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Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
<< Canto 3, The Status Quo >> << 5 - Vidura’s Talks with Maitreya >>
<< VERSE 2 >>
विदुर उवाच सुखाय कर्माणि करोति लोको न तैः सुखं वान्यदुपारमं वा विन्देत भूयस्तत एव दुःखं यदत्र युक्तं भगवान्वदेन्नः
vidura uvāca sukhāya karmāṇi karoti loko na taiḥ sukhaṁ vānyad-upāramaṁ vā vindeta bhūyas tata eva duḥkhaṁ yad atra yuktaṁ bhagavān vaden naḥ
WORD BY WORD
viduraḥ uvāca Vidura said; sukhāya for attaining happiness; karmāṇi fruitive activities; karoti everyone does so; lokaḥ in this world; na never; taiḥ by those activities; sukham any happiness; vā or; anyat differently; upāramam satiation; vā either; vindeta achieves; bhūyaḥ on the contrary; tataḥ by such activities; eva certainly; duḥkham miseries; yat that which; atra under the circumstances; yuktam right course; bhagavān O great one; vadet may kindly enlighten; naḥ us.;
TRANSLATION
| Vidura said: O great sage, everyone in this world engages in fruitive activities to attain happiness, but one finds neither satiation nor the mitigation of distress. On the contrary, one is only aggravated by such activities. Please, therefore, give us directions on how one should live for real happiness.
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PURPORT
| Vidura asked Maitreya some common questions, which was not originally his intention. Uddhava asked Vidura to approach Maitreya Muni and inquire into all the truths concerning the Lord — His name, fame, qualities, form, pastimes, entourage, etc. — and thus when Vidura approached Maitreya, he should have asked only about the Lord. But out of natural humility he did not immediately ask about the Lord, but inquired into a subject which would be of great importance to the common man. A common man cannot understand the Lord. He must first know the real position of his life under the influence of the illusory energy. In illusion one thinks that he can be happy only by fruitive activities, but what actually happens is that one becomes more and more entangled in the network of action and reaction and does not find any solution to the problem of life. There is a nice song in this connection: “Because of a great desire to have all happiness in life, I built this house. But unfortunately the whole scheme has turned to ashes because the house was unexpectedly set on fire.” The law of nature is like that. Everyone tries to become happy by planning in the material world, but the law of nature is so cruel that it sets fire to one’s schemes; the fruitive worker is not happy in his schemes, nor is there any satiation of his continuous hankering for happiness.
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