Srimad Bhagavatham

Baana asked requested the Lord to be his grihapaalaka (protector of his house). The devotee-servant Lord fulfilled Baana’s wish and thereby started living as his house-protector.

Explanation

We will find in the next day as to how some boons can lead to our own downfall. Instead of asking for worldly boons including the form of the Lord, a real seeker will be asking for contemplation of the ultimate reality of Lord (commonly known as liberation) which alone can give a person eternal bliss. All other boons will be wasted within no time – mostly boons will cause only more sorrow for us though initially we might not realize this. Sensual pleasures (even the pleasure of seeing the form of the Lord at all times) are like nectar in the beginning but later they turn into poison and completely destroy us. A seeker will see the entire world as being pervaded by the ultimate reality of Lord – each form is but an illusion in the formless Lord – thus how can such a seeker differentiate between one form and another? He can only perceive the Lord everywhere.

This vision of oneness makes a person go beyond dual notions of the mind like happiness-sorrow etc. All dual notions are based on likes and dislikes. Likes and dislikes are based on duality – if a person sees oneness everywhere, there is nothing that he can like or dislike. When there are no likes and dislikes, there is no attachment and aversion. When there is no attachment and aversion a person will never get into happiness and sorrow – instead he will ever be blissful (at all times).

This is where many scriptures speak about a real seeker and a real devotee asking nothing but constant remembrance of the Lord. Instead of asking petty things which are created by the Lord and are illusions in the Lord, a seeker will ask for the Lord himself. We will never want to get money from a person if we know that the person has a money-making-machine – we will then only want the money-making-machine.

Thus we have to constantly remember that we should not asking anything except the ultimate reality of Lord (constant contemplation of the Lord). A person who is constantly contemplating on the ultimate reality of Lord is always protected by the Lord – the Lord’s very presence is enough to give bliss – if this is the case then why would such a seeker need anything else?

A seeker who isn’t convinced about the Lord alone being real and bliss will always want something else other than the Lord. This is exactly what is happening with Baana. Instead of capturing the Lord in his heart, he tries to keep the Lord as protector of his house – this will in turn lead to more trouble as we will see in the next day.

Let us always remember to ask nothing but constant contemplation of the ultimate reality of Lord as a boon so that we are never deluded and thereby are ever blissful.

One day Baana spoke thus to Siva who was sitting nearby (his glowing crown touching the feet of Siva):

O Lord who is the Guru of the entire world, I prostrate you. You are the kalpavriksha (wish-fulfilling tree) that fulfills all the wishes of a person who seeks wishes (as he is not complete).

Explanation

Here we find Baana praising the Lord as fulfilling the desires of all people. This is an eternal rule at the empirical plane as to fulfillment of desires. The Lord summarizes this beautifully thus in Gita:

Ye yathaa maam prapadhyanthe thaamsthathaiva bhajaami aham
Mama varthma anuvarthanthe manushyaah partha sarvashah

Whoever worships me in whatever form, I appear to them in that form; this eternal rule is being followed by all people.

The rule thus is “as you sow, so you reap”. The deciding factor in desires and fulfillment of desires is the strength of the desire – the stronger the desire (which means a person puts maximum effort towards the desire), the more the chances of it getting fulfilled. We find this law in worldly activities – if we take Sachin Tendulkar or Michael Schumacher, we can find that the effort put on by both of them made them legends in their field (thereby fulfilling their desire of becoming the topmost in their fields).

Thus if a seeker wants to get his desires fulfilled, he has to put maximum effort towards the desire. There is also another short-cut to fulfillment of desires. Since all desires are fulfilled by the law set by the Lord, thereby if we can surrender unto the ultimate reality of Lord then all our desires will be easily fulfilled.

Mundaka Upanishad explains this thus:

Yam yam lokam manasaa samvibhaathi vishuddhasattvah
Kaamayathe yaamscha kaamaan
Tham tham lokam jayathe thaamscha kaamaan
Tasmaad atmajnam hi archet bhuthikaamah

Whatever world and desires are thought of by a purified being (mental purification means a person whose mind is ever abiding in the Lord or the person who has merged unto the Lord), those world and desires are fulfilled; therefore people who want to get some desires fulfilled should seek and surrender unto such realized masters.

We can find in the puranas Vishwamithra creating a new svarga for Trishankhu – this is because such Mahatmas are one with the ultimate reality of Lord. Therefore even if we have worldly desires to be fulfilled we should surrender and seek it from the ultimate reality of Lord. Along with these desire-seeking if we are able to remember that ultimately we need eternal bliss (and temporarily let us fulfill those desires) then as time passes by we will find that all our desires are getting fulfilled with no new desires getting generated which will in fact finally take us to the state of “all-fulfilled” (where a seeker doesn’t have any more desires to be fulfilled).

Even if we have desires to be fulfilled at the worldly plane, we should try to remember the ultimate goal of life as seeking only eternal bliss (which is knowing that everything is only the non-dual reality of Lord). A seeker who has surrendered unto the Lord will be slowly taken from worldly desires to the desire-less state by the Lord himself.

We will continue with Baana’s request in the next day.

Let us try to always seek the ultimate reality of Lord remembering that the ultimate goal is eternal bliss though temporarily we may seek the Lord alone for fulfillment of worldly desires.