Srimad Bhagavatham

On the way the Lord entered the house of peak bhaktha Sudhaama and blessed him. Seeing the Lord the woman was crooked in her body embraced the Lord and the Lord blessed her by getting rid of her crooked-ness.

Explanation

We find here the Lord’s grace being showered on anyone who is interested in receiving it. Though we have discussed this many times, yet it is worth to discuss this aspect again and again until our mind is able to completely focus on the ultimate reality of Lord all the time. Repetition is an essential part of learning process – repetition should go on until the mind is able to remember without any effort. Thus discussing about the compassion of the Lord is very important so that we may be able to apprehend the compassion of the Lord thereby realizing our nature of non-dual Lord in this very birth itself.

The Lord’s grace and compassion are always present. These are like the rays of the Sun which is always available. But if we sit inside our house closing all windows and doors, we will not be able to apprehend the ever present grace of the Lord. The only thing we need to do in order to apprehend the grace of the Lord is open our hearts even as opening the doors/windows of our house will make us apprehend the ever present rays of the sun. This is an analogy that AMMA mentions a lot of time. We may also think that the Lord who has created this illusory world as a play is sadistic as there is sorrow and suffering only everywhere in the world. But this is completely wrong. AMMA says that the world created by the Lord is his play which means it will be filled with bliss even as the play created by any director will be filled with bliss (he will never be sadistic in nature). This is also corroborated by the words of Mahatmas like Ramana Maharshi and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa who see the world pervaded by Ishwara to be blissful in nature.

When followers of Gandhi visited Ramana Maharshi to get his blessings, they asked him as to why he is not helping the suffering people of the world to which Maharshi replied saying that he didn’t see suffering at all – he could see only bliss everywhere and hence he couldn’t help anyone.

This clearly shows that Ishwara’s creation doesn’t have sorrows. Now the question comes as to how sorrow came? Sorrow is only our creation – creation of our mind. We go to the Himalayas and see the beautiful ganges. We get bliss out of the ganges. But the very next moment we try to compare the ganges with a river in our hometown – this is when the bliss of the ganges vanishes. It is not the ganges that gives sorrow but it is our comparison or our impression of ganges that leads to trouble. We see a co-worker coming in the opposite direction when we are going for a walk. Immediately we qualify the co-worker by “bad guy, blaming person, making others do work” etc. Thus the co-worker and his very presence lead us to sorrow. If we analyze here it is not the co-worker who is causing the sorrow but our impression or perception of the co-worker that causes the problems for us.

It is following this that Vidyaranya concludes in Panchadashi that
“ato asya sarvasya bandhakrit maanasam jagat”
Therefore the bondage for everyone is the mental world.

Here “mental world” means the impression of the external world that we create in our mind. The “Ishwara’s world” is blissful whereas our interpretation which is “mental world” causes the troubles. If the “mental world” is same as “Ishwara’s world”, then we will be able to find only bliss everywhere as Ishwara is pervading the entire world.

Thus the way to apprehend the ever present grace and blissful presence of the Lord is by getting rid of our “mental world” and perceiving everything as pervaded by Ishwara. This means we completely surrender to the Lord by perceiving him everywhere. This will thereby remove all sorrows created out of the “mental world” and make us live life blissfully. Moreover we will also be able to apprehend the grace of the Lord whenever we direly need it.

We will continue with the story the next day.

Let us all try to surrender completely to the Lord by perceiving him everywhere so that we will be able to apprehend the ever-present grace and compassion of the Lord thereby taking us in the spiritual path towards realization of the ultimate reality of Lord in this very birth itself.

Rama-Krishna finally reached the place where Dhanuryaaga was to be conducted. A big bow was kept to be worshipped and which shone like rainbow. Krishna very easily took the bow and broke it like breaking a sugarcane thereby making sound vibrate in all directions.

Explanation

Here we again find the destructing as well as illusory power of the Lord which is termed Maya. This power of Maya is so strange and wonderful. The more and more we try to learn about this power, the lesser we will be able to understand it.

Sankara defines Maya aptly as
“aghatitha ghatanaa pateeyasee maayaa”
Maya is that which creates things impossible.

“Yukthi viheena prakaashasya samjnaa maayaa”
That which is beyond logic is called Maya.

All these definitions should let us remember that Maya is only an illusory power of the Lord even as the magical power of the magician. Even as the magician’s power is not real but might seem to be extra-ordinary and out-of-bounds, similarly Maya power which is controlled by the Lord is also not real but might seem to be extra-ordinary.

All these miraculous feats of the Lord who is just a young boy is to make us realize the bounds of this illusory power of Maya. Maya power not only does miraculous feats but it also is the cause of deluding people. All miracles of the Lord are meant to show that the Lord controls Maya unlike us who are controlled by Maya. If we have to get out of the delusion of samsaara, we will have to overcome Maya. This is easily possible if we surrender to the ultimate reality of Lord as the Lord controls Maya.

The Lord himself summarizes this beautifully in the 7th chapter of Gita thus:

Daivi hi eshaa gunamayee mama maayaa duratyayaa
Maameva ye prapadhyanthe mayaam ethaam tharanthi te

My divine power of Maya which is composed of three gunas is very tough indeed to conquer; but those who take refuge completely in me, they overcome this.

It is only Maya that stands between us and realization – us and the ultimate reality of Lord – us and eternal bliss. If we have to realize our own nature of blissful Lord, then we need to overcome Maya. The way to do this is only by complete surrender unto the Lord remembering always that everything is only an illusion of names-forms in the Lord and that the Lord alone exists here as non-dual reality of Consciousness.

Though we use the term of “we” there is in reality no “we” in moksha – AMMA always says that moksha is for an individual and not for a group of people. This is because the duality completely vanishes when a person realizes. Thus when “I” realize, there is none other than the Lord (who is my own nature of Consciousness); therefore who else to get liberated or get realized?

The main aim of the Lord displaying the power of Maya is to make us surrender unto him after understanding that we can conquer Maya only this way. This is not the only reason for the Lord’s action as we will see in the next day.

Let us all try to surrender completely unto the Lord after hearing the miraculous feats performed by him who is controlling Maya so that we may conquer the illusory (unreal) power of Maya and realize our own nature of blissful Lord.