Category:Society, Friendship and Love
Theme Analysis
In his teachings, Śrīla Prabhupāda frequently addresses the human desire for "society, friendship, and love," identifying it as a core demand of the eternal spirit soul. However, he warns that in the material world, this desire is pervertedly reflected and directed toward temporary, bodily relationships that ultimately result in frustration and suffering. Blinded by māyā, the conditioned soul believes that these temporary networks of family, friends, and countrymen will provide lasting protection and happiness. Śrīla Prabhupāda beautifully illustrates the inadequacy of material love by citing the great Vaiṣṇava poet Vidyāpati, comparing it to a mere drop of water attempting to quench the thirst of a scorching desert. The ultimate solution is not to artificially kill the desire for love, but to redirect it toward the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa. By taking shelter of Govinda, one experiences an ocean of eternal bliss, making the flickering attachments of the material world appear insignificant.
- The Illusion of Material Relationships: Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that material society, friendship, and love are temporary creations of māyā, functioning much like a dream that vanishes completely at the time of death.
- A Drop of Water in the Desert: Drawing on classical Vaiṣṇava poetry, he compares the meager pleasure of worldly affection to a single drop of water, which is completely insufficient to satisfy the soul's infinite desert-like thirst for bliss.
- The Original Demand of the Soul: The desire to associate and love is not inherently false; it is a symptom of the eternal spirit soul. The mistake lies in searching for it in the temporary shadows of the material realm rather than in the kingdom of God.
- Taking Shelter of Govinda: By awakening Kṛṣṇa consciousness and fixing one's mind on the beautiful form of Govinda, a devotee naturally loses a taste for the illusions of mundane society and accesses an ocean of spiritual love.
- Explore the synthesized essence of this category in this Vanipedia article: Society, Friendship and Love - The Soul's True Demand.
Subcategories
This category has only the following subcategory.
Pages in category "Society, Friendship and Love"
The following 87 pages are in this category, out of 87 total.
1
A
- A grhamedhi is one who wants to remain within this material existence. This means that he wants to remain within this body or society and enjoy friendship, love and community
- Actually, devotional service means engaging the senses in the service of the Lord. At the present moment our senses are not purified; therefore our senses are engaged in the service of society, friendship, love, politics, sociology and so on
- Actually, everyone should fear the so-called society, friendship and love for which he works so hard all day and night
- Akrura continued, "By Your (Krsna's) grace only, I can understand that my home, my wife, my children & my worldly possessions are all bonds to material existence. Please cut the knot & save me from this entanglement of false society, friendship & love"
- Among many such persons who aspire for liberation, one may actually be liberated during his life. Such a person gives up his attachment for society, friendship, love, country, family, wife and children
- Among many thousands who desire liberation, one may actually achieve liberation, giving up material attachment to society, friendship, love, country, home, wife and children
- Another point in this verse (of SB 9.4.65) is that attachment to daragara-putrapta - home, wife, children, friendship, society and love - is not the way to achieve the favor of the Supreme Personality of Godhead
- As a living entity, as part and parcel of Krsna, you want ananda. So ananda is required society, friendship and love. That is ananda. That is not impersonalism. That is personalism
- As a result of this (sex relation of male and female), both the male's and female's attraction for sweet home, motherland, bodily offspring, society and friendship and accumulation of wealth becomes the illusory field of activities
- As soon as a boy and girl are married, they want an apartment. Then they have children. And when they have children, they want social recognition - society, friendship, and love. In this way their material attachment goes on increasing
B
- Bewilderment is called moha, illusion. Illusioned by society, friendship and love, the living entity thinks that his so-called society, friendship and love, nationality, community, etc. will give him protection
- By the influence of maya only, one forgets his eternal relationship with Krsna and identifies himself with his body and the by-products of the body - namely wife, children, society, friendship and love
F
- Factually neither society, friendship, love nor anything else can save one from the onslaught of the external energy, which is symptomized by birth, death, old age and disease
- Family, society and friendship are flickering, and so they are called asat. It is said that as long as we are attached to this asat, temporary, nonexisting society and family, we are always full of anxieties
- For people who hanker after material possessions, society, friendship and love, this knot of affection becomes very strong
G
- Generally people in their conditioned life engage in the pleasure of society, friendship and love. This so-called love is lust, not love. But people are satisfied with such a false understanding of love
- Generally, a householder in the modern civilization, they are simply trying to accumulate money, increase the bank balance and make the society, friendship and love as the aim and object of life, and they have no other business
I
- I (Krsna) am anxious not only for the gopis but for anyone who sacrifices society, friendship, love and personal comforts for Me. It is My duty to protect such exalted devotees
- I am living very comfortably with my society, family. "Society, friendship and love, divinely bestowed upon man," there is one poetry. That's all right. But it is so nice, so pleasing, but one day comes, "Please get out." Finished. You cannot protest
- I am thinking in so many different consciousness. I am thinking in consciousness of nationality, community, society, friendship - so many ways - but without Krsna consciousness. Therefore our consciousness is impure
- If one wants to be satisfied in the pleasure of society, friendship and love, he need not seek shelter at the lotus feet of Govinda, for if one takes shelter under His lotus feet he will forget that minute quantity of so-called pleasure
- If you love your society, your friends, your country, your family, yourself, your dog, everything, if you love Krsna, all love will be distributed
- Immediately, as soon as he understands this philosophy of life that, "I am uselessly serving this material world or the society, friendship, country and so on, so on, without serving Krsna," that is called jnana, knowledge
- In a dream we form a society of friendship and love, and when we awaken we see that it has ceased to exist. Similarly, one's gross society, family and love are also a dream, and this dream will be over as soon as one dies
- In Srimad-Bhagavatam (SB 3.30.7) it is stated that if one who is bereft of the association of a pure devotee tries to become happy through society, friendship and love devoid of Krsna consciousness, he is to be considered in the most distressed condition
- In the above two verses of Rupa Gosvami there are some metaphorical analogies, which indirectly condemn the association of materialistic society, friendship and love
- In the association of so-called society, friendship and love, the conditioned soul appears completely satisfied
- In this material world, the conception of self-preservation is the first law of nature. According to this conception, one should be interested in his personal safety and should then consider society, friendship, love, nationality, community and so on
K
- Kalatra means wife, and through wife there are children, society, friendship and love and so many things. Sva-dhih. And that is our own thing. Yasyatma-buddhih. The nationalism is also like that
- Krsna consciousness, devotional service to Krsna, is the ocean of eternal bliss. In comparison to this eternal bliss, the so-called happiness of society, friendship and love is simply useless and insignificant
M
- Many so-called swamis who are so frequently attracted by the cities often seek a kind of pleasure in society and feminine friendship
- Material sense gratification, with society, friendship and love, is herein (SB 4.25.12) compared to a drop of water falling on a desert. A desert requires oceans of water to satisfy it, and if only a drop of water is supplied, what is its use
- Material society, friendship and love are all different phases of lust. Home, country, family, society, wealth and all sorts of corollaries are all causes of bondage in the material world, where the threefold miseries of life are concomitant factors
- Mr. Alexander Shellkirk, he is lamenting, he was thrown in isolated island, that society, friendship and love, divinely bestowed upon man. This is of course true. The society, friendship and love as we materially experience have got some fascination
- Mucukunda continued, "By the influence of Your external energy, they are attached to the glare of material activities, to so-called society, friendship and love, like dumb animals that have fallen into a dark well"
- Mucukunda continued, "They (living entities) are foolishly attached to so-called society, friendship and love, which merely produce different kinds of miseries"
- My Lord, due to Your illusory energy, all living beings in this material world have forgotten their real constitutional position, and out of ignorance they are always desirous of material happiness in the form of society, friendship and love
N
- Naturally, everyone wants to love someone. Society, friendship, and love are needed. They are demands of the spirit soul, but they are being pervertedly reflected
- Never expect any good from the so called society, friendship and love. Only Krishna is the genuine friend of all living beings and it is He only who can give us all benediction
O
- One should be interested in his personal safety & should then consider society, friendship, love, nationality, community & so on, which have all developed because of the bodily conception of life and a lack of knowledge of the spirit soul. This is ajnana
- One should know that the association of society, friendship, love, nationalism, and so on are nothing but creations of maya. One's only business is to become Krsna conscious and render service unto Krsna as extensively as possible for a living being
- One should not make a livelihood by forming a professional band to carry out congregational chanting, nor should one perform devotional service when one is attached to mundane society, friendship and love
- One who is not satisfied with that so-called pleasure (of society, friendship and love) may seek the lotus feet of Govinda, who stands on the shore of the Yamuna at Kesighata, in Vrndavana and attracts all the gopis to His transcendental loving service
- Our material hearts are full of multidesires, which cannot be fulfilled by materialistic society, friendship and love
S
- She (Kunti) illustrated that one must become detached from society, friendship, and love, all of which will otherwise entangle us
- So long we do not love Krsna, then whatever those so-called love we are showing to the society, friendship and love and country and community, they are all futile
- So many straws and vegetables, they gather together. And sometimes the same vegetables and straws are thrown asunder. One is there, one is here. So here also, we assemble here as society, friendship and love exactly like that
- Society, friendship, love and everything should be so adjusted that it may not disturb our real purpose of life. Not that we forget our real purpose of life and we become more and more entangled in the so-called society, friendship and love
- Society, friendship, love and well-wishers are all simply results of being packed in different bodies. One should know this well and try to get out of this bodily encagement into which one is thrown birth after birth
- Somebody is loving his family, somebody is loving his wife, somebody is loving his society or friendship - society, friendship, they say divine. But the ultimate, ultimate point of love is when you come to Krsna
- Sri Krsna says that He takes everything away from the devotee whom He especially favors when that devotee is overly attached to material possessions. When everything is taken away, the devotee feels helpless and frustrated in society, friendship and love
- Such (so-called) swamis (who are so frequently attracted by the cities often seek a kind of pleasure in society and feminine friendship) are seeking varieties of enjoyment in matter because they have no information of the variegatedness of spiritual life
T
- The actual import of the verse is that one must see the form of Govinda if one at all wants to forget the nonsense of material friendship, love and society
- The conditioned soul, under the illusion of maya, or the external energy, thinks that he is completely protected by his country, society, friendship and love, not knowing that at the time of death none of these can save him
- The devotee contemplates, "Since You (Lord) are present, what is the use of the transient pleasure derived from society, friendship and love"
- The idea of society, friendship, and love is not at all false, but the place where we search for it is false. We have to give up this false position and rise to the reality. That is the result of cultivating the human spirit
- The materialists do not know that the family, society and friendship here in this material world are only shadows, and thus they become attached
- The personified Vedas continued, "For this purpose the pure devotees are prepared to sacrifice all comforts of life, even giving up the material comforts of family life and so-called society, friendship and love"
- The purport of this verse is that if someone becomes attached to the Sri Murti, or Deity of Krsna, by worshiping at home, then he will forget his relationship of so-called friendship, love and society
- The relationships of society, friendship and love are created by the maya of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, exactly as in a dream
- The society, friendship and love as we materially experience have got some fascination
- The society, friendship and love as we materially experience have got some fascination, but such fascination is compared by the poet Vidyapati as a drop of water of the ocean
- The spirit soul wants happiness in a different way, in society, in friendship and love. This is the real thing
- These actions (so-called society, friendship and love) are, I mean to say, performed even by so-called learned man. Actually, one who is not spiritually learned, one who is not spiritually conversant, he is not a learned man
- This (a person serving his family he is destined to enter into a hellish condition of life) is the sum and substance of material existence and attachment to material society, friendship and love
- This detachment (a devotee naturally hates the association of so-called society, friendship and love) is not dry but is due to achieving a higher status of life by relishing transcendental mellows
- Those who are very fond of family life should come forward in the service of the spiritual master and abandon so-called happiness afforded by society, friendship and love
- Those who want to enjoy life in the materialistic way of society, friendship and love should not go to the Yamuna to see the form of Govinda
U
- Uddhava said, "Since Krsna is the Supersoul, He regards everyone equally: He sees no one as enemy or friend, and no one as lower or higher than Him. He actually has no father, mother, brother or relative, nor does He require society, friendship & love"
- Unfortunately, instead of doing so, people are absorbed in thoughts of society, friendship, love and relatives. This Krsna consciousness movement, however, is educating people throughout the world and informing them how to conquer death
V
- Vidyapati, a great and learned poet of Mithila, has said that the pleasure derived from friendship, society and family life in the material world is like a drop of water, but our hearts desire pleasure like an ocean
- Vidyapati, a great Vaisnava devotee and poet, says, "My dear Lord, undoubtedly there is some pleasure in the midst of society, friendship and love, although it is materially conceived, but such pleasure cannot satisfy my heart, which is like a desert"
W
- We are very interested in society, friendship and love, but what are they? Those in the garb of friends and relatives merely plunder the hard-earned money of the bewildered soul
- We should always remember that the society, friendship, only shadowy representations of the real society, friendship, and love reciprocated in the kingdom of God
- When a devotee realizes the effect of association with the Supreme Lord, he naturally hates the association of so-called society, friendship and love
- With foolish ideas, they (fools) become overtaken by temporary engagements and forget altogether that they must give up this temporary body and take a new one, again to arrange for another term of society, friendship and love, again to perish ultimately