Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.8.21
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
By eating, one gives energy and activity to all of the senses, and thus if the tongue is uncontrolled all of the senses will be dragged down to the material platform of existence. Therefore, by all means one must control the tongue. If one fasts, then all of the other senses become weak and lose their potency. The tongue, however, becomes more greedy to taste delicious preparations, and when one finally indulges the tongue, all of the senses quickly go out of control. Therefore, Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura advises that one accept mahā-prasādam, or the remnants of the Lord’s food, in a moderate proportion. Since the tongue’s function is also to vibrate, one should vibrate the glorious holy name of the Supreme Lord and taste the ecstasy of pure Kṛṣṇa consciousness. As stated in Bhagavad-gītā, rasa-varjaṁ raso ’py asya paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate: only by the higher taste of Kṛṣṇa consciousness can one give up the deadly lower taste that keeps one imprisoned in material bondage.
Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura states that as long as one’s intelligence is materially covered, one cannot understand the pleasure of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Trying to enjoy without Kṛṣṇa, the living entity leaves the abode of the Supreme Lord, called Vrajabhūmi, and comes down into the material world, where he quickly loses control of his senses. One becomes particularly victimized by the tongue, belly and genitals, which exert intolerable pressure on the conditioned soul. These desires subside, however, when one reestablishes one’s blissful relationship with the Lord, who is actually the reservoir of all pleasure. One who is attached to the taste of Kṛṣṇa consciousness automatically follows all of the rules and regulations of religious life due to spontaneous attraction to viśuddha-sattva, or the mode of pure goodness. Without such spontaneous attraction, one is certainly bewildered by the pushing of the material senses.
Even the beginning stage of devotional service, called sādhana-bhakti (regulatory practice), is so powerful that it brings one to the platform of anartha-nivṛtti, where one becomes free from unwanted sinful habits and gains relief from the pressure of the tongue, belly and genitals. Thus one is delivered from the bondage of material addiction and can no longer be cheated by the allurements of the material energy. As it is said, all that glitters is not gold. In this regard Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura recommends that we consider the following song written by his father, Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura:
śarīra avidyā-jāl, jaḍendriya tāhe kāl, jīve phele viṣaya-sāgare tā’ra madhye jihvā ati, lobhamay sudurmati, tā’ke jetā kaṭhina saṁsāre
kṛṣṇa baḍa dayāmay, karibāre jihvā jay, sva-prasādānna dila bhāi sei annāmṛta pāo, rādhā-kṛṣṇa-guṇa gāo, preme ḍāko caitanya-nitāi
“O Lord, this material body is a lump of ignorance, and the senses are a network of paths to death. Somehow, we have fallen into this ocean of material sense enjoyment, and of all the senses the tongue is most voracious and uncontrollable; it is very difficult to conquer the tongue in this world. But You, dear Kṛṣṇa, are very kind to us and have given us such nice prasādam, just to control the tongue. Now we take this prasādam to our full satisfaction and glorify Their Lordships Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, and in love call for the help of Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda.”
- Eat only kṛṣṇa-prasādam today, in moderate quantity, and refuse any food taken purely for tongue-pleasure.
- When the tongue itches for stray talk, redirect it: chant the holy name aloud or speak something about Kṛṣṇa instead.
- Notice the first moment of craving for a "special taste" today, and offer that exact item to Kṛṣṇa before tasting it.
- Which single tongue-indulgence — in food or in speech — am I quietly unwilling to give up, and what is it costing my sādhana?
- Where am I mistaking strict fasting or austerity for sense control, while the tongue remains untouched and greedy underneath?
- Before opening a food-delivery app or scrolling restaurant reels, pause and ask whether this is hunger or just the tongue hunting — and choose prasādam from home instead.
- Pick one kind of speech your tongue loves — gossip about classmates, sarcastic group-chat comments, or hot takes online — and fast from it for one full day.
- When friends pressure you to "just try" something non-offered at a hostel mess, party, or café, practice a clean, non-preachy refusal today, so the tongue learns who is in charge.
- Cook at least one meal today as an offering to Kṛṣṇa — plan it, prepare it, offer it, and only then serve the family — so the kitchen itself becomes a place of tongue-control.
- Watch your tongue at the dinner table: refuse the habit of complaining about food, criticizing absent relatives, or rehearsing office grievances, and instead introduce one topic of Kṛṣṇa-kathā.
- Sit with your spouse and identify one shared indulgence — a weekly restaurant ritual, a snack habit, a recurring argumentative topic — and replace it for one month with a shared prasādam meal and kīrtana.
- Simplify your plate: today, eat less, eat only prasādam, and notice how loosening the tongue's grip also loosens the body's grip on you.
- Use the tongue's remaining strength for its higher function — chant your rounds attentively and speak Kṛṣṇa-kathā to a grandchild, neighbor, or younger devotee.
- Review the foods, drinks, and conversational habits you have always told yourself you would give up "later" — and give up one of them now, as preparation for the final passage.
- Treating the verse as a diet rule and reducing it to vegetarianism, while ignoring the tongue's other function — careless, critical, or sense-gratifying speech.
- Suppressing the tongue by force through fasting, which only intensifies its hunger, instead of feeding it the higher taste of prasādam and the holy name.
- Assuming that because one chants and eats prasādam mechanically, the tongue is already conquered, when in fact it is still hunting for delicious preparations and idle talk.
- Share one food or one kind of talk where your tongue still rules you — and notice whether the group's honesty matches your own.
- Is it really true that conquering the tongue conquers all the other senses? Argue the case from your own experience, for and against.
- Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura calls the tongue lobhamay sudurmati — greedy and very wicked. Where in modern "foodie" and "free speech" culture do you see this most clearly, and where are you complicit?
A devotee is invited to a colleague's birthday dinner at a famous restaurant; everyone is ordering elaborate non-offered dishes and pressing him to "just enjoy this once." One student plays the devotee, another the insistent colleague, a third a curious friend who asks why prasādam matters. Run the scene twice — first letting the tongue win, then letting the higher taste win — and debrief what changed inside.
- This is just religious dieting dressed up as philosophy — what does what I eat have to do with spiritual life?
The verse is not about diet but about which sense governs you. The tongue drives both eating and speaking, and through them energizes every other sense; if that one is loose, the rest follow it down. Prasādam and the holy name are not a diet but a transfer of the tongue's allegiance from viṣaya to Kṛṣṇa, and from that one shift the whole sensory life reorganizes. - Suppressing desires is unhealthy — modern psychology says we should accept and integrate them, not conquer them.
Gauḍīya practice agrees that raw suppression fails; that is why Prabhupāda quotes rasa-varjaṁ raso 'py asya paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate — the lower taste leaves only when a higher taste is actually tasted. We do not white-knuckle the tongue; we feed it mahā-prasādam and the holy name until viśuddha-sattva makes the old cravings genuinely uninteresting. That is integration at the level of the soul, not mere repression.
My note
Source: vedabase.io