markaṭa-vairāgya nā kara loka dekhāñā
yathā-yogya viṣaya bhuñja’ anāsakta hañā
“Don’t do monkey or false renunciation and show off to people. In the meantime, just enjoy the material world in a befitting way, just don’t be attached to it.”
We have seen that there are pseudo devotees who pretend like a great devotee speaking sweet words in order to get some name and fame for sense gratification and also those who maintain gross sensual pleasures away but making a show of a devotee . Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur Prabhupad gave the example of monkey renunciation [markaṭa-vairāgya] whereby a monkey is seen to be naked staying in the forest but separately enjoys sense-enjoyment with many female monkeys. This duplicitous attitude will be our downfall. In the Upanishads, it is mentioned;
“Yato abhyudaya nishreyasya siddhi-he sa-dharma”
By which act, you get benefit of both the worlds, that act becomes dharma
Here both the worlds refer to Lila-Vibhuthi (Material World) and Nitya-Vibhuthi (Spiritual World), therefore we should act in a way befittingly so that we can exist harmoniously in the material world and prepare ourselves for a spiritual destination and not be pretentious in our activities.
Written by; Sankarshan Das