Lecture 1 - “Love and self-love”
So, Vidura is glorifying a devotee. This is the mood of a devotee. He likes to glorify other devotees. He doesn’t think that – let’s talk about me. If we observe the mentality of karmis or jnanis, or yogis, they always bring everything back to themselves, because they’re self-centered. Only a devotee, if we examine objectively, is beyond this selfish, or extended selfish, activities. They actually love other devotees and Krsna more than themselves. And therefore sometimes they forget about themselves. Just like here – Vidura is on the road and suddenly he forgot that he was walking and so on, he just lost his equilibrium and fell down. This is the symptom of transcendental ecstasy, which is beyond the limit of self-love. In self-love we can enjoy something. People like going to the country, have children that they want to enjoy, sex life – they want to enjoy, so there’s some pleasure there. We don’t deny that. But we say that that pleasure is compared to like a drop of water in the desert. In the desert you need gallons of water to quench your thirst. So if someone gives you a drop of water – we don’t deny it’s water, but it won’t satisfy you. Similarly, this so called pleasure of material life – there maybe little pleasure there – but it won’t really satisfy hankering of your soul. And, on the other side, for every little pleasure, there is also some inconvenience.
