{"id":79344,"date":"2026-06-08T01:55:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T05:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/?p=79344"},"modified":"2026-06-07T08:30:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T12:30:46","slug":"the-paramatma-gives-good-counsel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/the-paramatma-gives-good-counsel\/","title":{"rendered":"The Paramatma Gives good Counsel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At that time, a brahmana who had been an old friend of King Puranjana, came there and began to pacify the queen with sweet words. (The brahmana represents the Paramatma, who gives the living entity the chance for material enjoyment. Also, however, when there is the opportunity, the Paramatma gives good counsel by advising him to give up such illusory happiness and turn to Him. The Lord\u2019s appearance as a brahmana indicates that unless one is very highly elevated, he cannot see the Supreme Personality of Godhead directly. Still, one\u2019s serious resolution to follow the mission of the spiritual master is tantamount to seeing the Supreme Lord. In other words, he meets the Supreme Personality of Godhead in the spiritual master\u2019s instructions.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The brahmana inquired, \u201cWhose wife or daughter are you? Who is the man lying here? It appears that you are lamenting for this dead body.\u201d\u00a0 (The woman replied that this was her spiritual master, and that in his absence she was perplexed about what to do. In such circumstances, if a devotee is sincere and purified, due to having followed the directions of the spiritual master, the Paramatma certainly gives him direct instruction from within his heart.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t you recognize Me? I am your eternal friend, Whom you consulted many times in the past. Even if you do not recognize Me, can\u2019t you remember that you used to have a very intimate friend? Unfortunately, you gave up My company so that you could accept the position of an enjoyer in this material world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cMy dear gentle friend, you and I are like two swans who live together in the Manasa Lake, or the same heart. And yet, although we have been living together for so many thousands of years, we are still far away from our original home. Since you have left Me, you have become more and more materialistic while traveling in different forms throughout this material world, which was created by some woman.\u201d (the external nature)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWithin the city of the material body there are five gardens (the five objects of sense enjoyment), nine gates, one protector (the life-air, which passes through the nine gates), three apartments (the chief ingredients- earth, water and fire. These combine together to form flesh, bone, blood, etc. which can be likened to various apartments within the body), six families (the mind and the five senses), five stores (the five working senses), five material elements, and one woman who is the lord of the house (intelligence).\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cMy dear friend, when you enter such a body, along with the woman of material desires, you become overly absorbed in sense enjoyment and thus forget your spiritual identity. Actually, you are not the daughter of the Vidarbha king, nor is this man your husband, nor were you the husband of Puranjani.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Being captivated by the body, you sometimes think of yourself as a man, sometimes as a woman, and sometimes as a eunuch. This is all due to identifying with the body, which is a creation of My illusory energy. Actually, both you and I have pure, spiritual identities, and thus there is no qualitative difference between us. A person sees his reflection in a mirror to be one with himself, whereas others see two distinct bodies. Similarly, when the living being is materially conditioned, he sees a difference between himself and God.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n



\nThis is a section of the book \u201cA Sidelong Glance\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

To buy the complete book,<\/span> click <\/span><\/a>here<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n



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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At that time, a brahmana who had been an old friend of King Puranjana, came there and began to pacify the queen with sweet words. (The brahmana represents the Paramatma, who gives the living entity the … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":195,"featured_media":79346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,189],"tags":[229],"class_list":["post-79344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","category-kadacha-eng","tag-a-sidelong-glance-eng"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 12:19:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/195"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79347,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79344\/revisions\/79347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}