1744: The Quiet Hum of Mortality in the Back of Our Minds
Wisdom of the Sages
David Ramella
4.9 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 March 2026
⏱️ 87 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We try to avoid thinking about death. We push it into the background of our minds. But beneath the surface of our thoughts there is a quiet "hum" of mortality creating an undercurrent of anxiety.
In this episode of Wisdom of the Sages, a deeply personal reflection on aging, grief, and mortality opens into a powerful exploration of spiritual philosophy. Raghunath and Kaustubha explain that the only way to quiet that hum is not by ignoring it, but by confronting it with truth — truth about the nature of the self and the liberating insights of Vedic wisdom.
The discussion also explores one of the most mysterious teachings of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam — an ancient Sanskrit text that explores devotion to Krishna and the nature of the soul: the story of the gopīs — the cowherd women of Vrindavan whose hearts were completely absorbed in Krishna. Their vulnerability reveals the essence of devotion — surrendering the ego and awakening divine love. After the official podcast ends, the tapes keep rolling for some relaxed and entertaining post-podcast banter
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We take that reality and we kind of push it into the subconscious. |
| 0:04.2 | But the thing is just because we're not engaging with those thoughts right now, |
| 0:09.5 | it's actually from the subconscious. |
| 0:11.9 | It's still there. |
| 0:12.8 | There's a hum in the background of our awareness of death, you know. |
| 0:18.8 | And of course, growing old is just like, it's just the process of dying, |
| 0:22.9 | really, you know, so it's like, it's part of that. And, and as you say, we take shelter of other |
| 0:30.3 | things, you say alcohol or this or that, it can just be watching television or just anything but |
| 0:35.1 | thinking about reality, you know, but just pushing it away doesn't make it go away. |
| 0:42.7 | It keeps a kind of tension in the background of our awareness all the time. |
| 0:47.4 | A kind of anxiety is there. |
| 0:50.1 | And the only way to really conquer it is to confront it. |
| 0:57.0 | You know, this is, you know, getting over the spiritual bypassing, right? |
| 1:01.0 | Let me deal with my own mortality. |
| 1:04.0 | Let me examine it. |
| 1:06.0 | Oh, no, Bhagavati, Vasudevaea. |
| 1:13.6 | Oh, Namo, Bhagavati, Vasudevaia. |
| 1:18.6 | Oh, Nama, Bhagavati, Vasudevaaya. |
| 1:29.7 | Come on, Live from Super Soul Farmer and Upstate New York. |
| 1:33.0 | This is Wisdom of the Sages, a Bhakti Yoga podcast with your host, Rugginoth. |
| 1:37.2 | And live in Rishi, Kesh, we have our co-host and senior educator at the Bokti Center in New York, Co-Stuidas. |
| 1:43.6 | Welcome to the show. |
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