maya's family
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Family life within the kingdom of illusory energy, māyā, is just like a prison for the eternal living entity. He gives heart and senses to a woman who falsely charms him with maya. He enjoys solitary embraces and talking with her, and he is enchanted by the sweet words of the small children.
(More...) Family life within the kingdom of illusory energy, maya, is just like a prison for the eternal living entity. In prison a prisoner is shackled by iron chains and iron bars. Similarly, a conditioned soul is shackled by the charming beauty of a woman, by her solitary embraces and talks of so-called love, and by the sweet words of his small children. Thus he forgets his real identity.
(More...) In this verse the words strinam asatinam indicate that womanly love is just to agitate the mind of man. Actually, in the material world there is no love. Both the woman and the man are interested in their sense gratification. For sense gratification a woman creates an illusory love, and the man becomes enchanted by such false love and forgets his real duty. When there are children as the result of such a combination, the next attraction is to the sweet words of the children. The love of the woman at home and the talk of the children make one a secure prisoner, and thus he cannot leave his home. Such a person is termed, in Vedic language, a grhamedhi, which means one whose center of attraction is home. Grhastha refers to one who lives with family, wife and children but whose real purpose of living is to develop Krsna consciousness. One is therefore advised to become a grhastha and not a grhamedhi. The grhastha's concern is to get out of the family life created by illusion and enter into real family life with Krsna, whereas the grhamedhi's business is to repeatedly chain himself to so-called family life, in one life after another, and perpetually remain in the darkness of maya.
(More...) The family members, for whom an attached person acts in so many criminal ways, are never satisfied. He secures money by committing violence here and there, and although he employs it in the service of his family, he himself eats only a little portion of the food thus purchased, and he goes to hell for those for whom he earned the money in such an irregular way.
(More...) There is a Bengali proverb, "The person for whom I have stolen accuses me of being a thief." The family members, for whom an attached person acts in so many criminal ways, are never satisfied. In illusion an attached person serves such family members, and by serving them he is destined to enter into a hellish condition of life. For example, a thief steals something to maintain his family, and he is caught and imprisoned. This is the sum and substance of material existence and attachment to material society, friendship and love. Although an attached family man is always engaged in getting money by hook or by crook for the maintenance of his family, he cannot enjoy more than what he could consume even without such criminal activities. A man who eats eight ounces of foodstuffs may have to maintain a big family and earn money by any means to support that family, but he himself is not offered more than what he can eat, and sometimes he eats the remnants that are left after his family members are fed. Even by earning money by unfair means, he cannot enjoy life for himself. That is called the covering illusion of maya.
(More...) Link to this page: https://prabhupadabooks.com/?qg=1017
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