Srimad Maha Bhagavatham : 5.6. - Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday,  19  Jun.  2023.  05:30.

Discourse 5: Narada Instructs Yudhisthira on Ashrama Dharma -6.

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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 the sense of being near an object of meditation, but becoming the object of meditation itself. That is the point that distinguishes Sannyasa from the Vanaprastha stage. The Sannyasin does not contemplate on something as if it is outside; he himself is that. The universe has entered him, and he himself is contemplating as the universe: I am what I am. In some Vedanta texts this is called ahamgraha upasana. The catching of the true ‘I' is called ahamgraha. We have not been able to find this ‘aham' because we do not know where this ‘I' is really. We are under the impression that the ‘I' is in the family, the ‘I' is in the money, the ‘I' is in the work that we do, the ‘I' is in the body, etc.; but it is nowhere. It is in itself only. And that ‘I' which, as philosophers call it, is the transcendental unity of apperception, has to be caught. 

BG-Chapter-13, Slogam -17

"Avibhaktam cha bhuteshu vibhaktam iva cha sthitam

bhuta-bhartri cha taj jneyam grasishnu prabhavishnu cha."

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avibhaktam—indivisible; 

cha—although; 

bhuteshu—amongst living beings; 

vibhaktam—divided; 

iva—apparently; 

cha—yet; 

sthitam—situated; 

bhuta-bhartri—the Sustainer of all beings; 

cha—also; 

tat—that; 

jneyam—to be known; 

grasishnu—the Annihilator; 

prabhavishnu—the Creator; 

cha—and.

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Translation :

BG 13.17: He is indivisible, yet He appears to be divided amongst living beings. Know the Supreme Entity to be the Sustainer, Annihilator, and Creator of all beings.

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Commentary :

God’s personality includes His various energies.  All manifest and unmanifest objects are but expansions of His energy.  Thus, we can say He is all that exists.  Accordingly, Shreemad Bhagavatam states:

“The various aspects of creation—time, karma, the natures of individual living beings, and the material ingredients of creation—are all the Supreme Lord Shree Krishna Himself.  There is nothing in existence apart from Him.”  

God may appear to be divided amongst the objects of His creation, but since He is all that exists, He remains undivided as well.  For example, space may seem to be divided amongst the objects that it contains.  Yet, all objects are within the one entity called space, which manifested at the beginning of creation.  Again, the reflection of the sun in puddles of water appears divided, and yet the sun remains indivisible. 

Just as the ocean throws up waves and then absorbs them back into itself, similarly God creates the world, maintains it, and then absorbs it back into Himself.  Therefore, He may be equally seen as the Creator, the Maintainer, and the Destroyer of everything.

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So, the meditation of a Sannyasin is direct unified experience of consciousness with Reality. This is, finally, the catching of the Universal ‘I' by the so-called individual ‘I', in its attempt at unification of its ‘I'-ness with the Universal ‘I'. There are many ‘I's in this world. You have an ‘I'-ness, I have an ‘I'-ness, and everybody is ‘I'. But these are empirical ‘I's—physical ‘I's, as it were, conditioned by physical bodies—and so it appears to us that there are many ‘I's everywhere. But these ‘I's are drops in the ocean of one single ‘I', which is the ‘I' of God, of the Universal Being. Catch it! Catch that Supreme ‘I' which is inclusive of every ‘I', as drops are included in the ocean. This Total ‘I' is very difficult to attain or even conceive. Where is this Total ‘I'? It is the pure Universal Subjectivity, and is bereft of even a touch of externality. That is the Supreme ahamgraha upasana, meditation on the great ‘I' of the universe—the Supreme Self, the Supreme Total, the Supreme unified consciousness identified with the Supreme Being.

Continuous meditation on That, and living for That, is called brahmabhyasa in the scriptures. Tat chintanaṁ tat kathanaṁ anyonyaṁ tat prabodhanam, eta deka paratvaṁ ca brahmābhyāsaṁ vidur budhāḥ (Pan. 7.106) is a verse from the Panchadasi, and also from the Yoga Vasishtha. Tat chintanaṁ: Think only That. Whatever be the circumstance of your life, wherever you are placed and whatever you may be doing, do not forget this. Think only That, think only That, think only That.

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To be continued

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