A Summary of the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapuranam ( 04/04/2013. )

22/12/2017 Discourse 5: Naradan Instructs Yudhisthira on Ashrama Dharmam-12. The detachment that is associated with the life of Sannyasa is not a keeping oneself away from the things of the world, but a union with them. The union with everything looks like a detachment from them. This is something very curious to understand. When we are one with an object, we have detached ourselves from it at the same time—because we do not want it any more. The detachment, so-called, is nothing but not wanting it; and not wanting it is a condition which arises automatically when we are one with it. Just as we do not feel a desire to possess our finger, we do not want anything else at that time. So, the life of Sannyasa is a wondrous concept of the perfection of the values of life, which is what Narada tells Yudhishthira in the Seventh Skandha of the Srimad Bhagavata, wherein the upasana culminates into actual absorption. In the condition of Sannyasa, the meditation is not an upasana in

15/12/2017 Discourse 5: Naradan Instructs Yudhisthira on Ashrama Dharmam-11. In order to go on with this meditation, we have to take our ishta devata for our contemplation. Our ishta devata can be Rama, Krishna, Devi, Bhagavati, Narayana, Siva, Ganesha or whatever the case may be, etc. Whatever it be, that concept has to be internalised for the purpose of upasana. We should think only that and nothing else, and believe in the protection that it can grant us. The ishta devata protects us, guides us, and enlightens us. It gives us security, and we feel happy with it. Some devotees hug the image of their ishta devata, wear it around their necks, kiss it, and feel that it is their beloved. It is truly that, because it symbolises the divinity that is pervading everywhere. Such kind of upasanas, to mention briefly, are the duties of a Vanaprastha. But there is a still higher stage, called Sannyasa. It does not mean shaving the head, wearing a robe, and saying “I am a Sannyasin”.

07/12/2017 Discourse 5: Narada Instructs Yudhisthira on Ashrama Dharma-10. There is no chance of distraction of mind here if we have properly prepared ourselves from an early age, but if we have lived a very dissipated life until fifty or sixty years of age and then attempt this meditation, we will find that our mind will not concentrate at all because we have not given it time to prepare itself through the earlier conditions required during the previous parts of our life. It is necessary to remember that one’s whole life is a period of austerity, conservation, duty, and meditation. Here, in these Aranyakas, the various upasanas are prescribed: how the cosmic prana can be meditated upon, how the cosmic mind can be conceived, how Brahma—the Mahat, or the cosmic intellect—can be brought into the focus of our attention, how we can intensely feel the unity of the parts of our physical body with the parts of the physical universe. This is the highest form of upasana that we can

21/11/2017 Discourse 5: Narada Instructs Yudhisthira on Ashrama Dharma-9. 1. The meditational process that commences in the Vanaprastha stage begins with what is known as upasana, which is placing oneself in the juxtaposed context of what is called ‘nearness to Reality’. Nearness to Reality is possible not through any physical means, but through the mind only. The mind, when it is charged with the consciousness of the Atman, adjusts itself to the need to keep itself in harmony with not merely the physical Earth or human society, but even with the five elements—earth, water, fire, air and ether. The Vanaprastha contemplates not merely the world of people but the very elements that control all life. It is a higher meditation which is upasana on the whole of creation—God manifest as this world. 2. It is called upasana because there is a devout pouring in of oneself to the objective, which is all creation itself. Various techniques of contemplation on this creational process ar

16/11/2017 Discourse 5: Narada Instructs Yudhisthira on Ashrama Dharma-8. In earlier days, people in the Vanaprastha stage would go to live in the forest, but that is not to be taken literally as a necessity. We have to be completely free from the entanglements of a household life. Here, the preparation starts for the utilisation of the conserved energy for the purpose of direct meditation. There was some kind of activity in the Brahmacharya stage, and more activity in the Grihastha stage, and now the activity that was earlier externally motivated in many ways becomes directed internally, and it becomes a mental energising process only. The Vanaprastha lives in his mind, in his thought, and not in his actions. In earlier stages, actions contributed a lot to the conservation of energy and the fulfilment of the duties of life, but now thought itself is enough; and one contemplates by gathering up all one’s energies on the great aim of life. Though the final aim of life is k

09/11//2017 5: Narada Instructs Yudhisthira on Ashrama Dharmam-7. I. What the world is made of has to be understood; and we have to pass through all these structural essences of the world. Every experience of the world has to be passed through. There are gifts that the world can give, and it can also give sorrows. It is not that everyone is born only to have a cosy life without any kind of difficulty, as the problems, sufferings, sorrows, and the joys of life are the obverse and reverse of the same coin. No one can have only one side. It is not that we have to be always sorrowing throughout our life, nor also that we have to be enjoying throughout our life. One cannot be without the other; they exist as two sides of a single experience. II. A time comes when we feel that it is not necessary for us to expect anything from the world. It is not that the world cannot give anything to us, nor that we cannot take; but it is not necessary to take. We can become so mature tha

07/11//2017 5: Narada Instructs Yudhisthira on Ashrama Dharmam-6. It is immaterial whether we marry or not. It depends upon the need that is felt inside. Even in the Himalayas we may feel that we are a Grihastha because of the pressure that we feel inside. The external things, appurtenances, husband, wife, etc., are only symbols of forms of an inner connotation, a need that is felt inside us. What binds us or liberates us is the need that is felt inside. We are the makers of our destiny; we create our bondage, and we are also responsible for our freedom. No external aid can help us in this matter. But external aids are sometimes necessary, just as we require a pen to write a book, a plate on which to eat our meal, a glass for drinking water, a seat to sit on, and a bed to lie on. These are external forms of requirement necessitated by the needs felt inside, which otherwise cannot be expressed properly. If the need can be sublimated, the external appurtenances are not necessar

30/10/2017 5: Narada Instructs Yudhisthira on Ashrama Dharmam-5. In the next stage, which is generally called Grihastha, a kind of life is prescribed which is markedly different from the purely ascetic life of Brahmacharya through conservation of energy. Grihastha is the system provided for the utilisation of this energy. During the early years of Brahmacharya, the energy should not be utilised. It has been kept intact, totally conserved so that it keeps one brilliant not only in the brain, but also in the face, and that itself is a satisfaction. In the stage of Grihastha, permission is given for certain types of enjoyment and experience, coupled with duty. There is no duty for a Brahmacharin. The only duty is to study, conserve energy, and offer prayers. But the Grihastha has a double responsibility of the performance of duty, and also the acquisition of values that are permissible under those circumstances. Now, a Grihastha does not necessarily mean a person with a wife. Ev

19/05/2017. 5: Narada Instructs Yudhisthira on Ashrama Dharmam-4. 1. We feel a great joy when we pour ourselves externally in love for power, in love for money, in love for enjoyments of various kinds, not knowing that this is not real pleasure because when the tension that is created in us—when the quantum of energy already existing in us—wells up like an elephant’s energy, it does not know what to do. Either it will go vertically or it will go horizontally. Like a river in flood, it can move in any direction. 2. It is necessary that we should prepare a program of our life by which our energy quantum rises vertically, and does not move horizontally. Otherwise, it will be like a dissipated river flooding everywhere and destroying villages and persons. The vertical ascent of energy is the art of the Brahmacharya system. The energy rises gradually through the lower parts of the body to the upper part until the brain becomes brilliant, sharp, and able to catch everything ver

11/04/2017. 5: Narada Instructs Yudhisthira on Ashrama Dharmam-3. Good company—the tutelage of good parents, good teachers, good guides, good Gurus—and a thorough study of good scriptures and textbooks that are contributory to increasing one’s mental, intellectual and physical energy, are what is required during one’s youth. It is called Brahmacharya Ashrama. These days, Brahmacharya Ashrama does not exist at all, due to the trouble into which one is cast right from the beginning itself through the web of problems of life arising from the very inception of one’s existence. But anyone who is interested in the welfare of their own being, and knows what is good for them, has to remember that the pleasant is not always the good. We always like pleasant things, sweet things, and they attract our senses perpetually, so that the senses gather our energies and pour them outwards on the conditions of life outside; and if this is the habit that we form right from the beginning of life

03/04/2017. 5: Narada Instructs Yudhisthira on Ashrama Dharmam-2. If we do not believe that our life will continue for one hundred years and think that it may be less, we have to proportionately arrange the pattern of our life accordingly for the fulfilment which life intends. Study and intellectual training, building up of acumen through the gathering of knowledge in a Gurukula under a competent master, and purifying oneself in every way through prayer, meditation, japa, surya namaskara, and the service of the Guru under whom the student lives during these preparatory years, pave the way for the necessary apparatus required to live life later on. Many fortunate ones are born in favourable circumstances—in a family of good parents who are examples of good behaviour, good conduct, and who themselves are religiously oriented. We cannot find such parents everywhere. The conditions of life today have changed so much that one has to work hard to wean oneself from the distracti

27/03/2017. 5: Narada Instructs Yudhisthira on Ashrama Dharmam-1. The Sixth and Seventh Skandhas of the Srimad Bhagavata are devoted entirely to the great battle that was waged between Indra and Vritra, and in this context we also have the story of Chitraketu. It is in the Seventh Skandha that we have a more detailed analysis of Ashrama dharma, which Narada recounts to Yudhishthira in the context of his question concerning the birth of Prahlada, ending with Narasimha avatara due the activities of Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu, two children born to Kashyapa and Diti under queer circumstances. Narada’s instruction to Yudhishthira is especially on the dharmas to be followed in the Ashrama system of life. From the birth of a child into this world onward, there is a graduated building up of personality through conservation of energy at different levels of being. Taking for granted that a person will live for one hundred years, the first twenty-five years are supposed to be devot

18/03/2017. 4 : The Stories of Siva and Sati, and of Rishabhadeva and Bharata-27.  If you can roll up the whole space like a sheet of leather, then you can have peace of mind without knowledge of God. T The Purusha Sukta concludes by saying there is no way of crossing over this sea of samsara except by knowing Him who is the Purushottama. One crosses the domain of death by knowing Him. Knowing Him is being Him. They are not two different things. The knowledge of God is also the being of God, and therefore, when we know God, we be God, as it were. Such is the glorious story that we have here in the Rahugana-Bharata Samvada in the Fifth Skandha, and there are incidental stories of this type in the Sixth and the Seventh Skandhas also. 4.The Stories of Siva and Sati, and Rishabhadeva and Bharata : ENDS Next : 5: Narada Instructs Yudhisthira on Ashrama Dharma  Swami Krishnananda

11/03/2017. 4 : The Stories of Siva and Sati, and of Rishabhadeva and Bharata-26. Rahugana was enlightened. He again prostrated himself before this mighty master. And Bharata engaged himself in meditation on the Supreme Person, Purushottama, who is the saviour of all, who is the Moksha-data. Disregarding His presence, we move after the sense objects. We see the ensnaring, entangling presentations before our senses, and we get caught in them and have no time to think of the Mahapurusha, the Purushottama. It is His presence which gives light to all these presentations in this world. Minus Him, the world will not exist. He is the Satchidananda Svarupa behind the nama and rupa prapancha, and all this world. We pursue the shadows, which cannot be cast unless there is a screen behind them. We forget the screen, and we pursue the shadows. That is why we are going to attain nothing worthwhile in this world by the pursuit of external objects. All externality is a shadow cast by U

02/03/2017. 4 : The Stories of Siva and Sati, and of Rishabhadeva and Bharata-25. This world is also like that, where we hit our head against something under the impression that it is another thing altogether. We hug a snake, thinking it is a rose; we drink poison, thinking it is nectar; and we live in this body, thinking it is beautiful—whereas it is the ugliest thing that has been created by the admixture of the five elements. If the skin is removed, we will see the beauty of this body. Everyone will run away from a person who has no skin, and crows will eat the flesh. So, there is a point in saying that beauty is skin deep. Where is the beauty of a person who has no skin? Therefore, beauty is in the skin only. Is it not so? All is chaos. Such kind of confusion and ignorance pervades the whole world of creation, right from Brahma onward. Wherever we go, we will find bondage. We will be caught either by this policeman or that policeman. We have no freedom anywhere. This is

23/02/2017.  4 : The Stories of Siva and Sati, and of Rishabhadeva and Bharata-24. Then the Skandha continues with the description of the whole process of creation—how the body of individuals is formed. The whole creation process is, in some ways, similar to the one we studied in the Second and Third Skandhas of the Srimad Bhagavata. The great wisdom of the structure of the universe and the power of the Supreme Being are described in this discourse called the Rahugana-Bharata Samvada in the Fifth Skandha of the Srimad Bhagavata. There is also a beautiful story, called Puranjana Upakhyana. Puranjana was a king who was attached to the glamours of sense. He was caught up in the lure of maya and everything was beautiful for him, until it was time for him to depart from this world. I am not going into the details of this story now. Puranjana represents the caught-up individual who is deluded by the Disneyland, as it were, of this world, where we do not know what we are seein

14/02/2017. 4: The Stories of Siva and Sati, and of Rishabhadeva and Bharata-23. Then the great discourse of Bharata is narrated in the beautiful language of the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana. The whole world is compared to a forest, where animals like human beings are moving in search of their grub. This is a wild jungle. This entire world is compared to a forest where we can find anything anywhere, and also nothing anywhere. Ignorant, animal-like individuals lose their sense of propriety and do not want to know what the purpose of their existence actually is. They move in this forest like prowling tigers, like predators. This is to be properly understood. Do we think that the world is a pleasure garden? It is no such thing. It is full of thorns, a jungle which is to be feared. It is better that we get free of this jungle as early as possible. Swami Krishnananda To be continued ..

07/02/2017. 4: The Stories of Siva and Sati, and of Rishabhadeva and Bharata-22. I. When the king heard these words he was surprised, and understood that this was not an ordinary person. II. He came down from the palanquin, prostrated himself, and said, “O great sadhu! Bless me. III. I did not know who you are. IV. If I have committed any mistake, please pardon me. Instruct me. V. Tell me who you are, masquerading as a human being. VI. Perhaps you are some divinity, a god. VII. I do not know who you are. Please tell me. I have made a mistake. Pardon me, again and again, O sadhu! Tell me who you are.” Swami Krishnananda To be continued ..

31/01/2017.  4: The Stories of Siva and Sati, and of Rishabhadeva and Bharata-21. This is the first time Bharata opened his mouth. Throughout his life he did not say anything, but when the king taunted him and said, “Jada, go! I’ll thrash you!” he opened his mouth and said, “What are you saying, King? You uttered the word ‘Jada’. Whom are you addressing? Are you addressing the five elements—earth, water, fire, air and ether? Are you scolding them that constitute the body of all individuals, mine as well as yours? When you say ‘Jada, go!’ whom are you referring to? Is it the five elements? Or you are addressing the prana which is in all people and is all-pervading, and incidentally happens to be animating this individual body also? Or, are you calling the mind Jada? It is a part of the cosmic mind. Your appellation does not apply to anyone. Are you calling the intellect Jada? It is a part of the cosmic intellect. Are you calling the Atman within Jada? It is a part o

25/01/2017. 4.The Stories of Siva and Sati, and Rishabhadeva and Bharata-20. One day Rahugana, the king of the country, was passing that way on a palanquin carried by attendants. They wanted one more man to carry it and, seeing Bharata sitting there, said, “Come on. Will you help us?” Bharata did not say anything. They got angry and said, “Carry the palanquin!” Bharata did not utter one word. He had not uttered one word in his entire life, and would not say anything. Whatever happens, let it happen. They put the palanquin on his shoulder and said, “Carry! Go!” He carried it, but he was not interested. He walked slowly, while the others were moving fast. The king asked the palanquin bearers, “Why are you walking like this? Have you no strength? Move!” The others replied, “We are not doing anything wrong. We are walking properly. But this new fellow is unable to walk. He is lethargic, and is moving like an ant.” The king said, “Oh, Jada! Have you no sense? I

17/01/2017. 4.The Stories of Siva and Sati, and Rishabhadeva and Bharata-19. He did not utter one word, and allowed them to drag him to the temple. They anointed him with chandanam—sandalwood paste—and garlanded him, and he still did not utter one word. Then the priest took the sword to behead him. Immediately, thunder struck. A bursting noise arose from the murti of Kali that they were worshiping, and a fierce-looking Devi rushed forward, grabbed the priest’s sword, and cut him down, and smashed everything. All the dacoits ran helter-skelter. Even all this noise did not disturb Jada Bharata’s peace. He kept quiet. Let Kali come, let dacoits come, let anything happen, he did not mind anything. People ran away from that place, and he sat alone there. Swami Krishnananda To be continued ..

11/01/2017. 4.The Stories of Siva and Sati, and Rishabhadeva and Bharata-18. Because of the fear of attachment due to the lesson that he had learned, he would not utter a word in this birth. His parents sent him to school, but he would not learn anything, not even the letters of the alphabet. Whatever was told to him fell on deaf ears. They thought that he was an idiot who was shamefully born into a Brahmin family, as Brahmins are very learned in Vedic lore. They tried to teach him again and again, but he was so idle, and never responded to anyone, and would not say anything. They thought he was an idiotic creature, and wondered what to do with him. They said, “Go! Do some work,” but he would not do any work either. “Okay, at least tend the cattle. Go! Graze the cows,” they said. He took the cattle to graze, and allowed them to go into other people’s fields and eat up all their crops. People were annoyed, and wondered what was wrong with him. Then they said, “Don’t do anything. Go

04/01/2017. 4.The Stories of Siva and Sati, and Rishabhadeva and Bharata-17. 17.1 This law operated even on the great ascetic Bharata. As a Sankhya sutra warns us, thinking of anything which is not contributory to spiritual practice, or sadhana, results in bondage, as in the case of Bharata. Attachment sneaks into our mind without our knowledge, like a serpent entering into a hole without our knowing that it has entered. 17.2 The power of the mind, which is filled with desire, finds all sorts of excuses to see that its longings are fulfilled one way or the other. It is like a thief or a dacoit who knows every way of fulfilling his wish. Hence, because of this law of compensation according to the intensity of thought, Bharata, due to his attachment to the baby deer, was born as a deer. 17.3 But due to the tapasya that he performed, in his deer life he remembered what had happened. He was not born ignorant of the past, as in the case of all people. The deer knew that it had beco