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Shloka 23

Avadhūta’s Further Teachers: Detachment, Solitude, One-Pointed Meditation, and the Lord as Āśraya

कीट: पेशस्कृतं ध्यायन् कुड्यां तेन प्रवेशित: । याति तत्सात्मतां राजन् पूर्वरूपमसन्त्यजन् ॥ २३ ॥

kīṭaḥ peśaskṛtaṁ dhyāyan kuḍyāṁ tena praveśitaḥ yāti tat-sātmatāṁ rājan pūrva-rūpam asantyajan

အို မင်းကြီး၊ တစ်ခါတုန်းက ပျားတစ်ကောင်က အားနည်းသော ပိုးကို မိမိအုံထဲသို့ တွန်းသွင်းကာ ပိတ်လှောင်ထားသည်။ ကြောက်ရွံ့မှုကြောင့် ထိုပိုးသည် ဖမ်းဆီးသူကိုသာ အမြဲတမ်း အာရုံစိုက်စဉ်းစားနေပြီး၊ ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာကို မစွန့်ဘဲ တဖြည်းဖြည်း ပျားကဲ့သို့သော အခြေအနေကို ရောက်လာသည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် အမြဲတမ်း တည်ငြိမ်သော အာရုံစိုက်မှုအတိုင်းပင် အခြေအနေ ရရှိသည်။

कीटःa worm/insect
कीटः:
Karta (कर्ता)
TypeNoun
Rootकीट (प्रातिपदिक)
Formपुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा (1st/Nominative), एकवचन
पेशस्-कृतम्made by the wasp (or skillfully made)
पेशस्-कृतम्:
Karma (कर्म)
TypeAdjective
Rootपेशस् (प्रातिपदिक) + कृत (कृ धातु, क्त-प्रत्यय; कृदन्त)
Formनपुंसकलिङ्ग, द्वितीया (2nd/Accusative), एकवचन; षष्ठी-तत्पुरुषः (पेशसा कृतम्) = fashioned by a wasp/with skill
ध्यायन्meditating on
ध्यायन्:
Kriya-viseshana (क्रियाविशेषण)
TypeVerb
Rootध्यै (धातु)
Formवर्तमान कृदन्त (शतृ/Present active participle), पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा, एकवचन; परस्मैपदी; क्रियासहचर (while meditating)
कुड्याम्in a wall
कुड्याम्:
Adhikarana (अधिकरण)
TypeNoun
Rootकुड्या (प्रातिपदिक)
Formस्त्रीलिङ्ग, सप्तमी (7th/Locative), एकवचन
तेनby it/by him (by that)
तेन:
Karana (करण)
TypeNoun
Rootतद् (सर्वनाम-प्रातिपदिक)
Formपुं/नपुंसकलिङ्ग, तृतीया (3rd/Instrumental), एकवचन; सर्वनाम
प्रवेशितःhaving been put/inserted
प्रवेशितः:
Karta (कर्ता)
TypeVerb
Rootप्र-विश् (धातु)
Formभूतकर्मणि कृदन्त (क्त/PPP), पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा, एकवचन; कर्मणि प्रयोग (having been made to enter/placed)
यातिattains
याति:
Kriya (क्रिया)
TypeVerb
Rootया (धातु)
Formलट् (Present), प्रथमपुरुष (3rd person), एकवचन; परस्मैपद
तत्-सात्मताम्identity with that (its nature)
तत्-सात्मताम्:
Karma (कर्म)
TypeNoun
Rootतद् (सर्वनाम-प्रातिपदिक) + सात्मता (प्रातिपदिक)
Formस्त्रीलिङ्ग, द्वितीया (2nd/Accusative), एकवचन; तत्पुरुषः (तस्य सात्मता)
राजन्O king
राजन्:
Sambodhana (सम्बोधन)
TypeNoun
Rootराजन् (प्रातिपदिक)
Formपुंलिङ्ग, सम्बोधन (Vocative), एकवचन
पूर्व-रूपम्its former form
पूर्व-रूपम्:
Karma (कर्म)
TypeNoun
Rootपूर्व (प्रातिपदिक) + रूप (प्रातिपदिक)
Formनपुंसकलिङ्ग, द्वितीया (2nd/Accusative), एकवचन; कर्मधारयः (पूर्वं रूपम्)
असन्त्यजन्not giving up
असन्त्यजन्:
Kriya-viseshana (क्रियाविशेषण)
TypeVerb
Rootअ-सम्-त्यज् (धातु)
Formवर्तमान कृदन्त (शतृ/Present active participle), पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा, एकवचन; नञ्-पूर्वक (not abandoning)

The following question may be raised: Since the weaker insect in this story did not physically change his body, how can it be said that he achieved the same state of existence as the wasp? Actually, by constant meditation upon a particular object one’s consciousness becomes filled with its qualities. Due to extreme fear the smaller insect was absorbed in the characteristics and activities of the large wasp and thus entered into the existence of the wasp. Due to such meditation, he actually took the body of a wasp in his next life.

P
Parikshit Maharaja

FAQs

This verse teaches that sustained absorption (dhyāna) reshapes one’s inner nature—just as a worm fixated on a wasp attains wasp-like identity—implying that remembrance of the Supreme similarly spiritualizes the devotee.

Shukadeva uses a familiar analogy to show Parikshit the immense power of continuous contemplation, supporting the Bhagavatam’s emphasis on constant remembrance of the Lord as the sure path at life’s end.

Regularly direct your attention toward the divine—through japa, kirtan, reading Bhagavatam, and mindful remembrance—because what you repeatedly contemplate gradually becomes your character and lived reality.