MONDAY MUSINGS SEASON 2 - EPISODE 347

5th January 2026

First episode in the beautiful New Year. Wishing all the readers a very happy, prosperous and wealthy new year.

Serenity of thought, gentleness, silence, self-control, and purity of purpose—all these are declared as austerity of the mind.   ॥ Bhagavad Gita 17.16॥

Thoughtful Bear

Sita Mata, as part of her advice to Hanuman to shun hatred, narrated the story of a tiger, a thoughtful bear and a wicked hunter. Let me narrate the story in this episode:

In a dense forest, a tiger caught the scent of a hunter and chased him with the motive of killing him. The latter climbed up a tree to escape the tiger. There was a bear already perched on a bough of the tree. Making to the foot of the tree, the tiger addressed the bear: "Look here, both of us are denizens of the forest. The hunter is our common enemy. Therefore, knock him down from the tree."

The bear refused and replied: "Having reached my abode, the hunter has in a way sought asylum with me. I am therefore not going to hurl him down; I would be deviating from my duty if I do so." Saying this, the bear went to sleep.

Exasperated, the tiger then turned to the hunter and said, "I shall guarantee protection to you if you will push the bear down." The hunter thereupon pushed the sleeping bear. The bear, however, clutched at another bough and thus escaped from falling down.

The tiger then appealed to the bear: "You saved this ungrateful hunter at the cost of your life, but he sought to hurl you down and has thus wronged you. Therefore, push him down." Though pressed by the tiger again and again, the bear refused to hurl him down.

The bear justified as follows: “Kindness is to be shown by a noble person towards a sinner or to a virtuous person or even to a person who deserves death, for there is none who never commits a wrong. No evil is to be done, even to those cruel persons of sinful deeds, who take pleasure in harming the lives of others and continue to perpetrate their sinful acts”.

Hearing Sita’s serene thoughts and the story, Hanuman cleaned his mind of thoughts of harming the demons and returned to Lord Ram.

#AustereBody

As I mentioned earlier, the Bhagavad Gita advocates keeping our body, speech, and mind clean in that order through the slokas 14 to 16 in 17th chapter. But I explained speech and mind, not the body. This does not mean I am ignoring the need to keep the body austere. I will go ahead and explain the actions needed to keep the body clean.

One would think that a clean body is limited to taking a daily bath. You will be surprised that an austere body requires multiple other practices. What are they?

देवद्विजगुरुप्राज्ञपूजनं शौचमार्जवम् । ब्रह्मचर्यमहिंसा च शारीरं तप उच्यते ॥ Bhagavad Gita 17.14॥

Austerity of the body consists in worship of the Supreme Lord, the brāhmaṇas, the teacher, and respectful people (like the father and the mother) and in cleanliness, simplicity, celibacy and nonviolence.

#GreatnessOfGratitude

Lord Krishna first urges us to show gratitude toward the people who matter most in our lives. Who are they? Lord Krishna suggests a list, probably an indicative list: Deva, Brahmanas, Guru and other respected people (like father & mother).

Why are these people given special recognition? Deva here indicates the supreme power and the faith in it. Brahmana here indicates noble and learned. Guru here represents our teachers, mentors, guides, etc. Praaja means respectful people.

The idea is to promote gratitude, gratitude toward anyone who deserves it.

In addition to gratitude, saucham (cleanliness) aarjavam (simplicity / down to earth), brahmacharyam (celibacy) and ahimsa (non-violence)

Cleanliness is only one of the disciplines to keep the body austere. One should practice cleansing oneself externally and internally, and he/she should learn to become simple in behaviour. Brahmacharyam does not mean remaining single. Brahmacharyam means not having sex outside of married life. Ahimsa is included in this list as a reminder to practice kindness.

Let us keep our body, speech and mind austere by following the guidelines suggested in the #BhagavadGita.

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Conceived, compiled and posted as a weekly positive newsletter #MondayMusings by Jaganathan T (www.authorjaganathan.com)

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