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

Chapter-3: Kapila’s Instructions to Devahuti - 33. However, briefly speaking, this churning of the ocean both by the Devas and the Asuras—the divine forces and the evil forces in us, both the positive and negative—find not the nectar. At least fourteen gems come up one after the other, each greater than the previous, so that in the attraction for these wonderful gems we may completely forget the very purpose of our churning. As I mentioned, the higher forces are more beautiful, more attractive than the lower ones, and these are actually the gems coming up. Fourteen obstacles from the fourteen levels of creation will come. Both forces want to drink the nectar that finally emerges, and so there is a war going on between the positive and negative forces in our own selves. Until the end of time, we will find there is opposition between cosmic positivity and cosmic negativity. The grace of God is described here in the form of the descent of Mahavishnu in a form which fed the aspira...

Chapter-3: Kapila’s Instructions to Devahuti - 32. This dual feeling which the gods and the demons had when they churned the ocean is actually the churning of life itself; that itself the ocean. Our whole life is like a sea before us whose essence has to be extracted by the churning rod of our own mind in concentration. Within us are the gods as well as the demons—the Jekyll and Hyde, as they are called. They join together and want to have the best of things in the world; they churn life. The opposition from nature is the reason why there is a feeling of discomfiture in the beginning. A poisonous gas comes, as it were, which is all opposition from every source. There is body ache, mental ache, dissatisfaction, a feeling of distress in everything, and finally collapsing because of the power nature has, with which we have not properly acclimatised ourselves during our life in the world. We have not only to be friendly with human beings, but we also have to be friendly with nat...

Chapter-3: Kapila’s Instructions to Devahuti - 31. At the beginning of the attempt of spiritual practice, the sense organs feel a deficiency and an incapacity of an incomparable nature. There is a dark cloud hanging in front of us, and light will not be there in the earlier stages. The reason for the darkness in front of us—the opposition of ugliness and terror at the very outset—is due to a reaction set up by the dissatisfied senses which have not been given their fill by the objects of sense. The poison, therefore, is created by a circumstance of repulsion between the sense organs and the actual things which exist in the world. That repulsion has to gradually cease by facing it completely. We have to face that condition. Our attempt at spiritual practice is not a smooth movement as if on a paved road. There is opposition from the world. In the beginning, it will be opposition from human beings only. Afterwards, nature itself will oppose. That is the second stage of o...

Chapter-3: Kapila’s Instructions to Devahuti - 30. There are obstacles which we cannot imagine in our life. I mentioned that there are levels of creation—Bhuloka, Bhuvarloka, Svarloka, Maharloka, Janaloka, Tapoloka, Satyaloka—and while we pass through all these levels of creation, we have also to encounter the citizens of these various levels. We have to make friendship with them. The higher we go, the greater is the beauty that we see. The Earth has only crude beauty and a crude capacity to satisfy, whereas in the other levels there is subtle power everywhere; and as we move higher and higher, we will find the capacity to satisfy ourselves becomes more and more. The sense organs, which glut in the beauties of the world, will be engulfed by another beauty which they cannot contain, and the eyes may not be able to fully comprehend the grandeur of satisfaction that is available in the higher worlds. These are described to us in great detail in an allegorical fashion as the Am...