Pinch (Books)

Expressions researched:
"pinch" |"pinched" |"pinchers" |"pinches" |"pinching"

SB Canto 1

SB 1.13.47, Purport:

A systematic law of subsistence in the struggle for existence is there by the supreme will, and there is no escape for anyone by any amount of planning. The living beings who have come to the material world against the will of the Supreme Being are under the control of a supreme power called māyā-śakti, the deputed agent of the Lord, and this daivī māyā is meant to pinch the conditioned souls by threefold miseries, one of which is explained here in this verse: the weak are the subsistence of the strong. No one is strong enough to protect himself from the onslaught of a stronger, and by the will of the Lord there are systematic categories of the weak, the stronger and the strongest.

SB Canto 3

SB 3.15.39, Purport:

The Lord is always served in the Vaikuṇṭhaloka by many hundreds and thousands of goddesses of fortune, as stated by the Brahma-saṁhitā (lakṣmī-sahasra-śata-sambhrama-sevyamānam (Bs. 5.29)). In this material world, one is glorified if he is favored even a pinch by the goddess of fortune, so we can simply imagine how glorified is the kingdom of God in the spiritual world, where many hundreds and thousands of goddesses of fortune engage in the direct service of the Lord.

SB Canto 5

SB 5.14 Summary:

The conditioned soul is certainly greatly harassed by the agents of material nature, but his intelligence is lost due to undesirable association. In an attempt to gain relief from the disturbances of material existence, he falls victim to so-called yogīs, sādhus and incarnations who can display some magic but who do not understand devotional service. Sometimes the conditioned soul is bereft of all money, and consequently he becomes unkind to his family members. In this material world there is not a pinch of actual happiness, for which the conditioned soul is longing life after life.

SB Canto 7

SB 7.9.15, Translation:

My Lord, who are never conquered by anyone, I am certainly not afraid of Your ferocious mouth and tongue, Your eyes bright like the sun or Your frowning eyebrows. I do not fear Your sharp, pinching teeth, Your garland of intestines, Your mane soaked with blood, or Your high, wedgelike ears. Nor do I fear Your tumultuous roaring, which makes elephants flee to distant places, or Your nails, which are meant to kill Your enemies.

SB 7.15.2, Purport:

There are two processes by which to get free from material bondage. One involves jñāna-kāṇḍa and karma-kāṇḍa, and the other involves upāsanā-kāṇḍa. Vaiṣṇavas never want to merge into the existence of the Supreme; rather, they want to be everlastingly servants of the Lord to render loving service unto Him. In this verse the words ānantyam icchatā refer to persons who desire to achieve liberation from material bondage and merge into the existence of the Lord. Devotees, however, whose objective is to associate personally with the Lord, have no desire to accept the activities of karma-kāṇḍa or jñāna-kāṇḍa, for pure devotional service is above both karma-kāṇḍa and jñāna-kāṇḍa. Anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam (Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.1.11). In pure devotional service there is not even a pinch of jñāna or karma. Consequently, when Vaiṣṇavas distribute charity, they do not need to find a brāhmaṇa performing the activities of jñāna-kāṇḍa or karma-kāṇḍa. The best example in this regard is provided by Advaita Gosvāmī, who, after performing the śrāddha ceremony for his father, offered charity to Haridāsa Ṭhākura, although it was known to everyone that Haridāsa Ṭhākura was born in a Mohammedan family, not a brāhmaṇa family, and was not interested in the activities of jñāna-kāṇḍa or karma-kāṇḍa.

SB 7.15.24, Purport:

By practice, one should avoid eating in such a way that other living entities will be disturbed and suffer. Since I suffer when pinched or killed by others, I should not attempt to pinch or kill any other living entity. People do not know that because of killing innocent animals they themselves will have to suffer severe reactions from material nature. Any country where people indulge in unnecessary killing of animals will have to suffer from wars and pestilence imposed by material nature. Comparing one's own suffering to the suffering of others, therefore, one should be kind to all living entities. One cannot avoid the sufferings inflicted by providence, and therefore when suffering comes one should fully absorb oneself in chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. One can avoid sufferings from the body and mind by practicing mystic haṭha-yoga.

SB Canto 10.1 to 10.13

SB 10.8.29, Translation:

"Our dear friend Yaśodā, your son sometimes comes to our houses before the milking of the cows and releases the calves, and when the master of the house becomes angry, your son merely smiles. Sometimes He devises some process by which He steals palatable curd, butter and milk, which He then eats and drinks. When the monkeys assemble, He divides it with them, and when the monkeys have their bellies so full that they won't take more, He breaks the pots. Sometimes, if He gets no opportunity to steal butter or milk from a house, He will be angry at the householders, and for His revenge He will agitate the small children by pinching them. Then, when the children begin crying, Kṛṣṇa will go away.

CC Madhya-lila

CC Madhya 6.85-86, Translation:

Gopīnātha Ācārya then addressed Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya: “You are a great scholar and a teacher of many disciples. Indeed, there is no other scholar like you on earth. Nonetheless, because you are bereft of even a pinch of the Lord's mercy, you cannot understand Him, even though He is present in your home.

CC Madhya 8.219, Purport:

“Among the gopīs, there is not a pinch of desire for sense gratification. Their only desire is to give pleasure to Kṛṣṇa, and this is why they mingle with Him and enjoy with Him.

CC Antya-lila

CC Antya 4.154, Translation:

“My dear Sir, You do not have even a pinch of aversion to touching my body, which is in a horrible condition. Because of this offense, everything auspicious will be vanquished for me.

CC Antya 16.29, Translation:

"Such a position may befit others, but I do not possess such spiritual power. I belong to a lower class and have not even a pinch of devotion to Kṛṣṇa."

Krsna, The Supreme Personality of Godhead

Krsna Book 8:

When Kṛṣṇa was sitting before mother Yaśodā, all the elder gopīs began to lodge complaints against Him so that Kṛṣṇa could hear. They said, “Dear Yaśodā, why don’t you restrict your naughty Kṛṣṇa? He comes to our houses along with Balarāma every morning and evening, and before the milking of the cows They let loose the calves, and the calves drink all the milk of the cows. So when we go to milk the cows, we find no milk, and we have to return with empty pots. If we warn Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma about doing this, They simply smile so charmingly that we cannot do anything. Also, your Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma find great pleasure in stealing our stock of yogurt and butter from wherever we keep it. When Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma are caught stealing the yogurt and butter, They say, "Why do you charge Us with stealing? Do you think that butter and yogurt are in scarcity in Our house?" Sometimes They steal butter, yogurt and milk and distribute them to the monkeys. When the monkeys are well fed and do not take any more, then your boys chide, "This milk and butter and yogurt are useless—even the monkeys won"t take it.’ And They break the pots and throw them hither and thither. If we keep our stock of yogurt, butter and milk in a solitary dark place, your Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma find it in the darkness by the glaring effulgence of the ornaments and jewels on Their bodies. If by chance They cannot find the hidden butter and yogurt, They go to our little babies and pinch their bodies so that they cry, and then They go away. If out of fear of these naughty boys we keep our stock of butter and yogurt high on the ceiling, hanging on a swing, although it is beyond Their reach They arrange to reach it by piling all kinds of wooden planks over the grinding machine. And if They cannot reach, They make a hole in the pot. We think therefore that you’d better take all the jeweled ornaments from the bodies of your children.”

Krsna Book 11:

One day, all the cowherd boys went to the bank of the river Yamunā to water their calves. When the calves drank water from the Yamunā, the boys also drank. After drinking, when they were sitting on the bank of the river, they saw a huge animal which looked something like a heron and was as big as a hill. Its top was as strong as a thunderbolt. When they saw that unusual animal, they became afraid of it. The name of this beast was Bakāsura, and he was a friend of Kaṁsa's. He appeared on the scene suddenly and immediately attacked Kṛṣṇa with his pointed, sharp beak and quickly swallowed Him up. When Kṛṣṇa was thus swallowed, all the boys, headed by Balarāma, became almost breathless, as if they had died. But when the Bakāsura demon was swallowing up Kṛṣṇa, he felt a burning, fiery sensation in his throat. This was due to the glowing effulgence of Kṛṣṇa. The demon quickly threw Kṛṣṇa up and tried to kill Him by pinching Him in his beak. Bakāsura did not know that although Kṛṣṇa was playing the part of a child of Nanda Mahārāja, He was still the original father of Lord Brahmā, the creator of the universe. Mother Yaśodā’s child, who is the reservoir of pleasure for the demigods and who is the maintainer of saintly persons, caught hold of the great gigantic heron by the two halves of his beak and, before His cowherd boyfriends, bifurcated his mouth, just as a child very easily splits a blade of grass. From the sky, the denizens of the heavenly planets showered flowers like the mallikā, the most fragrant of all flowers, as a token of their congratulations. Accompanying the showers of flowers was a vibration of bugles, drums and conchshells.

Krsna Book 23:

Within themselves they began to embrace Kṛṣṇa to their hearts' content, and the distress of separation was mitigated immediately. They were just like great sages who, by their advancement of knowledge, merge into the existence of the Supreme. As the Supersoul living in everyone's heart, Lord Kṛṣṇa could understand their minds; they had come to Him despite all the protests of their relatives, fathers, husbands and brothers, and despite all the duties of household affairs. They came just to see Him, who was their life and soul. They were exactly following Kṛṣṇa's instruction in the Bhagavad-gītā: one should surrender to Him, giving up all varieties of occupational and religious duties. He therefore began to speak to them, smiling very magnificently. It should be noted in this connection that when Kṛṣṇa entered into the wives' hearts and when they embraced Him and felt the transcendental bliss of being merged with Him, the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa did not lose His identity, nor did the individual wives lose theirs. The individuality of both the Lord and the wives remained, yet they felt oneness in existence. When a lover submits to his lover without any pinch of personal consideration, that is called oneness. Lord Caitanya has taught us this feeling of oneness in His Śikṣāṣṭaka: Kṛṣṇa may act freely, doing whatever He likes, but the devotee should always be in oneness or in agreement with His desires. That oneness was exhibited by the wives of the brāhmaṇas in their love for Kṛṣṇa.

Krsna Book 29:

Upon hearing the anxious plea of the gopīs, the Supreme Personality of Godhead smiled, and being very kind to the gopīs, the Lord, although self-sufficient, began to embrace them and kiss them as they desired. When Kṛṣṇa, smiling, looked at the faces of the gopīs, the beauty of their faces became a hundred times enhanced. When He was enjoying them in their midst, He appeared just like the full moon surrounded by millions of shining stars. Thus the Supreme Personality of Godhead, surrounded by hundreds of gopīs and decorated with a flower garland of many colors, began to wander within the Vṛndāvana forest, sometimes singing to Himself and sometimes singing with the gopīs. In this way the Lord and the gopīs reached the cool, sandy bank of the Yamunā, where there were lilies and lotus flowers. In such a transcendental atmosphere, the gopīs and Kṛṣṇa began to enjoy one another. While they were walking on the bank of the Yamunā, Kṛṣṇa would sometimes put His arms around a gopī’s head, breast or waist. Pinching one another and joking and looking at one another, they enjoyed. When Kṛṣṇa touched the bodies of the gopīs, their lust to embrace Him increased. They all enjoyed these pastimes. Thus the gopīs were blessed with all mercy by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, for they enjoyed His company without a tinge of mundane sex life.

Krsna Book 50:

As he was returning home with his royal friends, however, they advised him not to retire but to regain strength to fight again with Kṛṣṇa in the near future. The princely friends of Jarāsandha instructed him that ordinarily it would not have been possible for him to be defeated by the strength of the Yadu kings; the defeat he had experienced was simply due to his ill luck. The princely order encouraged King Jarāsandha. His fighting, they said, was certainly heroic; therefore, he should not take his defeat very seriously, since it was due only to his past misdeeds. After all, there was no fault in his fighting.

In this way, Jarāsandha, the King of Magadha Province, having lost all his strength and having been insulted by his arrest and subsequent release, could do nothing but return to his kingdom. Thus Lord Kṛṣṇa conquered the soldiers of Jarāsandha. Although Kṛṣṇa's army was tiny in comparison to Jarāsandha's, not a pinch of His strength was lost, whereas all of Jarāsandha's men were killed.

Krsna Book 60:

"My dear chaste and pious wife, I have tested, on the basis of strict chastity, your love for your husband, and you have passed the examination most successfully. I have purposely agitated you by speaking many words not applicable to your character, but I am surprised to see that not a pinch of your devotion to Me has been deviated from its fixed position. My dear wife, I am the bestower of all benedictions, even up to the standard of liberation from this material world, and it is I only who can stop the continuation of material existence and call one back home, back to Godhead. One whose devotion for Me is adulterated worships Me for some material benefit, just to keep himself in the world of material happiness, culminating in the pleasure of sex life. One who engages himself in severe penances and austerities just to attain this material happiness is certainly under the illusion of My external energy. Persons who are engaged in My devotional service simply for the purpose of material gain and sense gratification are certainly very foolish, for material happiness based on sex life is available in the most abominable species of life, such as the hogs and dogs. No one should try to approach Me for such happiness, which is available even if one is put into a hellish condition of life. It is better, therefore, for persons who are simply after material happiness and not after Me to remain in that hellish condition."

Krsna Book 61:

In spite of this divine voice, Rukmī insisted that Balarāma had lost, and by his persistence it appeared that he had death upon his head. Falsely puffed up by the ill advice of his friend, he did not give much importance to the oracle, and he began to criticize Balarāmajī. He said, "My dear Balarāmajī, You two brothers, cowherd boys only, may be very expert in tending cows, but how can You be expert in playing chess or shooting arrows on the battlefield? These arts are well known only to the princely order." Hearing this kind of pinching talk by Rukmī and hearing the loud laughter of all the other princes present there, Lord Balarāma became as agitated as burning cinders. He immediately took His club in His hand and, without further talk, struck Rukmī on the head. From that one blow, Rukmī fell down immediately and was dead and gone. Thus Rukmī was killed by Balarāma on that auspicious occasion of Aniruddha's marriage. These things are not very uncommon in kṣatriya society.

Krsna Book 63:

"My dear Lord, I offer my respectful obeisances unto You because You have unlimited potencies. No one can surpass Your potencies, and thus You are the Lord of everyone. Generally people consider Lord Śiva the most powerful personality in the material world, but Lord Śiva is not all-powerful; You are all-powerful. This is factual. You are the original consciousness, or knowledge. Without knowledge, or consciousness, nothing can be powerful. A material thing may be very powerful, but without the touch of consciousness it cannot act. A material machine may be gigantic and wonderful, but without the touch of someone conscious and in knowledge, the material machine is useless for all purposes. My Lord, You are complete knowledge, and there is not a pinch of material contamination in Your personality. Lord Śiva may be a powerful demigod because of his specific power to annihilate the whole creation, and, similarly, Lord Brahmā may be very powerful because he can create the entire universe, but actually neither Brahmā nor Lord Śiva is the original cause of this cosmic manifestation. You are the Absolute Truth, the Supreme Brahman, and You are the original cause. The original cause of the cosmic manifestation is not the impersonal Brahman effulgence. That impersonal Brahman effulgence rests on Your personality."

Krsna Book 65:

When the gopīs arrived, Lord Balarāma glanced over them with loving eyes. Being overjoyed, the gopīs, who had so long been mortified on account of Kṛṣṇa's and Balarāma's absence, began to ask about the welfare of the two brothers. They specifically asked Balarāma whether Kṛṣṇa was enjoying His life surrounded by the enlightened women of Dvārakā Purī. “Does He sometimes remember His father Nanda and His mother Yaśodā and the other friends with whom He so intimately behaved while in Vṛndāvana? Does Kṛṣṇa have any plans to come here to see His mother, Yaśodā, and does He remember us gopīs, who are now pitiably bereft of His company? Kṛṣṇa may have forgotten us in the midst of the cultured women of Dvārakā, but as far as we are concerned, we still remember Him by collecting flowers and sewing them into garlands. When He does not come, however, we simply pass our time by crying. If only He would come here and accept these garlands we have made. Dear Lord Balarāma, descendant of Dāśārha, You know that we would give up everything for Kṛṣṇa's friendship. Even in great distress one cannot give up the connection of family members, but although it might be impossible for others, we gave up our fathers, mothers, sisters and relatives. But then Kṛṣṇa, without caring a pinch for our renunciation, all of a sudden renounced us and went away. He broke off our intimate relationship without serious consideration and left for a foreign country. But He was so clever and cunning that He manufactured very nice words. He said, "My dear gopīs, please do not worry. The service you have rendered Me is impossible for Me to repay." After all, we are women, so how could we disbelieve Him? Now we can understand that His sweet words were simply for cheating us.”

Krsna Book 82:

"Actually They are not our sons; They belong to you. Nanda Mahārāja and you are the real father and mother of Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma. As long as They were under your care They had not even a pinch of difficulty. Under your protection, They were completely out of the way of all kinds of fear. This most affectionate care which you have taken for Them is completely befitting your elevated position. The most noble personalities do not discriminate between their own sons and the sons of others, and there cannot be any personalities more noble than Nanda Mahārāja and you."

Krsna Book 90:

The queens said, “Dear kurarī bird, now it is very late at night. Everyone is sleeping. The whole world is now calm and peaceful. At this time, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is sleeping, although His knowledge is undisturbed by any circumstances. Then why are you not sleeping? Why are you lamenting like this throughout the whole night? Dear friend, is it that you are also attracted by the lotus eyes of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and by His sweet smiling and attractive words, exactly as we are? Do those dealings of the Supreme Personality of Godhead pinch your heart as they do ours?

Renunciation Through Wisdom

Renunciation Through Wisdom 2.4:

Most householders desire material gain. Nowadays especially, everyone is feeling the pinch of poverty. The ordinary man thirsts for money solely to enjoy his senses. Once a person falls into the useless company of sense gratifiers, he spends his wealth on fineries, gold, and women. With more wealth, he seeks adoration and distinction, and along with these he gets mansions, cars, and so on. There is only one interest in this endeavor, and that is to enjoy the senses. Persons whose only goal in life is to gratify the senses were referred to earlier as the less intelligent fruitive workers, or karmīs. If any among them happen to have some piety, then this select group will not merely fritter away all their time in titillating their senses, but will spend some time worshiping the Supreme Lord. Although these elite karmīs do not associate with the pure devotees of the Lord, they call themselves spiritualists. Actually, they harbor the desire to gratify their carnal desires. They fail to comprehend that the Supreme Lord is known as Hṛsīkeśa, "the supreme master of the senses." Sometimes a jñānī (a seeker of knowledge) or a practitioner of mystic yoga will also worship the Lord, but they also are merely interested ultimately in sensual pleasures. The only way these adulterated devotees can become pure devotees is if they read Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī's Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu. This book is an authority on the science of devotional service.