi ko'pi na saktaḥ  

Childhood is lost in play. Youth is lost by attachment to woman. Old age passes away by thinking over many past things. Alas! Hardly is there anyone who yearns to be lost in Parabrahman.