Avantī Brāhmaṇa’s Song - The Mind as the Cause of Happiness and Distress

This article presents a thematic survey of the Avanti Brāhmaṇa's transformation from a miser to a self-realized sage. It organizes the profound verses found in the Vanisource category Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam Verses Spoken by the Avanti Brāhmaṇa.

The story of the Avanti Brāhmaṇa is a powerful lesson on the dangers of attachment to wealth and the necessity of controlling the mind. His "Song of the Mendicant" (Bhikṣu-gītā) is highly regarded by transcendentalists because it provides a logical method to tolerate the duality of the material world. By analyzing the various agents of suffering and dismissing them one by one, the Avanti Brāhmaṇa arrives at the conclusion that the uncontrolled mind is the only enemy.

The Misery of Wealth

After losing all his accumulated riches to relatives, thieves, and providence, the Avanti Brāhmaṇa reflects on the uselessness of his endeavor. The Avanti Brāhmaṇa realizes that wealth brings only anxiety and fear, and it destroys all good qualities.

The Fifteen Evils of Money

The Avanti Brāhmaṇa lists the specific contaminations that arise from greed for wealth.

  • "The brāhmaṇa spoke as follows: O what great misfortune! I have simply tormented myself uselessly, struggling so hard for money that was not even intended for religiosity or material enjoyment."
  • "Generally, the wealth of misers never allows them any happiness. In this life it causes their self-torment, and when they die it sends them to hell."
  • "Theft, violence, speaking lies, duplicity, lust, anger, perplexity, pride, quarreling, enmity, faithlessness, envy and the dangers caused by women, gambling and intoxication are the fifteen undesirable qualities that contaminate men because of greed for wealth. Although these qualities are undesirable, men falsely ascribe value to them. One desiring to achieve the real benefit of life should therefore remain aloof from undesirable material wealth."
  • "Whatever pure fame is possessed by the famous and whatever praiseworthy qualities are found in the virtuous are destroyed by even a small amount of greed, just as one's attractive physical beauty is ruined by a trace of white leprosy."
  • "In the earning, attainment, increase, protection, expense, loss and enjoyment of wealth, all men experience great labor, fear, anxiety and delusion."

Destruction of Relationships

The Avanti Brāhmaṇa observes that money breaks even the strongest family bonds.

  • "Even a man's brothers, wife, parents and friends united with him in love will immediately break off their affectionate relationships and become enemies over a single coin."
  • "For even a small amount of money these relatives and friends become very agitated and their anger is inflamed. Acting as rivals, they quickly give up all sentiments of goodwill and will reject one at a moment's notice, even to the point of committing murder."

Wasted Human Life

The Avanti Brāhmaṇa laments that he squandered his valuable human form of life, which is meant for liberation, on the pursuit of temporary assets.

  • "Those who obtain human life, which is prayed for even by the demigods, and in that human birth become situated as first-class brāhmaṇas, are extremely fortunate. If they disregard this important opportunity, they are certainly killing their own self-interest and thus achieve a most unfortunate end."
  • "What mortal man, having achieved this human life, which is the very gateway to both heaven and liberation, would willingly become attached to that abode of worthlessness, material property?"
  • "One who fails to distribute his wealth to the proper shareholders—the demigods, sages, forefathers and ordinary living entities, as well as his immediate relatives, in-laws and own self—is maintaining his wealth simply like a Yakṣa and will fall down."
  • "Discriminating persons are able to utilize their money, youth and strength to achieve perfection. But I have feverishly squandered these in the useless endeavor for further wealth. Now that I am an old man, what can I achieve?"
  • "Why must an intelligent man suffer by his constant vain efforts to get wealth? Indeed, this whole world is most bewildered by someone's illusory potency."
  • "For one who is in the grips of death, what is the use of wealth or those who offer it, sense gratification or those who offer it, or, for that matter, any type of fruitive activity, which simply causes one to again take birth in the material world?"

The Turning Point: Acceptance of Detachment

Instead of lamenting his loss, the Avanti Brāhmaṇa recognizes it as the special favor of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Avanti Brāhmaṇa resolves to use this opportunity to practice austerity.

  • "The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Hari, who contains within Himself all the demigods, must be satisfied with me. Indeed, He has brought me to this suffering condition and forced me to experience detachment, which is the boat to carry me over this ocean of material life."
  • "If there is any time remaining in my life, I will perform austerities and force my body to subsist on the bare necessities. Without further confusion I shall pursue that which constitutes my entire self-interest in life, and I shall remain satisfied within the self."
  • "Thus may the presiding demigods of these three worlds kindly show their mercy upon me. Indeed, Mahārāja Khaṭvāṅga was able to achieve the spiritual world in a single moment."

The Bhikṣu-Gītā: Analysis of Happiness and Distress

After accepting the renounced order, the Avanti Brāhmaṇa is mistreated by the public. People insult him, beat him, and take away his begging bowl. However, he remains fixed in his determination. He begins to analyze the cause of his suffering, systematically refuting various agents until he identifies the mind as the culprit.

The Six Refutations

The Avanti Brāhmaṇa argues that neither people, demigods, the soul, planets, karma, nor time are the actual cause of happiness and distress.

  • "The brāhmaṇa said: These people are not the cause of my happiness and distress. Neither are the demigods, my own body, the planets, my past work, or time. Rather, it is the mind alone that causes happiness and distress and perpetuates the rotation of material life."
1. People are Not the Cause
  • "If you say that these people are the cause of my happiness and distress, then where is the place of the soul in such a conception? This happiness and distress pertain not to the soul but to the interactions of material bodies. If someone bites his tongue with his own teeth, at whom can he become angry in his suffering?"
2. Demigods are Not the Cause
  • "If you say that the demigods who rule the bodily senses cause suffering, still, how can such suffering apply to the spirit soul? This acting and being acted upon are merely interactions of the changeable senses and their presiding deities. When one limb of the body attacks another, with whom can the person in that body be angry?"
3. The Soul is Not the Cause
  • "If the soul himself were the cause of happiness and distress, then we could not blame others, since happiness and distress would be simply the nature of the soul. According to this theory, nothing except the soul actually exists, and if we were to perceive something besides the soul, that would be illusion. Therefore, since happiness and distress do not actually exist in this concept, why become angry at oneself or others?"
4. Planets are Not the Cause
  • "And if we examine the hypothesis that the planets are the immediate cause of suffering and happiness, then also where is the relationship with the soul, who is eternal? After all, the effect of the planets applies only to things that have taken birth. Expert astrologers have moreover explained how the planets are only causing pain to each other. Therefore, since the living entity is distinct from these planets and from the material body, against whom should he vent his anger?"
5. Karma is Not the Cause
  • "If we assume that fruitive work is the cause of happiness and distress, we still are not dealing with the soul. The idea of material work arises when there is a spiritual actor who is conscious and a material body that undergoes the transformation of happiness and distress as a reaction to such work. Since the body has no life, it cannot be the actual recipient of happiness and distress, nor can the soul, who is ultimately completely spiritual and aloof from the material body. Since karma thus has no ultimate basis in either the body or the soul, at whom can one become angry?"
6. Time is Not the Cause
  • "If we accept time as the cause of happiness and distress, that experience still cannot apply to the spirit soul, since time is a manifestation of the Lord's spiritual potency and the living entities are also expansions of the Lord's spiritual potency manifesting through time. Certainly a fire does not burn its own flames or sparks, nor does the cold harm its own snowflakes or hail. In fact, the spirit soul is transcendental and beyond the experience of material happiness and distress. At whom, therefore, should one become angry?"

The Mind is the Root Cause

Having eliminated all external factors, the Avanti Brāhmaṇa concludes that the material mind is the true enemy. The mind creates the false ego and binds the soul to the modes of nature.

The Mechanism of Entanglement

The Avanti Brāhmaṇa explains that the mind reflects the material world and engages the soul in sense gratification.

  • "The powerful mind actuates the functions of the material modes, from which evolve the different kinds of material activities in the modes of goodness, ignorance and passion. From the activities in each of these modes develop the corresponding statuses of life."
  • "Although present along with the struggling mind within the material body, the Supersoul is not endeavoring, because He is already endowed with transcendental enlightenment. Acting as my friend, He simply witnesses from His transcendental position. I, the infinitesimal spirit soul, on the other hand, have embraced this mind, which is the mirror reflecting the image of the material world. Thus I have become engaged in enjoying objects of desire and am entangled due to contact with the modes of nature."
  • "Persons who identify with this body, which is simply the product of the material mind, are blinded in their intelligence, thinking in terms of 'I' and 'mine.' Because of their illusion of 'this is I, but that is someone else,' they wander in endless darkness."
  • "The false ego gives shape to illusory material existence and thus experiences material happiness and distress. The spirit soul, however, is transcendental to material nature; he can never actually be affected by material happiness and distress in any place, under any circumstance or by the agency of any person. A person who understands this has nothing whatsoever to fear from the material creation."

The Goal of Yoga

The Avanti Brāhmaṇa asserts that all spiritual practices are meant simply to control the mind.

  • "Charity, prescribed duties, observance of major and minor regulative principles, hearing from scripture, pious works and purifying vows all have as their final aim the subduing of the mind. Indeed, concentration of the mind on the Supreme is the highest yoga."
  • "If one's mind is perfectly fixed and pacified, then tell me what need does one have to perform ritualistic charity and other pious rituals? And if one's mind remains uncontrolled, lost in ignorance, then of what use are these engagements for him?"

The Strongest Enemy

The Avanti Brāhmaṇa warns that failing to control the mind leads to useless quarrel and bewilderment.

  • "All the senses have been under the control of the mind since time immemorial, and the mind himself never comes under the sway of any other. He is stronger than the strongest, and his godlike power is fearsome. Therefore, anyone who can bring the mind under control becomes the master of all the senses."
  • "Failing to conquer this irrepressible enemy, the mind, whose urges are intolerable and who torments the heart, many people are completely bewildered and create useless quarrel with others. Thus they conclude that other people are either their friends, their enemies or parties indifferent to them."

Conclusion: Shelter of the Paramātmā

The Avanti Brāhmaṇa concludes that the only solution is to engage in the service of the Supreme Lord, Kṛṣṇa.

  • "I shall cross over the insurmountable ocean of nescience by being firmly fixed in the service of the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa. This was approved by the previous ācāryas, who were fixed in firm devotion to the Lord, Paramātmā, the Supreme Personality of Godhead."

Dive Deeper into Śrīla Prabhupāda's Vani

This article is a thematic compilation of the teachings presented in the Vaniquotes category Bhagavatam Verses Spoken by the Avanti Brahmana. We invite you to visit the link to read the complete collection of verses presented in alphabetical order.

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