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

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 pa...

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...