Bhaja Govindam Verse 15

अङ्गं गलितं पलितं मुण्डं दशनविहीनं जातं तुण्डम्।
वृद्धो याति गृहीत्वा दण्डं तदपि न मुञ्चत्याशापिण्डम्॥
aṅgaṃ galitaṃ palitaṃ muṇḍaṃ daśanavihīnaṃ jātaṃ tuṇḍam |
vṛddho yāti gṛhītvā daṇḍaṃ tadapi na muñcatyāśāpiṇḍam ||

  • aṅgaṃ: the limbs; galitaṃ: have withered or become frail; palitaṃ: has become grey or bald; muṇḍaṃ: the head; daśanavihīnaṃ: devoid of teeth; jātaṃ: has become; tuṇḍam: the mouth or jaws; vṛddho (vṛddhaḥ): the old man; yāti: walks or moves; gṛhītvā: holding; daṇḍaṃ: a stick; tadapi: even then
  • na muñcati: does not leave / let go; āśāpiṇḍam: the bundle of desires

Summary: The Persistence of Desire
In old age, the physical body’s limbs tremble, the hair turns grey, and the mouth becomes completely toothless.
An old man afflicted by these frailties walks around holding onto a walking stick.
Even in such a decrepit physical state, the bundle of desires never leaves him.

  • The Author and the Clear Vision: This verse was composed by hastāmalakācārya, a very young and great disciple of ādi śaṅkarācārya. He authored the famous work hastāmalakīyam, which captures the essence of the vedānta śāstra in just twelve verses. He earned the name hastāmalaka because he understood the ultimate truth as clearly as seeing a gooseberry (āmalaka) resting in the palm of his hand (hasta). Just as one can see the interior lines of a ripe, transparent gooseberry, he possessed a thorough, inside-out knowledge of the truth.
  • Learning Without Association: śaṅkarācārya was so overwhelmed by this young disciple’s work that he personally wrote a commentary on it. Through this verse, hastāmalaka points out a practical problem: many people today, especially in highly materialistic societies, do not have the opportunity for satsaṅga (association with mahātmās) to learn about the limitations of the world and turn their attention toward bhagavan.
  • Life as the Ultimate Teacher: Without a physical guide, how can one learn the world’s limitations? hastāmalaka explains that bhagavan provides teachings through our own varied life experiences. Every painful loss we endure—whether it is the loss of money, dear ones, youth, hair, or teeth—serves as an indirect lesson proving that nothing in this creation is stable.
  • The Reality of Conditional Love: An intelligent seeker learns from these inevitable losses, following the guidance of the upaniṣad: parīkṣya lokān karma-citān. We eventually discover that even the love and care from our own family members is conditional. As we grow older and become less productive, the younger generation becomes busy with their own lives. Rather than spending time with the elderly, they may simply provide money or send them to old age homes, demonstrating that worldly love is rarely unconditional.
  • Failing to Learn the Lesson: As the upaniṣad reveals through the phrase ātmanastu kāmāya sarvaṃ priyaṃ bhavati, everyone primarily loves themselves, making their love for others conditional upon their own comfort. Tragically, many individuals fail to recognize this reality and refuse to learn the lesson, even after experiencing a lifetime of pain and loss.
  • The Decay of the Physical Body: Examining the verse directly, hastāmalaka paints a vivid picture of this unlearned old age. He describes an aging body where every limb and joint has become loose and non-functional (aṅgaṃ galitam). The person’s head has completely turned white with gray hair (palitaṃ muṇḍam).
  • The Humorous Departure of Teeth: The physical decay continues as the person becomes entirely toothless (daśanavihīnam). Swamiji humorously pictures a competition where the teeth were once proud of being the whitest part of the head. However, once the hair turned gray and became even whiter, the humiliated teeth simply walked out in protest!
  • Ignoring the Warning Signals: Left with a toothless mouth (jātaṃ tuṇḍam), the old person is now forced to walk with the aid of a stick (daṇḍaṃ gṛhītvā yāti). As contemporaries die off one by one, bhagavan sends glaring warning signals that mortality is approaching. Yet, despite all these physical failings, the deluded individual refuses to turn away from materialism.
  • The Bundle of Unrelenting Desires: The verse concludes with the tragedy that despite this physical decay, the person still refuses to let go (tadapi na muñcati). Unable to chew, they will powder hard snacks in buttermilk just to eat them, or actively seek out pseudo-sugar and caffeine-free coffee. Instead of using old age as an opportunity to renounce the world and turn to bhagavan, they desperately look for alternative sense pleasures, tightly clinging to their bundle of materialistic desires (āśā-piṇḍam).
  • The Gradual Internal Growth: The process of internal spiritual growth happens gradually. As a person matures, the value they place on money and worldly pleasures naturally becomes less and less significant. This shift occurs because there are much superior goals that a human being alone has the unique privilege and capacity to accomplish.
  • Shifting Life’s Priorities: The veda instructs us to deliberately and gradually change our life’s priorities. An arthakāma pradhāna life—a life strictly dedicated to the pursuit of wealth and sense pleasures—must be shifted toward a dharmamokṣa pradhāna life, which is dedicated to dharma and mokṣa. To help us cultivate this necessary maturity, bhagavan provides various methods and means.
  • Reshaping Through Experiences: We are provided with immense spiritual support: every mahātmā serves as a free source of inspiration, and the scriptures offer millions of guiding verses. Beyond this, bhagavan directly educates us through life’s experiences. Every pain we endure and every hammering we receive is an act of reshaping. Swamiji compares this to a forging company where metal is heated and hammered; though the process appears torturous, it is the only way to shape the raw metal into useful machinery.
  • Making the Omnipotent Impotent: Similarly, bhagavan administers manastāpa (mental pain) and hammers us with difficult experiences purely with the intention of reshaping our character. However, if we stubbornly refuse to learn from this constant education, even bhagavan becomes helpless. By refusing to learn in spite of his hard efforts, we effectively render the omnipotent bhagavan impotent. This is why the disciples sharply address the human being, asking why, despite reaching old age, true maturity has not yet dawned.
  • The Necessity of Taunting: This tragic reality is perfectly captured in the verse describing the physical decay of the body (aṅgaṃ galitaṃ). The verse paints a picture of an old, dilapidated person whose limbs are loose, whose hair has turned grey, and whose teeth have all fallen out. The tragedy is that despite living for many decades, while the physical body has grown old, the mind remains like that of a five-year-old—still obsessively committed to arthakāma. Swamiji notes that while the words of the verse are a strong expression, a little bit of taunting and whipping is sometimes exactly what is required to effectively change a stubborn, materialistic attitude.