Devanagari
स्तोकं स्तोकं ग्रसेद् ग्रासं देहो वर्तेत यावता ।
गृहानहिंसन्नातिष्ठेद् वृत्तिं माधुकरीं मुनि: ॥ ९ ॥
Verse text
stokaṁ stokaṁ grased grāsaṁ
deho varteta yāvatā
gṛhān ahiṁsann ātiṣṭhed
vṛttiṁ mādhukarīṁ muniḥ
Synonyms
stokam stokam
—
always, a little bit
;
graset
—
one should eat
;
grāsam
—
food
;
dehaḥ
—
the material body
;
varteta
—
that it may live
;
yāvatā
—
with that much
;
gṛhān
—
the householders
;
ahiṁsan
—
not harassing
;
ātiṣṭhet
—
one should practice
;
vṛttim
—
the occupation
;
mādhu
—
karīm — of the honeybee
;
muniḥ
—
a saintly person .
Translation
A saintly person should accept only enough food to keep his body and soul together. He should go from door to door accepting just a little bit of food from each family. Thus he should practice the occupation of the honeybee.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
A saintly person should accept only enough food to keep his body alive. He should go from door to door accepting just a little bit of food from each family. Thus he should practice the occupation of the honeybee.
He learns from the bee in two verses. Just as the bee stays in one lotus because of greed for its special fragrance, and becomes trapped inside when the petals close at night, the sage, taking shelter of one house because of greed for its good qualities, becomes trapped there by that illusion. Therefore, one should accept a little from each house and eat only to keep the body alive. One commits violence against the householders by taking too much or too little.
Purport
Sometimes a honeybee is attracted by the extraordinary aroma of a particular lotus flower and lingers there, neglecting his usual activity of flying from flower to flower. Unfortunately, at sunset the lotus flower closes, and thus the infatuated honeybee is trapped. Similarly, a
sannyāsī
or
brahmacārī
may discover that excellent foodstuff is available at a particular house, and therefore, instead of wandering from place to place, he may become a veritable resident of such a well-fed household. Thus he will become bewildered by the illusion of family life and fall down from the platform of renunciation. Also, if a mendicant takes unfair advantage of the Vedic custom of charity and takes too often from a single family, the resentment he causes will disturb the social order. An ideal sage should, like the honeybee, travel from place to place, but he must be careful not to become a chubby bee by going to many houses and eating sumptuously at each house. According to Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, such a chubby bee will undoubtedly become entangled in the network of
māyā.
No one should be overly attached to the gratification of his tongue, because this will lead to an overstuffed belly and then uncontrollable lust. In conclusion, one should not endeavor very much for material sense gratification but should instead endeavor strenuously to spread the glories of the Supreme Lord, Kṛṣṇa. This is the proper use of human energy.