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

Chapter-2. The Process of Creation-9. There are supposedly eighty-four lakhs (8,400,000) of species through which every soul has to pass; and we may say, as human beings, we have passed through these and become human beings, which is a great achievement. Manushyatvam durlabham is the adage of the ancient masters: It is difficult to be born as a human being because we have to cross these stages of all the lower species in order to be endowed with the prerogative of being born a human. If we read the Jataka stories of Buddha’s previous lives, we will find this interesting account of what Buddha was in his earlier times. He was everything—every kind of animal, a cannibal, a thief, a lecherous man. Buddha was everything at one time or the other, and there was nothing that he was not. He passed through all these stages of human nature until he assumed a position of human attainment, of Buddhahood. Likewise is the case with all individuals who are going to be Buddhas—who ar

Chapter-2. The Process of Creation-8. We consider human beings as everything. We think of peace in the world—world peace. Generally, as human beings, we only think of peace for humanity, and not for lions and snakes. We do not think of their peace, as it is not our intention. We do not want peace for any animal or insect in the world; our attitude is that they can take care of themselves. We have roundtable conferences only for the peace of mankind because man can think only as man, and he cannot think as any other species. We are to give justice to everybody, but that is not possible because of the insistence of the personality of each individual. A snake cares only for itself, and it can strike anyone who comes near it. It does not think that all are equal. It is not possible for even a human being to think that all are equal, because the insistence of the body and the survival instinct of the particular personality—the shape into which one is born—is so stro

Chapter-2. The Process of Creation-7. There are supposedly eighty-four lakhs (8,400,000) of species through which every soul has to pass; and we may say, as human beings, we have passed through these and become human beings, which is a great achievement. Manushyatvam durlabham is the adage of the ancient masters :- It is difficult to be born as a human being because we have to cross these stages of all the lower species in order to be endowed with the prerogative of being born a human. If we read the Jataka stories of Buddha’s previous lives, we will find this interesting account of what Buddha was in his earlier times. He was everything—every kind of animal, a cannibal, a thief, a lecherous man. Buddha was everything at one time or the other, and there was nothing that he was not. He passed through all these stages of human nature until he assumed a position of human attainment, of Buddhahood. Likewise is the case with all individuals who are going to be Buddhas—w

YOUNG SWAMI KRISHNANANDA Chapter-2. The Process of Creation-6. The process starts in a similar pattern as it was in the earlier creation. The pattern is the same, but the details are different. The mould is cast forever, but the souls inhabiting these moulds vary according to the various stages of evolution in which they find themselves. That is to say, everyone has to pass through every species of creation. One has to be a mosquito, a frog, a snake, a boar, a lion, an elephant, a cow, a bull, and every blessed thing. They are moulds, or patterns of individualities, into which the mental construct—or the souls, we may say—are cast, so that the moulds permanently stay as they are, but the contents inside, the rulers there, differ at different stages of evolution, just as a particular house can be occupied by different people. The house is the same; it does not change, but today someone occupies it, and tomorrow another person occupies it. In the same way is the yath

Chapter-2. The Process of Creation-5. This creation lasts as long as the life of Brahma continues. When the hundred years of Brahma are over, there is cosmic dissolution.  All the world will become liquid, as it were; there will be cosmic waters. But the question will arise, what happens to the individuals, people like us, when everything in creation is dissolved during dissolution? Do we attain liberation? No, we do not attain liberation even if the whole world is dissolved, because liberation is freedom from desires of every kind. A mere physical dissolution of things does not mean the dissolution of mental desires. Just as sleep is not the end of the day and is only a commencement of the next day, in a similar manner, this cosmic sleep at the time of dissolution is a universal cessation of all activity but not a liberation of the forces of individualities. They will all be dissolved into a seed form of subtle potentiality when the universe dissolves after su

Chapter-2. The Process of Creation-4. But after having created this total with the fiat of His will, there is no objection to the idea that the process of evolution took place gradually, because the theory is that creation is a cyclic process. It is not a sudden emerging of things that did not exist earlier. It is not that God created the world from nothing. We may say that, in some way, God does not create things Himself, as the sun does not create the problems of life, though without it no movement can take place here. God is responsible for the evolution of the potentials that existed during the conclusion of the previous cycle—called mahapralaya, the dissolution of the cosmos after one hundred lives of Brahma, the creative principle. The one hundred lives of Brahma is something difficult to imagine in one’s mind. There are four cycles of time, called Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga and Kali Yuga. Kali Yuga, which is the time through which we are passing

Chapter-2. The Process of Creation-3. This way of instruction by Suka Maharishi continues through the Second Skandha, or the Second Book, of the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana, and the same subject is continued in the Third Skandha where an elaborate description of the creational process through Brahma is described. This description of the coming of things from the supreme Creator as we have it in the Srimad Bhagavata practically tallies with modern findings of the process of evolution. The Bhagavata does not say that God created man in the beginning. There was an evolutionary process, as conceived in scientific circles—namely, God created the Earth and the heavens, as it is said in the Bible, for instance, but He did not create man immediately. Here is a little departure in the story of the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana. There is the vast ocean, the vast Earth, the entire physical universe before us—sun, moon, stars, all things. God created vegetation first. The plan

Chapter-2. The Process of Creation-2. For instance, Suka Maharishi says :- A human being has various desires, aspirations and longings. Every longing can be fulfilled by adoration of a particular divinity. If you aspire for radiance in your face, energy in your personality, and lustre in the whole of your being, then meditate on Brahmanaspati, who is the abode of all lustre; if you long for knowledge, enlightenment, wisdom, meditate on a person like Lord Siva; if you want health, vigour of personality and long life, offer your prostrations and adorations to Surya, the resplendent lord of the skies; if you want mental peace, balance of feeling, concentrate your mind on the moon as identical with yourself; if you want a warlike energy and strength in your person, meditate on Skanda, the generalissimo of the gods; and if you want to be free from every kind of obstacle along your successful approach in life, pray, offer your adoration to Ganapathi, or Ganesha Bhagavan, who is t

Chapter-2. The Process of Creation-1. If any scripture of the Hindus can be compared with the Bible, it is the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana. It consists of twelve books, the first nine of which are something like the Old Testament, and the Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth can be compared to the New Testament. In the earlier sections—the first nine books—we have a cosmology of the whole of creation, and practically the history of mankind as conceived from the point of view of a religious interpretation of the process of creation. Suka Maharishi placed before Raja Parikshit a picture of the Cosmic Being, through whose Being, through whose Person run all the levels of existence—seven realms above and seven realms below, from Patala to Brahmaloka. Having described this wondrous structure of creation through every level which one has to pass in the process of spiritual evolution, Sri Suka now turns his attention to the possibility of self-purification through the worship of the