bhayam nasti kadacana

  2 mins read
  July 10, 2023
  bhayam nasti kadachana


Chaturmasa is here and so is working from office. To manage the udaram-bharana (act of filling the tummy) while maintaining vrita, I decided to cook for myself. To not waste time while cooking I listen to dasa-kritis or vishnu-sahasranama.

Last Friday, I noticed the shloka-part na bhayam kvachidapnoti and started thinking about it. I also remembered the part bhayam nasti kadachana from Venkatesh stotra. Why all these shlokas say “this sholka will take out your fears”?

Let’s understand “fear” first. There are a lot of types of fears and all of them are due to ajnyana (lack of knowledge). Let’s see few examples

But once one understands the system he is dealing with (becomes jnyani in that area) the fear wears off. In above examples, learning about water (experiencing density, buoyancy), swimming movements, the capabilities, anatomy and dangers of insects makes one immune to those fears.

Coming back to why vishnu sahasranama's phalashruti (part added to the original shloka which tells the benefits of the shloka) says this shloka takes off your fears?

Let’s start with an anology of swimming and fear of water. If you make the person who doesn’t know how to swim watch a bunch of videos on swimming or tell him about your adventures in swimming won’t you think it will make him more confortable when he starts learning to swim? Or put it the other way.. if you frighten him with a lot of horrible stories where people died while swimming will you expect him to learn swimming with same enthusiasm?

Vishnu sahasranama has thousand names of lord Vishnu. Each name is associated with a story / a vishala meaning and is some or other way related to worldly matters. When one learns/chants this with arthanusandhana for every name his (passive) knowledge expands and his fears fade away.

Also at the end of the phalashruti, Shiva says to parvati that the “rama nama” is equivalent to this sahasranama. If you see, when one remembers a model person, first thing he remembers about them is one of their quality (good or bad). Rama who is considered Purushottama is full of best qualities, anyone can draw inspiration about best behavior from him for any given situation. So if someone truly remembers Rama they won’t be afraid of the situation.