Untiring Love of a Brother: Kumbhakarna and the Feast That Never Fills
In the morning satsanga of November 3, 2026, Swami Jyotirmayananda taught how to prepare the ears to hear the glory of God, and read Kumbhakarna's loyalty as the untiring love of a brother that leads toward salvation.
The satsanga opened with the invocation to Lord Rama that begins nilambuja shyamala komalangam: the Lord of the Raghu dynasty, whose complexion is like a blue lotus, very tender and delightful in appearance, with Sita Devi at his left side and the bow in his hands. The Hare Rama mantra followed.
The State of Liberation
Swamiji then read a short poem on the state of liberation. As ice dissolves in the ocean, the world process dissolves in Brahman. As a cloud disperses in the blue sky, the self disappears in Brahman. As the waves disappear in a lake after the passing of a stone, so the world process disappears in the consciousness of a sage. Like darkness dwindling before the sun, the world fades away. Thus the sage realizes the cessation of the world in the state of supreme liberation.
How to Prepare the Ears
With that, Swamiji turned to the theme of the morning: how to prepare your ears to listen to the glory of God. You may read so many things, he said, and yet your ears are more interested in ignoring all good things. The world gives you so many challenges, and still the ears are filled with muck.
Every day one faces all these challenges, every day, and yet "the window of wisdom doesn't open." If you go to satsanga, Swamiji explained, you enter the process that breaks up your constant sleep, and you wake up. Otherwise, no matter how awake you think you are, and no matter how loudly you recite mantras, all of it does not help.
The ears, he observed, are always ready to receive news, and always waiting for the kind of news that brings, at times, a false happiness. Adversity and prosperity each have their own effect on the ears, and one goes on experiencing adversity and prosperity, one after the other.
Kumbhakarna Awakened
In the Ramayana passage that followed, Swamiji returned to Kumbhakarna, whose ears still do not open. Kumbhakarna illustrates mundane pleasure: eat, drink and be merry. He is given all the pleasure one may get, but his stomach is so big that it never finds fulfillment. And so Kumbhakarna is being led to really awaken, to have salvation.
The Subtle Trick of Brotherhood
The heart of the morning was a question Swamiji put simply: how to be serviceable to your brother. A real brother, he taught, no matter how his brother is inclined to sinful deeds, leads him to understand his error.
So Kumbhakarna says to his brother, "I am your obedient brother." Since I am your brother, whatever you are doing, no matter how sinful you are, I will obey you. But by doing so, Swamiji said, "it's a subtle trick." In it is revealed the power of brotherhood: no matter how sinful you are, I am going to help you, and I will follow you.
Swamiji drew the lesson out plainly: the love of a brother is untiring love. It does not give up until you see your brother being cured. To help his brother come to that state, Kumbhakarna shows the illustration of how he allowed himself to be sublimated by Rama.
Listen Again and Again
Swamiji closed by calling the story a suspenseful one, to be heard again and again. "Prepare your ears to be open." As Kumbhakarna is sublimated, the ears open up. The satsanga ended with a prayer for the shower of the grace of God over all, the peace chant sarve bhadrani pashyantu, and Om Shanti.
Terms in This Satsanga
- satsanga — the company of truth; the process that breaks up our constant sleep.
- Brahman — the Absolute, in which the world process and the individual self dissolve in liberation.
- mantra — a sacred formula of the Divine Name; recited loudly but with closed ears, Swamiji said, it does not help.
- sarve bhadrani pashyantu — a line of the closing peace prayer, asking that all may see what is auspicious.
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