Shloka 55
Varṇāśrama-dharma as a Path to Bhakti
Yuga-dharma Origins, Universal Virtues, Brahmacarya and Gṛhastha Duties
कर्मभिगृहमेधीयैरिष्ट्वा मामेव भक्तिमान् । तिष्ठेद् वनं वोपविशेत् प्रजावान् वा परिव्रजेत् ॥ ५५ ॥
karmabhir gṛha-medhīyair iṣṭvā mām eva bhaktimān tiṣṭhed vanaṁ vopaviśet prajāvān vā parivrajet
အိမ်ထောင်တာဝန်များကို ဆောင်ရွက်ခြင်းဖြင့် ငါ့ကိုပင် ဘက္တိဖြင့် ပူဇော်သော အိမ်ထောင်ရှင်ဘက္တသည် အိမ်တွင် ဆက်နေထိုင်နိုင်သည်၊ သန့်ရှင်းရာနေရာ/တောတောင်သို့ သွားနိုင်သည်၊ သို့မဟုတ် တာဝန်ယူနိုင်သော သားရှိလျှင် စန്യാസကို လက်ခံ၍ တရားလမ်းလျှောက် ပရိဗ္ရာဇက ဖြစ်နိုင်သည်။
This verse describes the three alternatives for a householder. He may continue at home, or he may take vānaprastha, which involves going to a sacred place with one’s wife. Or if he has a responsible son to take over his family duties, he may take sannyāsa, the renounced order, for a definitive solution to the problems of life. In all three āśramas, ultimate success depends on sincere surrender to the Supreme Lord; therefore, the most important qualification one can have is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
FAQs
In 11.17.55, Kṛṣṇa teaches that after worshiping Him through proper household duties, a devotee may remain at home, retire to the forest, or—having children—take up wandering renunciation (sannyāsa).
These instructions are part of Kṛṣṇa’s Uddhava Gītā teachings, where He summarizes varṇāśrama-dharma and shows how life’s stages can be aligned with devotion to attain spiritual perfection.
Do your responsibilities conscientiously while keeping devotion to God central; then simplify life progressively—through detachment, service, and spiritual practice—according to your situation and dependents.