Srimad Bhagavatham

Srimad Bhagavatham - A Spiritual Insight - Story 26 – Kapila Upadesha – 4

Kapila Muni continued:

A man who practices these spiritual disciplines (which were mentioned in the previous postings), making the attainment of God-love as the sole object of his life, will gain absolute purity of mind as a result of which he will have the capacity to constantly remember Me with delight and to be absorbed in Me.

As the fragrance carried by the wind swiftly reaches the organ of smell, so the mind freed from worldliness by the disciplines of devotion, learns to go effortlessly to the Supreme Being.

I abide in all beings as the innermost Self (essence of all beings). Disregarding the presence within them, men make a show of worshipping Me through images.

If one disregards Me present in all as their soul but ignorantly offers worship only to images, such worship is as ineffective as sacrificial offerings made in ashes.

A man who persecutes Me residing in others, who is proud and haughty, who looks upon God as the other – such a person will never attain to peace of mind.

If a person disregards and persecutes fellow beings, but worships Me in images with innumerous rituals and rich offerings, I am not at all pleased with him for offering such worship.

A man should, however, worship Me in images, side by side with discharging his duties, which include the love of all beings, until he actually realizes My presence in himself and all beings.

By overwhelming the separativeness of a self-centred life, one should serve all beings with gifts, honour and love, recognizing that such service is really being rendered to Me who resides in all beings as their innermost soul.

Explanation
Kapila Muni with a beautiful example tells how a person who is following the various spiritual disciplines is able to realize the ultimate reality of Lord. Fragrance or smell automatically is carried by air to the organ of smell or nose. This doesn’t require any external effort except for the medium of air. Similarly when the mind is purified of all impurities like greed, anger, lust, desire etc, that very moment itself the mind merges into the ultimate reality of Lord. Such a mind is easily able to contemplate on the reality of Lord because it is devoid of thoughts. When the mind completely gets destroyed and the thought of Lord alone remains – that state is called realization. The Self is already realized but one’s realized nature is known only when thoughts vanish and all attention is directed towards the reality of Self or Lord. Thus for the devotee, there is no other thought than the Lord.

This is very well brought out by Ezhutachhan (a Malayalam poet) in his work “Harinaama keerthanam” –

Yathonnu kaankilathu naaraayana prathima
Yathonnu kelkilathu naaraayana sruthikal
Yathonnu cheykilathu naaraayana archanakal
Yathonnathaakilathu naaraayanaaya nama

Whatever is being seen that is the form of the ultimate reality of Narayana (Lord or Brahman is termed in puranas and Upanishads as Narayana).
Whatever is being heard that is glories of Narayana.
Whatever is being done (actions) that are offerings of worship to Narayana.
Whatever is there is Narayana alone.

This import is found in the Sandhya vandana sloka which we all know very well
Kaayena vaacha manasaindriyair va budhyaatmana va prakriteh svabhaavaath
Karomi yad yad sakalam parasmai naaraayanaayethi samarpayaami

Whatever is being done through the sense organs of perception, action, words, mind, intellect & due to impulse – all these I offer to Narayana.

As Sankara proclaims in Siva Maanasa pooja
Yad yad karma karomi tad tad akhilam shambho tava aaraadhanam

Whatever actions I do O Lord (Shambu means Siva or the auspicious being of Self or Lord)!, those are all offerings to you and worship to you.

Thus when the devotee is fully free of impurities of the mind through spiritual disciplines, then his mind always remains established in the ultimate reality of Lord. Thus he merges into the reality of Lord & there remains nothing but Lord alone – of the nature of eternal bliss.

After explaining the various disciplines and pointing out how these disciplines lead to realization of the ultimate reality of Lord, Lord Kapila now discusses idol worship and the real worship of Lord in the heart of all beings.

The ultimate reality of Lord is formless. Lord cannot have any form as form will make the Lord limited by space. Such a Lord will become finite & will be subject to changes and death. This is not logical or tenable & hence the ultimate reality of Lord has to be formless and infinite (all-pervasive nature). But it is impossible for a seeker who is more at the level of seeing forms to imagine a formless God. It is impossible for most of the people to just imagine the Lord as being present everywhere without any form. Therefore for initial seekers, various forms have been put forth by the scriptures themselves. There are 33 crore devi-devatas mentioned in the scriptures. Depending on one’s level and one’s nature, a seeker can choose any of these form-Gods to get concentration and meditate on the reality. But the seeker should not forget the reality that any form is subject to death whether it be the form of Lord Krishna, Lord Siva or Lord Vishnu! If he forgets it and clings to the same form, then he will not progress further towards the ultimate reality but instead will be stuck at the form level itself. That very form which was supposed to make the seeker progress in the path of spirituality will in turn obstruct the path towards the ultimate reality of Lord.

Therefore Kapila Muni says clearly that a seeker should worship the Lord in the form of various idols but should not forget the reality that Lord has no forms & that the various beings in the world are the Lord alone. The Lord who is of the nature of Consciousness is the essence of the various beings in the world. This reality has to be remembered while praying the Lord through idol-worship.

One easy way of remembering this reality is to worship the Lord as present in all beings. This is what Swami Vivekananda and many other Mahatmas say as SOCIAL SERVICE or SERVICE TO HUMANITY. Service is possible only when it is known that everything is the Lord alone who is the most desired object in the world.

If a seeker worships the Lord in Tirupathi or Rameswaram and curses other human beings, then the Lord himself doesn’t like or appreciate such a devotee (Jnot my words but the Lord himself says this is Kapila Upadesha). He is a real devotee who worships the Lord in all beings (it is not wrong to worship the Lord in a form or in an idol but it is wrong to do so forgetting the ultimate reality of all-pervasive Lord and not caring about other human beings who are in essence the Lord only).

A devotee who worships the Lord as residing in all beings goes beyond the dual perception of the world & thereby realizes the non-dual ultimate reality of Brahman or God of the nature of Existence, Consciousness and Bliss absolute.

Kapila Muni continued:

A man who lives his life entirely for the pleasure of his body and for the support of his family is wrenched away from both and subjected to the sufferings of purgatory.

The body which a man has nourished by exploiting and inflicting cruelty on other creatures, he will have to abandon here and go alone to hell with the wages of his sins as his sole asset.

Just as a man who has been deprived of all his belongings is dazed and resigns himself to his fate without doing anything to save himself, the confirmed sinner does nothing to redress the baneful effects of his sins, and fatalistically succumbs to the sufferings that are in store for him.

The ignorant man is firmly established in the false sense of identification with the physical body and growing intensely attached to it, comes to think of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ in physical terms.

The body itself is the cause of misery, yet to support it men perform still more actions & thus compound their involvement in this cycle of birth and death.

Explanation

Here Lord Kapila is explaining the concept of rebirth (cycles of birth and death) and also clearly mentions the cause of misery in the world.

Man always thinks he is the physical form. Thus he is always attached to the physical form. If something happens to the physical form, he gets affected by it – even if it is a small headache or fever. But the reality is that “I” am not the physical body because body comes and goes whereas I am ever-present. Body is not present in deep sleep whereas I am present in deep sleep. There are many other Vaidika reasons for proving that “I am not the body” but those might be intellectual and hence we will not delve into them.

The body is composed of parts. Whenever we refer to the body, we refer it as “my body”. This itself clearly shows that “I” am different from the body since body is MINE or my possessions. The possessions are always different from the possessor. Hence it is very clear that the body is not the Self or “I”.

It is ignorance of one’s own real nature of Consciousness or “I” which causes a person to think that he is the body. This is what Sankara and Vedanta calls as Adhyaasa or superimposition. The not-Self objects are superimposed on the Self & thereby starts all problems in the world. The main problem in the world is caused due to body alone. We spend hours and hours in nourishing this body which is temporary and will surely vanish one day. But still people spend money like water to preserve it – as though it is something very divine and attractive. Sureshwaracharya beautifully says in Naishkarmya Siddhi that “the body which you consider as yours will become an object of attraction for wolves which will be fighting amongst themselves for its ownership”!!!

First of all, a person needs to realize that he is not the body – then alone can he go beyond the body & realize his own very nature of Consciousness or Self or God. Once a person knows that he is not the body, the high importance given to the body vanishes. When the importance given to the body is reduced, he doesn’t crave much to keep it in good shape. He just gives the bare needs for the body – whatever minimum is required to keep it healthy or fine. This is where Vedanta clearly differs with the jain system who consider the body as not useful and thereby put it under stress and lot of troubles. Vedanta never tells a seeker to completely ignore his body. It only asks the seeker to not give it more importance than is required – body is to be given due credit alone & not more than what it deserves.

Now a seeker might ask: “how much importance is to be given for the body” – various Mahatmas have given the answer to this question. The body needs to be given the bare necessity regarding food, clothing and shelter. The minimum food which can make the body sustain is only to be given. The body can be sustained by eating just two chappathis or it can take in two nans or delicious foods. Food is delicious only until it passes the mouth. Once it passes the mouth, food is the same alone. It is the tongue which categorizes food into tasty and untasty. Even this taste is an enemy to the seeker as it makes the seeker attached to tasty food. Thus giving minimum food which can sustain the body is what a seeker should do. Similarly clothing to protect oneself from wind, water etc. as well as according to the norms of the society is enough for a seeker. For shelter, there are rarely any person who doesn’t have a roof above his head while sleeping at night.

Thus when a person gives the minimum needs alone for the body, he is not attached to the body. Since he is not attached to the body, the sense of identification with the body is not there. Since there is no identification, it is easy for the seeker to go beyond the body to realize his own very nature of Consciousness or Self.

Another main reason why body should not be given much importance is because it is the cause of all miseries in the world. If we analyze all the sorrows and sufferings in the world, it will be due to identification with the body. When a person punches this body titled “Hariram”, the individual is affected by it as he sees the body as himself. And thus starts either physical fight or mental enmity towards the other person. This mental enmity then goes on to build a bad impression and creates bad thoughts in the mind. Thereby the individual titled “Hariram” will do harm to the other person so that he can get even with the other person.

This kind of attitude is very bad for the seeker as any bad done to other beings (whether it be humans or animals or birds) will become hindrance to the path of spirituality. This is because as Kapila muni has already explained previously that “Lord should be worshipped as the Self of all beings” when a person inflicts wound on another, it is inflicting wound on the Lord and the Self – thereby the Self is again veiled by ignorance & thereby the seeker doesn’t realize his own very nature of Self or Consciousness.

When a person considers himself as the body, he is born again and again in the ocean of samsaara. It should be noted here that there is no coming and going for the Self but the Self when veiled by ignorance and under delusion of the identification with the body thinks that it comes and goes (as bodies come and go for such a person who is therefore bound by the physical body).

Here Lord Kapila mentions all these to show that identification with the body should be removed and attachment to the body should also be got rid off if a seeker wishes to realize the ultimate reality of Consciousness or Self.

The way out of this identification and the cycle of birth-death is realization of one’s own real nature of Lord – this is realized through constant contemplation of the ultimate reality of Lord of which various disciplines starting with Satsanga and others were mentioned in the previous postings. Satsanga or association with Mahatmas or spiritual people is one of the best way to realize the ultimate reality of Lord as such association automatically brings the thought of Lord in the mind of the seeker.