These Inner Enemies Begin as Ripples and Become Floods
Narada warns that the passions, though they seem small at first like ripples, swell into an ocean that overwhelms the soul.
Continuing in Sutra 45, Narada observes that these inner enemies — lust, anger, and the rest — 'though appearing scattered like ripples, become a sea in the company of the wicked.' What begins as a minor disturbance grows, through repeated indulgence and bad association, into an unmanageable flood. The wisdom here is one of early vigilance: a passion checked while small is easily mastered, but the same passion fed and reinforced becomes a tyrant. Narada urges the devotee to guard the mind at the level of its first stirrings. This anticipates the contemplative teaching on watching the 'first thoughts' and the modern understanding that habits, caught early, are far easier to redirect than once they are entrenched.
Though appearing as ripples, the passions become a sea in evil company.
The image of ripples becoming a sea captures how small repeated behaviors compound over time into powerful and self-reinforcing patterns.
Narada Bhakti Sutras
Written about in
- What the Narada Bhakti Sutras say about desire
Narada is not sentimental about how desire grows. Small disturbances, repeated and encouraged by the company you keep, become a sea you cannot cross.
- What the Narada Bhakti Sutras say about starting again after a fall
Sutra 45 describes the mechanism: the passions appear as scattered ripples and become a sea in the wrong company. The instruction is to intervene at the ripple, because the same passion once fed is no longer something you can negotiate with.