Higher duties

Expressions researched:
"higher duty" |"higher duties"

BG Chapters 1 - 6

Yet for a higher cause Lord Caitanya took sannyāsa and was steady in the discharge of higher duties

BG 2.15, Purport: The difficulties usually arise from having to sever family relationships, to give up the connection of wife and children. But if anyone is able to tolerate such difficulties, surely his path to spiritual realization is complete. Similarly, in Arjuna's discharge of duties as a ksatriya, he is advised to persevere, even if it is difficult to fight with his family members or similarly beloved persons. Lord Caitanya took sannyasa at the age of twenty-four, and His dependents, young wife as well as old mother, had no one else to look after them. Yet for a higher cause He took sannyasa and was steady in the discharge of higher duties. That is the way of achieving liberation from material bondage.

SB Canto 2

An unrestricted life of sense gratification is animal life, and Lord Brahmā, in order to teach all concerned within the jurisdiction of his generations, taught the same principles of sense control for executing higher duties

SB 2.9.40, Purport: One cannot be situated in an exalted position without having undertaken a regulative life of rules and regulations. An unrestricted life of sense gratification is animal life, and Lord Brahma, in order to teach all concerned within the jurisdiction of his generations, taught the same principles of sense control for executing higher duties. He desired the welfare of all as servants of God, and anyone desiring the welfare of the members of his family and generations must conduct a moral, religious life. The highest life of moral principles is to become a devotee of the Lord because a pure devotee of the Lord has all the good qualities of the Lord. On the other hand, one who is not a devotee of the Lord, however qualified he may be in the mundane sense of the term, cannot be qualified with any good quality worthy of the name. The pure devotees of the Lord, like Brahma and persons in the chain of disciplic succession, do not do anything to instruct their subordinates without acting accordingly themselves.

SB Canto 4

Those who are elevated above the material condition are not at all interested in such Vedic performances. Rather, they are interested in the higher duties of transcendental loving service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead

SB 4.20.6, Purport: The Vedic ritualistic ceremonies are certainly meant to please the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Visnu. However, by such activities one does not factually satisfy the Lord. Rather, with the sanction of the Lord, one tries to satisfy one's own senses. In other words, materialists, who are especially interested in sense gratification, are given permission or license to enjoy sense gratification by executing the Vedic ritualistic ceremonies. That is called traigunya-visaya vedah. The Vedic performances are based on the three modes of material nature. Those who are elevated above the material condition are not at all interested in such Vedic performances. Rather, they are interested in the higher duties of transcendental loving service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Such devotional service is called nistraigunya. Devotional service to the Lord has nothing to do with the material conception of bodily comfort.

1947 to 1965 Correspondence

These sacred centres were meant for diffusing spiritual education and by this process of spiritual culture the disturbed mind could be trained up in concentration for higher duties which every human being must do

Letter to Gandhi Memorial Fund -- Calcutta 5 July, 1949: Mahatmaji started another spiritual movement known as the temple entry movement and he wanted to give this facility to everyone irrespective caste distinction. The temple worship is another kind of spiritual cultural movement for the benefit of the ordinary class of people. He himself installed the deity of Sri Radha Krishna at Noakhali when he was there and that is also very significant. The theistic temples all over India are actually the different centres as are the churches and mosques all over the world. These sacred centres were meant for diffusing spiritual education and by this process of spiritual culture the disturbed mind could be trained up in concentration for higher duties which every human being must do. By such education in practice can help man in realizing the existence of God without whose sanction, according to Mahatma Gandhi, "not a blade of grass moves.