Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Story 34 – Story of Vadha (killing) of Vritrasura - 5
Shuka spoke thus to Parikshit:
The greatest grace of the Lord is when he helps the seeker to get rid of the thirst for the purusharthaas of dharma, artha and kaama. This is the real grace of the Lord when he gives a person eternal bliss or Brahmanandam. The eternal bliss can be achieved only when the seeker is devoid of any thirsts for anything in the world. When a person doesn’t seek anything, then eternal bliss of the Self is easily achieved by him. It is only by doing lot of karma that a person attains dharma, artha and kaama. And that which is achieved through these is only limited and temporary – unable to give eternal bliss.
Indra had to take the bones of the sage and make a vajrayudha out of it. After making the vajrayudha, he had to fight with vritrasura and kill him. Even after doing all these tough actions, there will surely be no eternal bliss, contentment or satisfaction. But Brahmanandam is attained easily if a person realizes the reality that everything is the Lord alone and sees the Lord everywhere doing all actions with this reality in mind.
Vritrasura is fighting with Indra with this ultimate knowledge & he was ever happy irrespective of situations. See as to what he is speaking to Indra.
Explanation
Scriptures speak about four purusha arthas or the things that need to be achieved or aspired in life. These four are dharma or righteousness, artha or seeking sense objects, kaama or pleasure or enjoying possessions and moksha or liberation.
Dharma, artha and kaama are for temporarily fulfilling a person in the illusory world. These are all based on actions & different actions have to be performed in order for a person to gain these. Hence these are not permanent but temporary as they are something created and limited. These are just to make the seeker temporarily happy until he progresses and is fair ahead to grasp the reality propounded in the scriptures & thereby seek out moksha or the eternal bliss inherent in the Self.
Here Shuka says to Parikshit that it is only due to God’s grace that a person will not crave after the three purusharthas of dharma, artha and kaama – instead seeking the eternal purusha artha of Moksha or realization. We find most of the people craving for either sense object possession or enjoyment of these possessions – we find yet other people who stand out for dharma or righteousness as propounded in the scriptures – these are people who stick on to their so-called worldly duty of doing vedic rituals or social service. All these are actions and temporary. These can never give a person eternal bliss. Eternal bliss can be achieved only through moksha or realization of the ultimate reality of Lord who is all-pervasive and the only entity present here. It is but the grace of the Lord that a real seeker doesn’t crave for three purusharthas and seeks the final purushartha of moksha.
We generally have the opinion, as has been created by so-called traditionalists, that moksha is tough indeed to achieve and that moksha shouldn’t be achieved by all people. People living in the world (married etc.) are not supposed to seek moksha and instead they should seek out the other three purusharthas to look after their family etc. These all are completely wrong notions arising out of ignorance of the real teaching of the scriptures. The scriptures never proclaim limitations or restrictions for moksha. Since moksha is realization of one’s own very nature of Self, therefore it is the very right of each and every person. Thus there is no real adhikaari for moksha – everybody has to seek it if he wants eternal bliss. It is completely wrong thus to say that only sanyaasins should seek moksha – any person in the world has to seek the ultimate reality of Lord which is termed in Vedanta as moksha or realization.
Since we all have been brought up with the notion that moksha is not for all & that moksha is tough to achieve, we seek the other three temporary purusharthas which take us into a vicious circle of actions and reactions. Moksha is not tough at all as we imagine. It is tough indeed to gain things in the world through actions – thus the three purusharthas of dharma, artha and kaama are tough indeed to achieve whereas moksha is very easy to achieve. Moksha doesn’t have any restrictions or limitations like actions have (whom to perform, where to perform and when to perform etc.). The one and only criteria for moksha is constant remembrance of the reality that there is nothing here but the ultimate reality of Lord, one without a second. If a person constantly contemplates this reality & does all actions as an offering to the reality of Lord, then that is the sole sadhana for moksha. Within a short period, he will realize the reality of Lord thereby rejoicing in the eternal bliss inherent in the Self.
We find in this story that Indra did lot of actions for peace but finally ended up with nothing – he killed vritra but even after that was he happy and content??? Never as more and more problems were created (by other asuras). Instead we find that Vritra who surrendered completely unto the Lord & had gained the knowledge that everything is the Lord was ever happy and immersed in the ultimate reality of Lord. Thus Bhagavatham is pointing to each one of us to constantly seek the permanent purusha artha of moksha by constant contemplation of the ultimate reality of Lord thereby always remaining happy and content.
We will continue with the dialogue between Indra and Vritra in the next day.
Vritra thus spoke:
O Lord who is present everywhere, I don’t have desire for anything in the world keeping you aside. Other than you, I don’t want swarga or brahma loka or chakravarthi status or paataala loka. I don’t even want yogasiddhis or overcoming birth-death. O Lord! I have the desire to always see you and contemplate on you like small birds look into their mother, like a wife looking into the husband and a person very thirsty looking into milk.
O Lord, I want association with good people (satsanga) and I never want to be in the midst of people who crave of temporary worldly sensual pleasures.
Explanation
These are the various places where we should analyze and understand that there have been great asuras or demons who have reached the peaks of devotion & realized the ultimate reality of Lord. It is common notion among different philosophical systems (even systems of vedanta) that only a few have great devotion to the Lord & those few also are devas and never asuras. This is a completely wrong notion.
Also there are notions that a person who doesn’t seek the Lord will be hated by the Lord. This is completely against the scriptures. All scriptures do say that a person who doesn’t seek the ultimate reality of Lord will go to hell – but the hell what is meant here is not a place like Earth but it is just a place full of sufferings and sorrows. We can find hell and heaven even in Earth itself. Just by looking around ourselves, we can find heaven and hell. The various ashrams of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Mata Amritanandamayi, Chinmaya, Dayananda Saraswathi etc. are the places of heaven where there are no worldly pleasures or comforts but there is total peace & happiness in the minds of whoever is staying there. Any person if he goes to these ashrams can feel the peace emanating from the place. For eg: if a person goes to Ramana Ashram in Tiruvannamalai and sits in the meditation hall for few minutes, he can find his mind stilled & thereby getting peace and bliss.
On the other hand, there are places in the world where there is suffering alone. This suffering is not just physical but mental also. We find people in the west and east crying for one or the other thing. Rich people who have enough money for generations cry for lack of children or for their children fighting amongst each other even as the Ambaanis did. Compared to these rich people, the poor who get just one or two meals a day are happy and content. Go to a house and we find husbands, wives, parents, children everyone fighting with one another for some or the other reason. Go to an office & we can find the subordinate not happy with whatever he is getting in the company & hence putting forth the long-list of endless needs. The boss is not happy as the sub-ordinates are cribbing like anything and he has to be handle them – and that they are not heeding his commands.
Thus any place in the world, we find all the people suffering like anything. Take the case of very popular Fifa World Cup – was any team happy and content?? Maybe we can say that Italy are happy (as they are the winners) but for how long???? Maximum till the next world cup and we should remember that the team came amidst lot of book-fixing scandals at the league level. Brazil started off happily but ended with crying. France got a great run and finally ended up on the losing side – Zidane, considered the greatest and most composed start, couldn’t remain calm & hence was sent off the field on the finals.
This is where the world is – aren’t we able to see a HELL in all these.
All this analysis doesn’t mean that everybody is crying and noone is happy, but just to show that hell and heaven are in the world itself. It is in the mind of the seeker alone – if the seeker wishes, he will contemplate on the ultimate reality of Lord, remaining satisfied with whatever he has & ever blissful.
The Lord doesn’t hate anybody in the world because he is the very essence of all beings. Can a person hate himself???? Never!!! Thus it is all completely wrong to say that the Lord will condemn those who don’t accept him or those who don’t come to him. But it is a fact that those who refuse to realize this ultimate reality of Lord by seeking the Lord and not craving for sensual pleasures will be in the midst of sorrow and sufferings for births-deaths.
Krishna says in Gita thus:
Samoham sarva bhooteshu na me dveshyoasthi na priyah
Ye bhajanthi tu maam bhaktyaa mayi te teshu chaapi aham
I see all beings in the same way – I neither hate anybody nor am attached to anybody. The person who seeks me through real devotion is present in Me and I am present in Me.
The above statement doesn’t mean that the Lord is not present in those who condemn God but only that such a person doesn’t realize this reality – he thus is deluded into the illusory objects in the world which can give sorrow and sorrow alone.
We find in Vritrasura who is an asura, the characteristics of ultimate devotion mentioned in the scriptures. But in Indra we find a person who is after sensual and worldly pleasures.
What are the signs of a real devotee?
Narada describes paraa bhakthi thus:
Naradastu tad arpita akhila aachaaratha tad vismarane paramavyaakulathaa cha
Pure devotion is when a person offers everything unto the Lord constantly contemplating on him & if he forgets the Lord, he becomes sad.
A real devotee will never set aside the Lord and seek worldly pleasures. Worldly pleasures are of no real value to the devotee. The devotee just desires to constantly contemplate on the Lord – nothing else.
If a person has to constantly remember the Lord, he has to be in good company. Thus satsanga is very vital for an initial seeker – when a seeker in company of those who speak about the Lord, talk about the Lord, contemplate on the Lord – the same vibration follows & the seeker too is always remembering the Lord.
On the contrary, a seeker should avoid bad association as that will deviate the mind away from the Lord as well as make the seeker indulge and create cravings for the worldly pleasures.
Thus a seeker should always be in good company & avoid bad company.
We will see as to what happened to the war between Vritra and Indra next.
The greatest grace of the Lord is when he helps the seeker to get rid of the thirst for the purusharthaas of dharma, artha and kaama. This is the real grace of the Lord when he gives a person eternal bliss or Brahmanandam. The eternal bliss can be achieved only when the seeker is devoid of any thirsts for anything in the world. When a person doesn’t seek anything, then eternal bliss of the Self is easily achieved by him. It is only by doing lot of karma that a person attains dharma, artha and kaama. And that which is achieved through these is only limited and temporary – unable to give eternal bliss.
Indra had to take the bones of the sage and make a vajrayudha out of it. After making the vajrayudha, he had to fight with vritrasura and kill him. Even after doing all these tough actions, there will surely be no eternal bliss, contentment or satisfaction. But Brahmanandam is attained easily if a person realizes the reality that everything is the Lord alone and sees the Lord everywhere doing all actions with this reality in mind.
Vritrasura is fighting with Indra with this ultimate knowledge & he was ever happy irrespective of situations. See as to what he is speaking to Indra.
Explanation
Scriptures speak about four purusha arthas or the things that need to be achieved or aspired in life. These four are dharma or righteousness, artha or seeking sense objects, kaama or pleasure or enjoying possessions and moksha or liberation.
Dharma, artha and kaama are for temporarily fulfilling a person in the illusory world. These are all based on actions & different actions have to be performed in order for a person to gain these. Hence these are not permanent but temporary as they are something created and limited. These are just to make the seeker temporarily happy until he progresses and is fair ahead to grasp the reality propounded in the scriptures & thereby seek out moksha or the eternal bliss inherent in the Self.
Here Shuka says to Parikshit that it is only due to God’s grace that a person will not crave after the three purusharthas of dharma, artha and kaama – instead seeking the eternal purusha artha of Moksha or realization. We find most of the people craving for either sense object possession or enjoyment of these possessions – we find yet other people who stand out for dharma or righteousness as propounded in the scriptures – these are people who stick on to their so-called worldly duty of doing vedic rituals or social service. All these are actions and temporary. These can never give a person eternal bliss. Eternal bliss can be achieved only through moksha or realization of the ultimate reality of Lord who is all-pervasive and the only entity present here. It is but the grace of the Lord that a real seeker doesn’t crave for three purusharthas and seeks the final purushartha of moksha.
We generally have the opinion, as has been created by so-called traditionalists, that moksha is tough indeed to achieve and that moksha shouldn’t be achieved by all people. People living in the world (married etc.) are not supposed to seek moksha and instead they should seek out the other three purusharthas to look after their family etc. These all are completely wrong notions arising out of ignorance of the real teaching of the scriptures. The scriptures never proclaim limitations or restrictions for moksha. Since moksha is realization of one’s own very nature of Self, therefore it is the very right of each and every person. Thus there is no real adhikaari for moksha – everybody has to seek it if he wants eternal bliss. It is completely wrong thus to say that only sanyaasins should seek moksha – any person in the world has to seek the ultimate reality of Lord which is termed in Vedanta as moksha or realization.
Since we all have been brought up with the notion that moksha is not for all & that moksha is tough to achieve, we seek the other three temporary purusharthas which take us into a vicious circle of actions and reactions. Moksha is not tough at all as we imagine. It is tough indeed to gain things in the world through actions – thus the three purusharthas of dharma, artha and kaama are tough indeed to achieve whereas moksha is very easy to achieve. Moksha doesn’t have any restrictions or limitations like actions have (whom to perform, where to perform and when to perform etc.). The one and only criteria for moksha is constant remembrance of the reality that there is nothing here but the ultimate reality of Lord, one without a second. If a person constantly contemplates this reality & does all actions as an offering to the reality of Lord, then that is the sole sadhana for moksha. Within a short period, he will realize the reality of Lord thereby rejoicing in the eternal bliss inherent in the Self.
We find in this story that Indra did lot of actions for peace but finally ended up with nothing – he killed vritra but even after that was he happy and content??? Never as more and more problems were created (by other asuras). Instead we find that Vritra who surrendered completely unto the Lord & had gained the knowledge that everything is the Lord was ever happy and immersed in the ultimate reality of Lord. Thus Bhagavatham is pointing to each one of us to constantly seek the permanent purusha artha of moksha by constant contemplation of the ultimate reality of Lord thereby always remaining happy and content.
We will continue with the dialogue between Indra and Vritra in the next day.
Vritra thus spoke:
O Lord who is present everywhere, I don’t have desire for anything in the world keeping you aside. Other than you, I don’t want swarga or brahma loka or chakravarthi status or paataala loka. I don’t even want yogasiddhis or overcoming birth-death. O Lord! I have the desire to always see you and contemplate on you like small birds look into their mother, like a wife looking into the husband and a person very thirsty looking into milk.
O Lord, I want association with good people (satsanga) and I never want to be in the midst of people who crave of temporary worldly sensual pleasures.
Explanation
These are the various places where we should analyze and understand that there have been great asuras or demons who have reached the peaks of devotion & realized the ultimate reality of Lord. It is common notion among different philosophical systems (even systems of vedanta) that only a few have great devotion to the Lord & those few also are devas and never asuras. This is a completely wrong notion.
Also there are notions that a person who doesn’t seek the Lord will be hated by the Lord. This is completely against the scriptures. All scriptures do say that a person who doesn’t seek the ultimate reality of Lord will go to hell – but the hell what is meant here is not a place like Earth but it is just a place full of sufferings and sorrows. We can find hell and heaven even in Earth itself. Just by looking around ourselves, we can find heaven and hell. The various ashrams of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Mata Amritanandamayi, Chinmaya, Dayananda Saraswathi etc. are the places of heaven where there are no worldly pleasures or comforts but there is total peace & happiness in the minds of whoever is staying there. Any person if he goes to these ashrams can feel the peace emanating from the place. For eg: if a person goes to Ramana Ashram in Tiruvannamalai and sits in the meditation hall for few minutes, he can find his mind stilled & thereby getting peace and bliss.
On the other hand, there are places in the world where there is suffering alone. This suffering is not just physical but mental also. We find people in the west and east crying for one or the other thing. Rich people who have enough money for generations cry for lack of children or for their children fighting amongst each other even as the Ambaanis did. Compared to these rich people, the poor who get just one or two meals a day are happy and content. Go to a house and we find husbands, wives, parents, children everyone fighting with one another for some or the other reason. Go to an office & we can find the subordinate not happy with whatever he is getting in the company & hence putting forth the long-list of endless needs. The boss is not happy as the sub-ordinates are cribbing like anything and he has to be handle them – and that they are not heeding his commands.
Thus any place in the world, we find all the people suffering like anything. Take the case of very popular Fifa World Cup – was any team happy and content?? Maybe we can say that Italy are happy (as they are the winners) but for how long???? Maximum till the next world cup and we should remember that the team came amidst lot of book-fixing scandals at the league level. Brazil started off happily but ended with crying. France got a great run and finally ended up on the losing side – Zidane, considered the greatest and most composed start, couldn’t remain calm & hence was sent off the field on the finals.
This is where the world is – aren’t we able to see a HELL in all these.
All this analysis doesn’t mean that everybody is crying and noone is happy, but just to show that hell and heaven are in the world itself. It is in the mind of the seeker alone – if the seeker wishes, he will contemplate on the ultimate reality of Lord, remaining satisfied with whatever he has & ever blissful.
The Lord doesn’t hate anybody in the world because he is the very essence of all beings. Can a person hate himself???? Never!!! Thus it is all completely wrong to say that the Lord will condemn those who don’t accept him or those who don’t come to him. But it is a fact that those who refuse to realize this ultimate reality of Lord by seeking the Lord and not craving for sensual pleasures will be in the midst of sorrow and sufferings for births-deaths.
Krishna says in Gita thus:
Samoham sarva bhooteshu na me dveshyoasthi na priyah
Ye bhajanthi tu maam bhaktyaa mayi te teshu chaapi aham
I see all beings in the same way – I neither hate anybody nor am attached to anybody. The person who seeks me through real devotion is present in Me and I am present in Me.
The above statement doesn’t mean that the Lord is not present in those who condemn God but only that such a person doesn’t realize this reality – he thus is deluded into the illusory objects in the world which can give sorrow and sorrow alone.
We find in Vritrasura who is an asura, the characteristics of ultimate devotion mentioned in the scriptures. But in Indra we find a person who is after sensual and worldly pleasures.
What are the signs of a real devotee?
Narada describes paraa bhakthi thus:
Naradastu tad arpita akhila aachaaratha tad vismarane paramavyaakulathaa cha
Pure devotion is when a person offers everything unto the Lord constantly contemplating on him & if he forgets the Lord, he becomes sad.
A real devotee will never set aside the Lord and seek worldly pleasures. Worldly pleasures are of no real value to the devotee. The devotee just desires to constantly contemplate on the Lord – nothing else.
If a person has to constantly remember the Lord, he has to be in good company. Thus satsanga is very vital for an initial seeker – when a seeker in company of those who speak about the Lord, talk about the Lord, contemplate on the Lord – the same vibration follows & the seeker too is always remembering the Lord.
On the contrary, a seeker should avoid bad association as that will deviate the mind away from the Lord as well as make the seeker indulge and create cravings for the worldly pleasures.
Thus a seeker should always be in good company & avoid bad company.
We will see as to what happened to the war between Vritra and Indra next.
# posted by vedanta : 4:42 AM
