Sunday, November 25, 2007

Story 47 – Story of Destroying Indra’s pride – 15

The Lord concluded his words to Indra thus:

I punish those people who get forget me distracted into the possessions given to them by me. I alienate them to an extent from their possessions and bless them. Indra, go and do activities without forgetting me.

Explanation


The Lord in Bhagavad Gita has summarized in many places as to the simplest and straight way to realize one’s own nature of Lord. One of the sloka that summarizes it beautifully is below:

Yat karoshi yad ashnaasi yad juhosi dadaasi yat
Yat tapasyasi kaunteya tad kurushva madarpanam

Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer to homa kunda, whatever you give to others and whatever austerities you do, do it by offering it unto me.

It is the same essence that the Lord gives to Arjuna as the last words. What we have to do in the world in order to realize the ultimate reality of Lord is just remembering the Lord at all times and offering all actions unto the Lord. The moment we remember the Lord as the non-dual reality behind the illusory world, we will be rid of the various emotions of the mind like desire, anger, pride etc. A person who is devoid of the emotions of the mind is devoid of likes and dislikes in the world. This is because such a person sees everything as mere illusion of names and forms in the reality of Lord; for him the Lord alone exists. A person who is without likes and dislikes thereby is not affected by the passions of the mind. When a person is not affected by the passions of the mind, he will not get deluded into the dualities of the world. It is dual notions of the world like happiness and sorrow which cause a person to suffer terribly in the world. The moment a seeker gets attached to something in the world, he will be affected by the state of the thing. Thus he will be whirled between happiness and sorrow depending on the state of the thing. Since the entire world is constantly changing, the thing will finally end up in destruction or completely negation. During that time, the seeker will thereby be in total distress and sad over the loss of the thing. As a result of deep attachment and constant brooding over the thing, the seeker will have to take birth again and again in order to satisfy the desire with the thing. This is just for a particular thing in the world. If the seeker has more things and people with whom he is attached to, those all will lead to many more births. The same applies for things to which he has aversion (dislike). Thus likes and dislikes makes a seeker take birth again and again in the ocean of samsaara. Samsaara can give nothing but sorrow and sufferings alone for a seeker as it is temporary and unreal. Therefore the Lord says that we should always remember him as the non-dual reality behind names and forms. Thus whatever a seeker is seeing, whatever a seeker is hearing, whatever a seeker is doing should be with the knowledge that the world is but an illusion in the reality of Lord and that the Lord alone exists here. Thus mere contemplation of the Lord along with offering of all actions unto the Lord will lead a seeker from the state of suffering to the state of bliss wherein he will be ever rejoicing in blissful nature of the Lord. This is the one and only sadhana that a seeker has to do in order to achieve bliss. All other sadhanas like japa, dhyaana etc. are meant to lead us to this sadhana of ever remembering the Lord whatever be the activity that we are doing.

We will see the conclusion of this story in the next day.

Let us all try to always remember the Lord as the reality behind the illusory world thereby offering all actions unto the Lord in order to rejoice in blissful Lord.

Conclusion

Thereby Indra after prostrating the Lord returned back. Before returning back, Indra along with all devas and various rishis like Narada worshipped and praised the Lord by terming him as “gokula pathi” or “Lord of Gokula”.


Various stories like Works of Bala Krishna, Indra darpa harana etc. establish the illusory nature of the entire world in the ultimate reality of non-dual Consciousness Lord. Mind and the objects of the world are beyond all logic and thereby are mere illusions in the reality of Lord. A person who is enquiring about them from outside will never be able to find out the why, how, what etc. of them. For a person who goes introverted into his own nature of Lord, it will be proved through sruthi-yukthi-anubhava that there is nothing but the non-dual Lord alone exists here. Any person who doesn’t apprehend this truth yet becomes egoistic will have to suffer in the world even if he is Indra or Chandra or any other great person. This is an undeniable and unchanging truth.

Explanation


We have finally come to the conclusion of this story of destroying Indra’s pride wherein we have learnt a lot about spiritual practices and the goal to be achieved by a person in the world. Bhagavatham is here concluding with a beautiful summarization of the goal and as to what a seeker has to do in order to realize that goal.

The truth is that whatever we see as the dual world is only an illusion of names and forms in the reality of Lord. As long as we don’t apprehend the substratum of Lord and go behind illusory names-forms, we will never be able to find out the Lord. Most of us get afraid when it comes to hearing the term “realization” and run away from it thanks to the wrong knowledge imparted by elders. The knowledge thus that we have regarding realization is that it is something that only fools and crazy people go after – it is something that a person should seek after his hair has either died or become white, his teeth have fallen off, his body is numb and his mind no longer can stick on to anything. The so-called knowledgeable elders forget to consider as to how a person who is so old that he cannot read or even think will be able to learn the subtle logical concepts of scriptures and thereby contemplate on the same in his mind. As a result of the wrong knowledge passed down from generations to generations, not only that we are ignorant but we pass on the ignorance to our children as well. Thus the current-day people either run away from REALIZATION/SPIRITUALITY or just think they are for lunatics alone.

REALIZATION is nothing but eternal bliss. It is that state wherein a person is ever blissful and not even a tinge of sorrow touches him. We tend to forget that this very same bliss is what is the ultimate goal of all beings. Everyone irrespective of caste, creed, money, power etc. are seeking eternal bliss alone. The only problem is that we are searching for it in the illusory world. Even as the water seen in desert cannot give us anything but sorrow, similarly the illusory world can give us nothing but sorrow alone. Thus a person who earnestly desires bliss should seek realization of the ultimate reality of Lord. When thus he starts in the spiritual quest for bliss, he will slowly find out that bliss is not separate from him – bliss is his very nature of Conscious Lord. It is the ignorance of the fact that “I am the Lord” that causes a person to consider himself as the body-mind-intellect thereby getting attached/associated with people/things in the world thus finally considering the world as real. As long as we don’t come out of this ignorance that the world is real and will give us bliss, even though we may follow Vishnu or Siva or Sri Ramakrishna or AMMA we will not get bliss. There is one and only one way to get bliss – and that is through realization following the scriptural path of constant contemplation of the Lord. It is this very path that each Mahatma and Avataara propounds (though initially it might seem that each one is propounding their own path yet whatever these Mahatmas propound are means to purify the mind thereby making it easier to always contemplate on the Lord). If we tend to ignore constant contemplation by getting deluded into the world or deluded into the powers of Mahatmas, then we will become egoistic and will not get bliss. Finally some day or the other the Lord will ensure that we are punished to the max in order to get back in the spiritual path. It is this punishment that we all experience in the form of disease, sorrow, poverty etc. but most of us just ignore it seeking more and more happiness from the world. Indra was a real devotee of the Lord who had somehow forgotten the Lord for sometime and hence the Lord didn’t punish him too severely. We might not face the same situation if we aren’t or were not devotees of the Lord.

Hence it is of utmost importance that we seek the Lord as early as possible so that we don’t suffer any longer but ever rejoice in bliss.

We will see a summary of this story in the next day before starting another beautiful story of Srimad Bhagavatham.

Let us all try to realize the Lord this very moment by constantly contemplating on the Lord so that we don’t end up getting punished like Indra and so that we may ever rejoice in bliss untainted by sorrow.

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