1724: Stop Hugging the Cactus: Why the Soul Is Still Hungry
Wisdom of the Sages
David Ramella
4.9 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 25 January 2026
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Live from Govardhan Eco-Village in India, this episode unfolds as a grounded, unscripted exploration of why material life grows stale—and why spiritual sound never does. With Kaustubha away, Raghunath is joined by Pranapriya and a circle of pilgrims whose stories naturally reveal how bhakti works in real life: not as blind belief, but as lived, repeatable realization.
Drawing from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, Raghunath reflects on the "shadow world" of material attachment, the restless mind that can't be satisfied by consumption, and the Bhagavatam's promise that devotion becomes an irrevocable fact through regular hearing and service. Along the way, themes of recovery, responsibility, pilgrimage, and purposeful work weave together into a clear message: happiness doesn't come from feeding the shadow—it comes from feeding the soul.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You ever meet a person who's just like they're embracing their own personal cactus in this world and they're ruining their life? Like they cannot get out of their own way. No, instead of getting out of their own way, you're saying, hey, what are you doing? You're like, well, I'm in pain. Well, I know because you're embracing a cacti. I know. So what do they do? They embrace it tighter. |
| 0:22.8 | Have you ever been in a situation like this? |
| 0:24.1 | You embrace it tighter. |
| 0:27.3 | This is the material world. |
| 0:30.8 | And that's why it's a world of Maya or of illusions. |
| 0:35.2 | It seems like the way out will be to embrace the cactus tighter. |
| 0:37.6 | Oh, what a web. |
| 0:40.3 | What a tangled web we weave. |
| 0:47.3 | Oh, no, bag of the day, Vasudevaea. Oh, no, baguavate, bass de ba'est, baque de Bahá'iahya. On the more, Bhagabati, Vasu Debaerya. |
| 1:03.0 | Come on. |
| 1:06.0 | Live from the Gorbadan Eco Village in beautiful Maharashtra. |
| 1:09.0 | This is Wisdom of the Sage, is a Bhakti podcast with your host, Raghana. And my co-host, Mr. Kostubadas, is not here today. He's not here. He's having a special meeting with Rodnaswamy. And I'm here with Pranapria and some live, live guests. We'll do a little bit meet the pilgrims perhaps. |
| 1:31.0 | And we're going to go back to our reading of Kalia Naga. |
| 1:34.5 | But first, Pranapria, do you have any announcements? |
| 1:35.1 | All right. Well, I do. |
| 1:35.6 | I want to mention our show schedule because we've been all the next week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at, let's see. Hold on just a second. |
| 1:47.9 | This is for people listening live. If you're listening to these podcasts whenever you get them. |
| 1:53.2 | It'll be at 6.30 a.m. Eastern time. Okay. Tuesday through Thursday, 6th. |
| 2:01.6 | That's what we're doing. |
| 2:02.8 | A little bit of a weird time. |
| 2:03.9 | Stick with us. |
| 2:04.7 | Yeah, thanks. |
... |
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