Shallow

Expressions researched:
"shallow"

SB Canto 5

When one is hot due to the scorching sun, one sometimes jumps into a river to gain relief. However, if the river is almost dried up and the water is too shallow, one may break his bones by jumping in. The conditioned soul is always experiencing miserable conditions.

SB 5.13.6, Translation and Purport:

Sometimes the conditioned soul jumps into a shallow river, or being short of food grains, he goes to beg food from people who are not at all charitable. Sometimes he suffers from the burning heat of household life, which is like a forest fire, and sometimes he becomes sad to have his wealth, which is as dear as life, plundered by kings in the name of heavy income taxes.

When one is hot due to the scorching sun, one sometimes jumps into a river to gain relief. However, if the river is almost dried up and the water is too shallow, one may break his bones by jumping in. The conditioned soul is always experiencing miserable conditions. Sometimes his efforts to get help from friends are exactly like jumping into a dry river. By such actions, he does not derive any benefit. He only breaks his bones. Sometimes, suffering from a shortage of food, one may go to a person who is neither able to give charity nor willing to do so. Sometimes one is stationed in household life, which is compared to a forest fire (saṁsāra-dāvānala-līḍha-loka). When a man is heavily taxed by the government, he becomes very sad. Heavy taxation obliges one to hide his income, but despite this endeavor the government agents are often so vigilant and strong that they take all the money anyway, and the conditioned soul becomes very aggrieved.

Sometimes, to mitigate distresses in this forest of the material world, the conditioned soul receives cheap blessings from atheists. He then loses all intelligence in their association. This is exactly like jumping in a shallow river. As a result one simply breaks his head. He is not able to mitigate his sufferings from the heat, and in both ways he suffers.

SB 5.14.13, Translation and Purport:

Sometimes, to mitigate distresses in this forest of the material world, the conditioned soul receives cheap blessings from atheists. He then loses all intelligence in their association. This is exactly like jumping in a shallow river. As a result one simply breaks his head. He is not able to mitigate his sufferings from the heat, and in both ways he suffers. The misguided conditioned soul also approaches so-called sādhus and svāmīs who preach against the principles of the Vedas. He does not receive benefit from them, either in the present or in the future.

Cheaters are always there to manufacture their own way of spiritual realization. To get some material benefit, the conditioned soul approaches these pseudo sannyāsīs and yogīs for cheap blessings, but he does not receive any benefit from them, either spiritual or material. In this age there are many cheaters who show some jugglery and magic. They even create gold to amaze their followers, and their followers accept them as God. This type of cheating is very prominent in Kali-yuga. Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura describes the real guru in this way.

saṁsāra-dāvānala-līḍha-loka-

trāṇāya kāruṇya-ghanāghanatvam

prāptasya kalyāṇa-guṇārṇavasya

vande guroḥ śrī-caraṇāravindam

One should approach a guru who can extinguish the blazing fire of this material world, the struggle for existence, people want to be cheated, and therefore they go to yogīs and svāmīs who play tricks, but tricks do not mitigate the miseries of material life. If being able to manufacture gold is a criterion for becoming God, then why not accept Kṛṣṇa, the proprietor of the entire universe, wherein there are countless tons of gold?

SB Cantos 10.14 to 12 (Translations Only)

SB 10.20.37, Translation:

The fish swimming in the increasingly shallow water did not at all understand that the water was diminishing, just as foolish family men cannot see how the time they have left to live is diminishing with every passing day.

SB 10.20.38, Translation:

Just as a miserly, poverty-stricken person overly absorbed in family life suffers because he cannot control his senses, the fish swimming in the shallow water had to suffer the heat of the autumn sun.

SB 11.8.6, Translation:

During the rainy season the swollen rivers rush into the ocean, and during the dry summer the rivers, now shallow, severely reduce their supply of water; yet the ocean does not swell up during the rainy season, nor does it dry up in the hot summer. In the same way, a saintly devotee who has accepted the Supreme Personality of Godhead as the goal of his life sometimes will receive by providence great material opulence, and sometimes he will find himself materially destitute. However, such a devotee of the Lord does not rejoice in a flourishing condition, nor is he morose when poverty-stricken.

CC Adi-lila

“Compared to the ocean of transcendental bliss that one tastes by chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, the pleasure derived from impersonal Brahman realization is like the shallow water in a canal.“

CC Adi 7.97, Translation and Purport:

“Compared to the ocean of transcendental bliss that one tastes by chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, the pleasure derived from impersonal Brahman realization (brahmānanda) is like the shallow water in a canal.“

In the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (1.1.38) it is stated:

brahmānando bhaved eṣa cet parārdha-guṇī-kṛtaḥ

naiti bhakti-sukhāmbhodheḥ paramāṇu-tulām api

"If brahmānanda, the transcendental bliss derived from understanding impersonal Brahman, were multiplied a million times, such a quantity of brahmānanda could not compare with even an atomic portion of the pleasure relished in pure devotional service."

Teachings of Lord Caitanya

"I realize that the transcendental pleasure derived from chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare is just like an ocean. In comparison, all other pleasures, including the pleasure of impersonal realization, are like shallow water in channels."

Teachings of Lord Caitanya, Chapter 19:

"A person who is constantly engaged in devotional service to Kṛṣṇa and who chants His holy name becomes so transcendentally attached to the chanting that his heart becomes softened without extraneous endeavor. When this happens, he exhibits transcendental ecstasies and sometimes laughs, sometimes cries, sings and dances—not exactly in an artistic way, but just like a madman."

Lord Caitanya further informed Prakāśānanda Sarasvatī: "Because I have full faith in My spiritual master's words, I am always engaged in chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. I do not exactly know how I have become just like a madman, but I believe the name of Kṛṣṇa has induced Me. I realize that the transcendental pleasure derived from chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare is just like an ocean. In comparison, all other pleasures, including the pleasure of impersonal realization, are like shallow water in channels."

Renunciation Through Wisdom

Forgetfulness of the Supreme Lord, Viṣṇu, is human society's real and original disease. So, if one does not treat this ailment but instead shows insincere and shallow concern for the patients, one might give them some momentary relief and pleasure, but ultimately such a course of action cannot cure them permanently.

Renunciation Through Wisdom 1.7:

The general populace simply follows the dictates and decisions of the leaders, who are bereft of any spiritual realization. Therefore it is advised that the leaders of society should act responsibly. The easy path to prosperity opens up when these leaders intelligently put into practice the precepts of karma-yoga. Without first becoming adept at curing one's own disease, why try to treat many patients? This is unreasonable. First a leader has to adopt the principles of karma-yoga in his own life; then he has to diagnose the disease of the people; then the medicine is to be prescribed and the proper diet given. Simply to offer the suffering people a sense-gratificatory cure that titillates their senses—this is not going to make them healthy. Rather, this will spread the disease further, and at one stage the doctor himself will be infected and finally die from it.

Forgetfulness of the Supreme Lord, Viṣṇu, is human society's real and original disease. So, if one does not treat this ailment but instead shows insincere and shallow concern for the patients, one might give them some momentary relief and pleasure, but ultimately such a course of action cannot cure them permanently. If the patient goes for proper medicine and diet but is instead administered bad medicine and diet, then he is certainly in the jaws of death.

Those who lose sight of the center and become attracted to the externals are shallow and misguided. These misguided persons are in a sense blind; hence the world cannot expect them to give any guidance toward enlightenment. However much these blind people may pretend to guide and benefit other blind people, factually they are fully controlled by the will of providence.

Renunciation Through Wisdom 1.7:

The senses are of prime importance in the body; more important than the senses is the mind, then intelligence, and finally the false ego. And more important than the false ego is the real self, a pure spiritual being that is part and parcel of the Supreme Lord, Viṣṇu. Therefore the conclusion is that the fountainhead of everything is Lord Viṣṇu. For this reason Prahlāda Mahārāja said,

Persons who are strongly entrapped by the consciousness of enjoying material life, and who have therefore accepted as their leader or guru a similar blind man attached to external sense objects, cannot understand that the goal of life is to return home, back to Godhead, and engage in the service of Lord Viṣṇu.

Those who lose sight of the center and become attracted to the externals are shallow and misguided. These misguided persons are in a sense blind; hence the world cannot expect them to give any guidance toward enlightenment. However much these blind people may pretend to guide and benefit other blind people, factually they are fully controlled by the will of providence. We should make the effort to understand that the cause and source of everything is Lord Viṣṇu, the Absolute Truth, and that the fullest manifestation of this Absolute Truth is Lord Kṛṣṇa, the source of even Lord Viṣṇu. As Lord Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā (BG 7.7), "O conqueror of wealth, (Arjuna), there is no truth superior to Me."

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

By your convenience you can come to our temple and see how they are executing devotional...

Room Conversation with David Wynne, Sculptor -- July 9, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: So how do you like our philosophy?

David Wynne: How do I like...?

Prabhupāda: Our philosophy.

David Wynne: I, I like it, I admire it very much. I don't know...

Prabhupāda: Thank you.

David Wynne: I don't know very much.

Prabhupāda: I know, you, you, in one day or one minute, how can you know? But our basic principles of philosophy.

David Wynne: Yeah. I've been... I was more or less brought up... My mother told me when I was very small that the Bhagavad-gītā was the most important book in the world.

Prabhupāda: Oh!

David Wynne: And the Upaniṣads and the Vedas and the...

Prabhupāda: Oh, you are fortunate.

David Wynne: So I've always known that it was true, but one, one's knowledge is very shallow. It's always felt true, is what I mean. Because an arti..., you know, a sculptor goes more by feeling than by thinking, you know.

Prabhupāda: Sometimes in your, by your convenience you can come to our temple and see how they are executing devotional...

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Shallow water, when it is dried by the sunshine they get salt. Evaporation is done by sunshine, and they get the salt. Practically they get the salt without any cost, and whatever they get, money, they are satisfied.

Morning Walk -- January 6, 1976, Nellore:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: (break) Chipped rice?

Mahāmṣa: No, that was sugar.

Prabhupāda: Sugar? Salt.

Harikeśa: That's the way their salt is here.

Acyutānanda: In blocks?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Rock salt.

Prabhupāda: Not rock salt. Sea salt.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They get it from here?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Sea. Not here, where there is sea.

Yaśodānandana: The sea is just fourteen miles away.

Prabhupāda: Shallow water, when it is dried by the sunshine they get salt. Evaporation is done by sunshine, and they get the salt. Practically they get the salt without any cost, and whatever they get, money, they are satisfied.

They do not know Kṛṣṇa. Therefore they cannot understand.

Morning Walk -- March 1, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Yes, bouquet, yes. That does not mean you know how the flower has come out. That is called visarga. Sarga and visarga. Just like Brahmā has created this universe, but that does not mean he is the ultimate cause. Tene brahma hṛdā ya ādi-kavaye (SB 1.1.1). Brahmā got knowledge from Kṛṣṇa how to do it. What is this? (break) ...āṇu-cayānthara-stham. (break) ...tejaḥ, heat, the sun, supplying heat and water, vāri and mṛt, and the earth, combination. These things are coming out. Tejo-vāri-mṛt-vinimayam. How these flowers and trees are coming out? There is sunlight, there is water, and there is earth. And there is Kṛṣṇa also, the seed. Bījo 'ham sarva-bhutanam (Bg 7.10). So without Kṛṣṇa, nothing can be... (break) ...there is spirit atom?

Yaśodānandana: Yes. The arguments are very convincing, especially this last point about how the plants are growing with the help of sunlight, earth, water and... Scientists only have very shallow explanations of how life comes about.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...such verse. Yasmin vijñāte sarvam evaṁ vijñātaṁ bhavati (Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 1.3). They do not know Kṛṣṇa. Therefore they cannot understand.

Everyone can say like that. What you have done as God? God is an Indian. Making things very complicated.

Room Conversation -- September 11, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: "The Baba personifies heaven." (?) (Him?)

Hari-śauri: Yes. He said, "Baba personifies this philosophy, that God in man and man in God is the basis of religion. As he told me, "God is man and man is God. All of us have something of God, the divine spark, within us. All men are divine like myself, with the spirit embodied in human flesh and bone. The only difference is that they are unaware of this Godhood."

Prabhupāda: Unaware. So God, how he's unaware? Just see.

Hari-śauri: They make God so cheap.

Prabhupāda: The rascal.

Hari-śauri: This is... And then the next part's even worse. "For the doubting or confused minority, to which section I then belonged, Swamiji has this message. "Those who want to secure pearls from the sea have to dive deep to fetch them. It does not help them to dabble among the shallow waves near the shore and say that the sea has no pearls and that all stories about them are false. Likewise, if a person wants to secure the love and grace of the avatāra he must also dive deep and get submerged in Sai Baba. Then only will he become one with me and carry me in his innermost heart."

Prabhupāda: Everyone can say like that. What you have done as God? God is an Indian. Making things very complicated.

1968 Correspondence

Vasudeva saw that all of the doors were opened and that the gate-keepers were asleep so he went outside of the house and came to the bank of the Yamuna. He sees that the river is inflated with rainy season water and he thinks, "How shall I cross?" Then he saw a jackal crossing the river and Vasudeva realized that the river was shallow and only up to his ankles.

So Vasudeva, holding little Krishna in his arms follows the jackal across the Yamuna River. So this night scene of walking across the river is the fourth picture.

Letter to Jadurani -- Los Angeles 25 December, 1968:

So our book will most likely have the firt volume of the forty chapters of Krishna in Vrindaban, with one picture for each chapter. I will now submit my suggestions for the first five pictures.

1. Pregnant Devaki is sitting in a palace room and some glaring effulgence is coming out of her body. Almost near the ceiling of the room, the demigods are surrounding her and praying for the Appearance of Lord Krishna. Some of the demigods are throwing flowers upon her.

2. Devaki is sitting in a different palace room and Visnu with His four hands (conch, club, wheel, lotus) in yellow dress appeared before her. In this scene, Devaki and Vasudeva are bowing down to Lord Visnu and praying.

3. Krishna is lying happily on the lap of Devaki just like He is an ordinary child.

4. Setting of the scene: Vasudeva saw that all of the doors were opened and that the gate-keepers were asleep so he went outside of the house and came to the bank of the Yamuna. He sees that the river is inflated with rainy season water and he thinks, "How shall I cross?" Then he saw a jackal crossing the river and Vasudeva realized that the river was shallow and only up to his ankles. So Vasudeva, holding little Krishna in his arms follows the jackal across the Yamuna River. So this night scene of walking across the river is the fourth picture.