The Anchor

In this connection there is a nice story told by our spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, concerning a wedding party that was traveling to the bride's home. In India the bridegroom and his father and other relatives go to the bride's home, and the marriage ceremony takes place there in the presence of all the relatives. This particular marriage was to take place in a village miles away. In Bengal the land is full of rivers, and the rivers are used as highways. So it was settled that the bridegroom's party would start out on the evening before the marriage day and would arrive the next morning. They could rest the whole day, and that evening the marriage would take place. The party hired a ferry and got into the boat, and as the boat started, all the members of the bridegroom's party fell asleep. The breeze on the river was strong and very pleasing, but the next morning when the wedding party arose they saw that they were standing in the same place. They were surprised. "How is it," the boatman was asked, "that we are still in the same place? We have not proceeded even a few yards. How is that?" The boatman said, "We were rowing the whole night. We don't know how this has happened." Then one boatman found that the anchor had not been raised. The whole night the men were plying the oars, but the boat was only going around the anchor and did not go forward an inch.

Similarly, our anchor in the material world is our desire for material happiness, for which we may even worship God, go to a temple and offer our respect. But if our goal is only material happiness and if that is accepted as the ultimate goal, then it is useless. We have to go above that position. If one approaches Krsna and says, "My dear Lord, I am in distress, please help me," that is good in the sense that somehow or other one has approached God. But his motive is not pure. The motive is material enjoyment. Therefore Narada told Vyasadeva, "This kind of instruction in your books will not help people to come to the standard of pure devotional service, which alone can save them from all material bondage."

If this criticism is actually valid for Vyasadeva, who was at least trying to bring people to the spiritual level, then how severely Narada's criticism applies to those so-called authorities or teachers who do not even encourage that one follow the regulative principles of religion. Famous writers, poets and philosophers who are taken as authorities and are followed by people in general, but who present only their speculations or sinful motives in writing, may write books which are read by millions, but the effect is disastrous. Srila Vyasadeva, by encouraging material sex life under the regulative principles of marriage but not stressing sufficiently that Krsna is the center of married life and of all activities, may have been at fault in that way, but the mundane writer who presents sex life as virtuous and enjoyable, even outside of marriage, has an abominable influence.