Verse Text
bhukti-mukti-spṛhā yāvat piśācī hṛdi vartate |
tāvad bhakti-sukhasyātra katham abhyudayo bhavet ||22||
Translation
How can the happiness of bhakti arise in the heart when the witch of desire for enjoyment and liberation remains there?
Purport (Jiva Goswami)
We know return to the main text. The author now states the previously mentioned cause of pure bhakti by describing the opposite condition. Even the desire for liberation is considered to be like a demoness (piśācī). Bhukti or material enjoyment is a demoness because it covers the desire for bhakti with other desires. Mukti is a demoness because its reference point is oneself. Even though the devotees become liberated from saṁsāra, liberation is not at all their goal. However, by the power of bhakti they do become liberated. Vyāpnoti hṛdayaṁ yāvad bhukti-mukti-spṛhāgrahaḥ (as long as the strong desire for enjoyment and liberation is spread in the heart) is another appropriate version of the first line. The meaning of the verse is that desires for enjoyment and liberation are not proper for the sādhaka, and are not at all present in the perfected devotee. This is understood from examples of both given elsewhere.
Purport (Nectar of Devotion)
As stated before, there are three kinds of happiness—material, spiritual and devotional. Devotional service and the happiness due to its execution are not possible as long as one is materially affected. If someone has desire for material enjoyment or for becoming one with the Supreme, these are both considered material concepts. Because the impersonalists cannot appreciate the spiritual happiness of association and the exchange of loving affairs with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, their ultimate goal is to become one with the Lord. This concept is simply an extension of the material idea. In the material world, everyone is trying to be the topmost head man among all his fellow men or neighbors. Either communally, socially or nationally, everyone is competing to be greater than all others, in the material concept of life. This greatness can be extended to the unlimited, so that one actually wants to become one with the greatest of all, the Supreme Lord. This is also a material concept, although maybe a little more advanced.
However, the perfect spiritual concept of life is complete knowledge of one’s constitutional position, in which one knows enough to dovetail himself in the transcendental loving service of the Lord. One must know that he is finite and that the Lord is infinite. Thus it is not possible to actually become one with the Lord even if one aspires for this. It is simply not possible. Therefore, anyone who has any desire or aspiration for satisfying his senses by becoming more and more important, either in the material sense or in the spiritual sense, cannot actually relish the really sweet taste of devotional service. Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī has therefore compared possessing these bhukti (material) and mukti (liberation) desires with being influenced by the black art of a witch: in both cases one is in trouble. Bhukti means material enjoyment, and mukti means to become freed from material anxiety and to become one with the Lord. These desires are compared to being haunted by ghosts and witches, because while these aspirations for material enjoyment or spiritual oneness with the Supreme remain, no one can relish the actual transcendental taste of devotional service.