Caraiveti! Caraiveti!—A Vedic Affirmation of Life
By Steven J. Rosen (Satyarāja Dāsa)
Wandering (caraiveti), to be sure, he finds honey,
wandering he finds the sweet fruit of the fig tree.
Behold the greatness of the Sun,
who never tires of wandering (caraiveti)!1Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 7.15
In the language of Vedic texts, Indra urges Rohita to keep “wandering,” moving from sage to sage, situation to situation, to learn higher truths and, if he is truly fortunate, to find a bona fide guru. The symbolism, as developed in later commentaries, evokes the image of a bee flying from flower to flower, to imbibe the sweetest honey, again and again. If Rohita stops and returns home, or so the Vedic narrative goes, his father will sacrifice him to Varuṇa, the god of the sky and the oceans.
In essence, this phenomenon, or a facsimile thereof, is familiar to seekers worldwide, who know what it means to search for Truth with an undying passion, and while many will no doubt find themselves unable to reach the topmost pinnacle of perfection, they will not, thankfully, be sacrificed to the god of the seas. Even still, they know well the feeling of drowning, of gasping for air when not achieving their desired goal—so desperate is their search for Truth.
As the Vedānta-sūtra says in its very first verse: “Now, therefore, inquire into Brahman (spirit).” Many commentators say that the word “now” in this verse refers to those who have mastered the Vedas and their related texts and have approached something resembling accomplishment in spiritual realization. But Prabhupāda is more pointed: “Now” means now that we have attained the human form of life, for only humans can inquire into the Absolute Truth. In other words, such inquiry is not the prerogative of lower species. It is unique to us, in our particular bodily form as humans, with our specific level of consciousness, and therefore we should not neglect utilizing it for its intended purpose.
Such a notion is a celebration of the human species, a positive affirmation of our ability to learn higher truths, and to live by them in our day-to-day lives.
Sometimes people who come into contact with Vaishnava philosophy, at least at first blush, think of it as negative, as a sort of sour grapes worldview: “Oh, the material world is a nasty place.” Indeed, as the Bhagavad-gītā (8.16) teaches: “From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains to My abode, O son of Kuntī, never takes birth again.”
This verse, as we can see, offers a way out. If we engage in the practice of Krishna consciousness, or if we embrace the spiritual pursuit in general, we can, at the end of life—and even before the end of life—attain higher levels of consciousness, each of which carries with it a commensurate happiness (see Gītā 5.21), and, in the end, we can go to Krishna’s abode, where the bliss of eternal life engulfs our souls forevermore.
To be sure, it is superficial to see Krishna Consciousness as world-denying, or as some sort of via negativa take on life. While devotees see the material world for what it is—a temporary place full of miseries (duḥkha-ālayam aśhāśhvatam, i.e., Bg. 8.15)—we quickly develop a counterbalancing vision as well, wherein we learn to see the entire phantasmagoria that surrounds us as Krishna’s energy, engendering a beautiful display of opportunities for getting ever closer to our Lord, learning how to engage all aspects of the material world in His divine service (bhakti-yoga).
It is in pursuit of this higher vision that the Vedic literature insists that we keep on going, keep moving forward—Caraiveti! Caraiveti! “Keep going! Keep going!” Don’t let anything stop you! Your pursuit of transcendence is essential to your human form, and it would be foolish — no, absurd — to neglect it or ignore it. There are hints in nature: Honeybees move constantly to receive and give honey; birds keep flying to greater and greater heights; and the sun is perpetually emitting heat and light, without end. In a similar way: CARAIVETI, CARAIVETI. Move ever forward toward the Absolute Truth.
- The original Sanskrit verse: caran vai madhu vindati caran svādum udumbaram sūryasya paśya śremāṇaṃ yo na tandrayate caraṃś caraiveti // The imperative cara eva iti (caraiveti), with which this verse ends, is not unlike a famous cousin exhortation we find in the Rāmānanda-samvāda, where Mahāprabhu insists that Rāmānanda Rāya go further, to move beyond lesser philosophical concepts and to embrace the highest truth: eho bāhya, āge kaha āra—“Don’t stop with that which is superficial! Keep going! Go further!” See Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 8. [↩]
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