Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrī Caitanya Caritāmṛta Antya 9.69

tomāra bhajana-phale tomāte 'prema-dhana'

viṣaya lāgi' tomāya bhaje, sei mūrkha jana

SYNONYMS

tomāra — Your; bhajana — devotional service; phale — by the result of; tomāte — unto You; prema-dhana — wealth of love; viṣaya lāgi' — for material profit; tomāya bhaje — one engages in Your service; sei — he; mūrkha jana — a fool.

TRANSLATION

Kāśī Miśra continued, "If one engages in devotional service for Your satisfaction, this will result in his increasingly awakening his dormant love for You. But if one engages in Your devotional service for material purposes, he should be considered a number-one fool.

PURPORT

Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura comments that there are many materialistic persons who become preachers, gurus, religionists or philosophers only for the sake of maintaining a high standard of living and sense gratification for themselves and their families. Sometimes they adopt the dress of a sannyāsī or preacher. They train some of their family members as lawyers and continually seek help from a high court to acquire riches on the plea of maintaining temples. Although such persons may call themselves preachers, live in Vṛndāvana or Navadvīpa, and also print many religious books, it is all for the same purpose, namely to earn a living to maintain their wives and children. They may also professionally recite the Bhāgavatam or other scriptures, worship the Deity in the temple and initiate disciples. Making a show of devotional paraphernalia, they may also collect money from the public and use it to cure the disease of some family member or near relative. Sometimes they become bābājīs or collect money on the plea of worshiping the poor, whom they call daridra-nārāyaṇa, or for social and political upliftment. Thus they spread a network of business schemes to collect money for sense gratification by cheating people in general, who have no knowledge of pure devotional service. Such cheaters cannot understand that by offering devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, one can be elevated to a position of eternal servitude to the Lord, which is even greater than the position of Brahmā and other demigods. Unfortunately, fools have no understanding of the perpetual pleasure of devotional service.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness